Group buy from a non-retailer. How-to

laskopyre · Sep 22, 2009

Hi All. I am working on setting up a group buy for my reef club with a member of another reef club that breeds Bangaii Cardinals. He says that if we can get 20+ fish ordered, he'll bring them to our next meeting. This is cool, and would be great to do.
My fear is that anyone that forgets their cash, I might have to cover that cost. I wouldn't want to send him back with any fish, since he spent the time and money to come to our meeting. Should I do a pay me first kind of thing (Paypal, checks or cash) once 20+ have been sold? How would you handle it?
I have 3 weeks, so there is enough time to get it all setup.

primetime · Sep 22, 2009

Pay first for sure!!

ahayes13 · Sep 22, 2009

yes i would say pay first by paypal.

laskopyre · Sep 22, 2009

That's what I was thinking. Since he's not a retailer, you can't really pay by individual to that person. I think I will do the collect first, and give him a number 5 days in advance. That way he can get the right amount ready.

cherokee_dude · Sep 22, 2009

If you do PP, keep in mind they may charge you a certain percentage for certain types of transactions. I think if a CC is involved for payment...

laskopyre · Sep 22, 2009

I believe it is 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.

aerius007 · Sep 22, 2009

Chuck, I would ask him if its ok for people to paypal him directly. That way it takes you out of the loop. I would start a thread and ask for people to post if they were getting in on the buy and post when the payment was made. Having people paypal you, then you paying him can become a real pain. Ive done a number of group buys and dont plan on fronting money, exchanging money or having anything to do with other peoples money again.

laskopyre · Sep 22, 2009

It's a headache, but trying to make it easy for him. Once I get the numbers from him, I'll find out what he thinks is best. Whether he wants to get PP, or if he'd rather I collect. Either way, I would like to keep track of who is buying, so I can help pass them out. This will also allow me to compile the list for the meeting. I'm waiting for him to get back to me, then I'll get all the info for the buy.

profunctional · Sep 24, 2009

Check out GotoGroupBuy.com. You can set it up to take deposits via PayPal, so that if anyone joins as "committed", they'd be required to pay you first. The site will also keep track of all the buyers and how much they owe when the group buy ends.

The other cool thing is that you can allow buyers to join as "Interested", which doesn't require a deposit. These guys can just sorta watch from the side-lines. Another cool thing is that you can just use the site to keep track of your list of buyers. Once you hit 20 buyers, you can transfer it to the seller. This makes it super easy for the seller to finish the order.

Check out the short video to see how it works.

Vincent