Big Plastic's Online Challenger: Bill Me Later

[Kristijntje]

Gary Marino is giving e-shoppers an alternative to credit cards -- and his Bill Me Later service is catching on. Is it an idea too good to survive?...

...other than Paypal, which is used mostly for transactions between individuals on eBay (EBAY), most consumers still make their purchases the old-fashioned way: With cash, checks, or plastic when shopping online.

"SCARY" CARDS.  But Marino is making progress at creating another option. He runs a 150-person outfit called I4 Commerce, whose Bill Me Later payment system is catching on with online merchants and shoppers. Some million consumers have used his alternative, which permits them to shop online without providing credit card numbers or filling out lengthy applications, at 230 e-commerce sites

full article: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/c...391101.htm

[bargainbloodhound]

Gary Marino is giving e-shoppers an alternative to credit cards

But he's not giving smaller sellers an alternative to relying on credit card payments.  From the company's merchant info form:

What is your company's annual sales volume? $ _____ ,000,000.00
What are your annual sales via the Web?      $ _____ ,000,000.00
What are your annual sales via Call Center?    $ _____ ,000,000.00

Yep, only companies with sales figures in the millions need apply. If it does catch on as a payment method with web shoppers it will hurt any online store that is unable to offer it.

I think for buyers its a good alternative to using credit card payments and unregulated online payment services (like PayPal), but as a seller who doesn't do a few hundred million in annual sales I think it sucks

[valleygirl]

If they subtract a few zeros from the form...  ;D

[sneakymagenta]

I used it last month at Overstock, Ritz Camera, BlueFly, and Bidz 

[mandy]

2 years later and BillMeLater has become a powerful force in online payments...

Given the powerful double-digit growth of e-commerce during the first decade of the industry, few merchants worried that a payment alternative to credit cards or the well-established PayPal was needed.

More recently, however, as e-commerce growth rates slow, the fast-growing, credit card-free alternative Bill Me Later has proven that merchants and consumers alike are hungry for alternatives.

Though it has focused mainly on the largest online merchants, Bill Me Later has seen rapid growth. Twenty-two percent of online buyers used Bill Me Later to make a purchase during the holiday shopping season, according to the Piper Jaffray eCommerce Survey for the fourth quarter of 2007. ..

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/trends/62669.html