Atomic Mall's Owner Preaches the Seller to Seller Sales Doctrine

[bargainbloodhound]

*Xcoin allocates up to 10% of Merchants monthly sales for a period of 180 days in a rolling reserve to cover charge backs and refunds for Xcoin Credit Card and Check Services

Xcoin could end up costing much more than PP/GC/AP after you factor in the decrease in cash flow from a possible rolling reserve of up to 10% for business accounts

Other negatives for Xcoin:

a. there is absolutely nothing in their TOS that says they will fight chargebacks on behalf of sellers

b. the minimum withdrawal amount for sellers in Australia and the UK is $2000 (for sellers in the US and Canada it's $25)

For USA, Canada, Hong Kong and the Philippines, the minimum amount for withdrawal is USD 25.00. Currently, Australia, United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan have a minimum amount for withdrawal of USD 2,000. A withdrawal fee of USD.50 is applied to withdrawals, (which can be accumulated received payments) for all countries.

c.  their recent

edited to add: Xcoin used to promise 'no frozen accounts'

No Frozen Accounts
Sellers are too often the victim of this practice. Xcoin's Transaction Team will work with you as the seller to ensure transaction integrity is communicated to your buyer.

The policy seems to have changed to 'yes, we do freeze accounts'

Xcoin at its sole discretion, also reserves the right to restrict withdrawals from an Xcoin account for any one of the events listed below.

If your account is restricted you will be notified by email and requested to provide information relevant to your Xcoin account. Xcoin will investigate the matter promptly. If the investigation is in your favor we will un-restrict your account. If the investigation is not in your favor, Xcoin may return funds to the original sender and un-restrict the remainder of your account, continue the restriction for up to 180 days as necessary to protect Xcoin against the risk of reversals, or may close your account...

...[insert list of 15 events that will trigger an account freeze]

[bargainbloodhound]

adding to my negatives...

d. their past which included (lack of ) customer service complaints (see the Squidoo page Sneaky linked to, or search PSU), and seller complaints about problems withdrawing funds (see http://www.ripoffreport.com/corrupt-comp...-2ywy6.htm and http://www.ripoffreport.com/internet-mar...-9c27a.htm ) .  Have these problems been fixed?

e. 1) stability of the company and their business model. 

from the CEO on Auctionbytes
We stopped all of our marketing initiatives a few years ago, we rebuilt everything and repositioned ourselves." He said they just turned the service back on 4 or 5 months ago.


and 2) stability of their relationships with banking partners...i.e. how stable are they, how long have the relationships been in place, etc .  If you were an AlertPay member in January when one of AlertPay's processing banks abruptly closed their account you'll know why this one is important.  see http://community.tuliptools.com/index.php?topic=18904.0

[sneakymagenta]

Many sellers, myself included, wish to expand the choices offered to customers and have grown leery of PayPal and its ownership by eBay. For some that would be reason enough to offer XCoin as another payment choice even if they cost MORE. Freedom from economic slavery to eBay has its own psychic reward.

Ancient Sneaky saying: he who lets his emotions rule his business decisions is doomed to tread water or sink.

: : : : : : : :

[maggie777]

[quote author=sneakymagenta link=topic=18789.msg75658#msg75658 date=1262017499]

For some that would be reason enough to offer XCoin as another payment choice even if they cost MORE insert> and your conversion rate falls because your customers are less likely to use the alternate payment method Freedom from economic slavery to eBay has its own psychic reward.

[/quote]

increasing your payment processing costs and promoting a payment service your customers are unfamiliar with isn't going to free you from "economic slavery".

[regic]

My question is and don't know if this applies or is the same thing but on the fees page it says 50cents for a withdrawal. https://www.xcoin.com/Fees.aspx Is that for transferring to your bank account or some other thing? Since they all ready are charging fees for processing if they charge 50 cents everytime I want to transfer some of my xcoin account money to my bank account I will pass on it since I all ready have Paypal and Google Checkout and still trying to figure out Amazon. I'm hoping its something else though.

Yes I believe that's what it's for. When I withdraw from Paypal I usually do so in increments of $500 so the 50 cent fee would work out to 1/10 of 1%, but for smaller withdrawals it would be a higher percentage and could be prohibitive if you're talking about withdrawing $5 or $10 at a time.

link: link to thread not posted because Mikey would ban the IP address of anyone who clicked on it.

It's good to know that Mikey thoroughly researched Xcoin and all of its terms and conditions before offering it on his site

arcasm1:

It would be impossible for anyone to withdraw $5 or $10 at a time since the minimum withdrawal amount for US members is $25 and the minimum withdrawal for UK members is $2000.  He obviously didn't read the terms.

[amy]

The $0.50 withdrawal fee isn't really an issue when you consider the average sales volume of some Wagglepop AtomicMall sellers cheerleaders  and the likelihood that only 1 out of 100 buyers* will choose to use XCoinSpam...it could be 4 or 5 years before some AM sellers' Xcoin transaction balances reach the $25 minimum.

*the 1 out of 100 buyers estimate is based on my experience during the years I sold on eBay and offered BidPay, iKobo, PPPay, and Moneybookers as alternative payment options (in addition to PayPal and my merchant account)...1 out of 100 is being generous because the actual number who chose one of the 4 smaller alternative methods was actually closer to 1 out of every 500 buyers.

1.9%-2.9%

Nobody will do enough volume through Xcoin to qualify for a rate lower than 2.9%.

[sneakymagenta]

the likelihood that only 1 out of 100 buyers* will choose to use XCoinSpam...it could be 4 or 5 years

: : :

41/16=2.56
100/2.56= 39 months=3.25 years to do 100 transactions NOT "4 or 5 years" :imptongue:

[regic]

[xwpopper]

Attention Atomic Cheerleaders:
Wishing good luck doesn't always make it happen.
4 months ago: http://www.powersellersunite.com/about29461.html
After 4 months, the same seller has exactly 4 transactions.
http://www.atomicmall .com/feedback.php?id=10916
That sure is a shame. If he sold on a reputable non-spam site I would consider buying a few of the collectible games. These same games would be long gone on Amazon or eBay, but the rinky dinkology has taken over this seller's thoughts and plans.

Maybe try a site with a bit more than 60,000 visitors for 217k listings.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/atomicmall.com/
That's only one visitor per 4 listings.
Maybe try Ecrater with a 1 to 1 ratio.
Or eBay with a 1.5 to 1 ratio.
Or a specific niche site like dawdle.com.

But Atomic Mall is the 'answer' to the folks that can't sell on all other rinky dinks.

[sneakymagenta]

Twitter follower and listed stats:

Etsy 1,211,357 followers/4,039 listed
NewEggMall 4,100/85
Silkfair 2,200/13
Overstock Auctions (twitter ID OAuctions): 1,307/23
Bonanzle: 1,048/40
Stootsi 606/11
Wigix: 521/4
Usiff 55/2
Plunderhere: 43/0
AtomicMall: 41/1

Pound for pound, AM has the least social buzz on the block... tolensmiley:
translation of low follower and listing stats: very few know it exists and the majority of those who do know don't care