Etsy Considers Development of In House Payment System

[mandy]

Last Friday's Community Chatt was about the idea of Etsy developing an in-house payment system (IHPS). This is a project that we have recently started to research, and we want to get feedback from the Community (aka sellers and buyers) early on in these preliminary phases.

Here is a rough sketch of the benefits that an in-house payment system would offer:

1. The ability to accept credit cards on site, which is especially important as Etsy expands its reach to buyers who are not particularly internet savvy and don't use PayPal.

2. Reduce non-paying and slow-paying buyers.

3. The ability to offer site-wide gift certificates.

4. Unified cart/single check out for multiple items

Sellers had a lot of questions and concerns about the in-house payment system, which we are taking into consideration as we research this idea. These were the top things that we heard from sellers during the Chatt:

1. Sellers would like participation in IHPS to be optional, and they would like to have the option to accept all forms of payment that are currently available.

full article: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/etsy...2008/1657/

chat minutes: http://team.etsy.com/minutesIPS.html

[BellisimaJ.]

IMO, before Etsy worries about that, they should fix a few things, such as:

1. Search.......search SUCKS! Really SUCKS!!! TT's search function is better than Etsy's when looking for something specific. And, many buyers don't understand HOW to search on Etsy.

2. Give us a bulk lister, so that we can more easily list and relist, damn it!

3. Allow us to use categories in a way that makes friggin' sense!!! I'm tired of not being able to list an item in more than one category, and of only being allowed to use 10 categories. Sound trivial? It well may be, but DAMN IT, everyone begs for it as a convenience and an aid to sales, and it's a bloody simple fix, and why can't they just DO IT???

[/end rant]