Membership Signups?

[Kaldonis]

As soon as membership signups are ready (should be tomorrow) I’ll post that up as well.

Post on the front page says these should have been ready to go on the 14th of last month. Did I miss the link or is this still being set up?

[DigitalOSH]

No, there is no link at the moment. Adam is working on it, but if you feel like coming up with something please feel free

[Kaldonis]

I know there was a bit of opposition to PayPal at the meeting last month but I personally think they're the best option since they integrate with bank accounts as well as credit cards. Google Checkout is another option that supports subscriptions but is currently limited to credit card payments only.

It's ridiculously easy to set up subscriptions in PayPal and then just post the link for people to subscribe to. I don't think the volume of subscriptions will be anything beyond what a single person could keep up with manually in a spreadsheet initially. Obviously we would want to eventually keep track of members in an actual database but I think it's important to start the membership subscriptions early in order to reach our $10,000 as soon as possible. One thing that we may want to consider, which someone may have already done, is starting an official TechWorks PayPal account (or whatever service we decide to use) for the subscription payments. Just so that we never have to deal with the hassle of transferring people's subscriptions from one PayPal account to another if the person receiving the money leaves TechWorks etc..

Edit: To just give an idea of the fees with PayPal, a $30 monthly subscription would end up putting $28.83 in the club's account ($28.95 if we had over $3000 in fees coming in monthly). It's 2.9% + 0.30 per transaction or 2.5% + 0.30 if your previous month was >$3000 in payments.

[Adam Florizone]

I thought Google checkout was only available in the US? I know the Paypal fees are high. I'm working on moving the site to a new server right now. Once that's finished I can enable a payment system.

[rsilk]

GCheckout enabled payouts to Canada sometime in the last half of 2010.

[Kaldonis]

GCheckout enabled payouts to Canada sometime in the last half of 2010.

Actually, I think we're wrong.

http://checkout.google.com/support/sell ... wer=134420:

Google Checkout is available to U.S. and U.K. merchants. U.S. Google Checkout merchants must have a U.S. bank account and U.S. address, plus either of the following:
* A Social Security number (optional) and a valid credit card
* A Federal Tax ID/Employer Identification Number (EIN)

You're probably thinking of this:

Merchants in Argentina*, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil*, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel*, Italy, Japan, Mexico*, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia*, Singapore, Spain, South Korea*, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan*, United Kingdom, and the United States can also use Google Checkout to sell applications on Android Market.

[Adam Florizone]

I'm getting confused. It talks about the android market. Can someone verify if GC is available in Canada? Are there any other payment systems with lower fees then Paypal?

[rsilk]

You're right Kaldonis, I was thinking of the android market. I assumed that would apply generally to all of checkout.

[Kaldonis]

I'm getting confused. It talks about the android market. Can someone verify if GC is available in Canada? Are there any other payment systems with lower fees then Paypal?

Haha, sorry Adam. GC is only available in Canada for the Android Market. So no, it will not work for us.

[Odemia]

Are there any other payment systems with lower fees then Paypal?

For online payment Paypal has the lowest upfront cost.
Interac supposedly averages out to 12 cents per transaction for a typical small business.
Credit Cards average out around 3 cents per transaction + benefits (retailers pay the extra fees for the rewards points etc).

Given the headache of setting up Interac and Credit Cards and our close proximity to one another why not just support: paypal, cash and check? I will even donate a receipt book for keeping track of cash and checks.