Suitability of ilance

[derkp]

Can iLance be used as follows:

1) Job poster pays 100% of fee upon posting of (fixed-price) job. Bidder gets paid upon selection by job poster

2) Job poster pays $x or x% deposit/fee up front upon posting and remainder upon selection of winner.

3) Job poster pays $x or x% up front upon posting and remainder upon receipt of y numbers of bids/responses.

If it can be done with a reasonable (ie not a rewrite) amount of (PHP) coding, that's fine.

Finally on a different topic:

4) Am I right to say that ilance Paypal functionality includes interaction with paypal such that receiving payment from job posters, paying successful bidders and receiving commissions & fees etc ourselves is handled either automatically or at least semi-automatically?

Many thanks in advance. Apologies if this is a duplicate post. I tried (but seemed to fail) posting a few days ago.

The online demo is useful but I echo the sentiment in other posts that seeing some manuals pre-sales would be useful.

Thanks,

derkp

[Peter]

Can iLance be used as follows:

1) Job poster pays 100% of fee upon posting of (fixed-price) job. Bidder gets paid upon selection by job poster


In the upcoming version yes this is possible. You'll be able to turn on a switch called "Pay as you go" and any "Insertion Fee" that is generated (based on the category the listing is posting to with fees enabled) that "invoice/transaction" will need to be paid in full before it being publically visible. At the moment, in 3.1.4 (current release) what happens is the member can post the listing, the insertion fee is charged and is in "unpaid/pending" state. That user will then need to pay that fee before your maximum late payment days (setting in the admin) flags the invoice as "late payment". The default for late payments is any invoice unpaid after 15 days. You can change that to whatever setting you'd like.


2) Job poster pays $x or x% deposit/fee up front upon posting and remainder upon selection of winner.


To avoid confusion in my notes below, keep in mind ILance offers the admin a few choices for fees:

A. Insertion Fees - A fee that is applied to a user (buyer or seller) posting a (service or product) auction listing in the marketplace. An insertion fee can be fixed or applied in a tier commission format, similar to eBay. For a product auction, we can determine the "insertion fee" based on the "starting price" of an item that is selling via Auction format or if the seller chooses a Reserve Price (which is ultimately higher than the starting price) it will base it's calculation based on the higher amount (usually reserve amount if it's entered or being used). Insertion fees can be category specific (meaning Web Design could cost $5.00 to insert whereas Programmer could cost $10.00).

B. Budget-Range Insertion Fees - Budget based insertion fees are geared towards buyers posting service auctions. It's now possible (in the current release of ILance) to sit in your category manager and assign any category to a "budget group". A budget group is a "group of budget ranges" that are pre-configured from within your budget range manager. Let's look at an example of a few "ranges" within a group:

Budget Range From: $0 Budget Range To: $100 Fee: $3.00
Budget Range From: $101 Budget Range To: $200 Fee: $5.00
Budget Range From: $201 Budget Range To: $500 Fee: $8.00

Okay so now that you have configured "ranges" these will simply "appear" as a pulldown menu to let the buyer choose what his budget will be for his project. Because he selects a budget, ILance now knows what he should be expecting to pay (for an insertion fee) as you can see "Fee" for each range above. In other words if he choses the budget range from $101 to $200 he will be expected to pay your site $5.00 to list that item.

Furthermore, sometimes a buyer does not know what he should pay for a task or doesn't like the idea to display a budget publically (due to many factors including privacy) there is another option available to him called "Non-Disclosed Budget". You as the admin can now charge a "Fee" for letting the buyer select "Non-Disclosed Budget" in case he doesn't choose a budget range.

C. Final Value Fee - Final Value fees apply in two situations:

Situation 1: If a seller has posted a product auction and the item sells to a bidder. The seller (can) be charged a Final Value Fee which would be a % or fixed fee of the winning bid amount.

Situation 2: If a service buyer posts an auction and awards a service provider's bid proposal, and that service provider then "Accepts" the buyer's Award, the Service provider doing the work for the buyer is then charged a Final Value fee. Again, based on a % or a fixed fee you decide in the Admin Control Panel.


3) Job poster pays $x or x% up front upon posting and remainder upon receipt of y numbers of bids/responses.


Pay's who for what? Your site? that won't work in the long run. You don't want that. You simply do not want to get into "Partial payments" because it's a nightmare. What you want is a marketplace that will charge it's users for full payment upfront. However from my response above, you'll see how the fee process works. It's tried, tested and it makes perfect sense. ILance goes far beyond ensuring that whenever an action is to be taken, it's one that would trigger specific events for payment or notification, etc.


If it can be done with a reasonable (ie not a rewrite) amount of (PHP) coding, that's fine.


If you are investing in software like ILance you're going to get the sources. We cannot sell a solution as large as ILance without providing our customers with the leverage to extend it or make it unique to that business model. Because we do not offer direct "customization" your programmer should have absolutely no problem modifying existing functions or classes in the software to suite your needs. Do a quick search on google for " ilance customization " to see what I'm referring to. It's very possible.


Finally on a different topic:

4) Am I right to say that ilance Paypal functionality includes interaction with paypal such that receiving payment from job posters, paying successful bidders and receiving commissions & fees etc ourselves is handled either automatically or at least semi-automatically?


Everything is automated EXCEPT when members request an account withdrawal. For example, a buyer posts a project, awards to the provider and you have escrow enabled. The buyer forwards funds into escrow for that project's account (ie: pays you via paypal, ILance records that escrow is funded for the buyer and provider's review), buyer then releases funds to provider (from escrow manager in the buying activity area) now he has an account balance credit of $500. Because the buyer paid your paypal for the escrow fund, the funds are already in your control. When the provider requests withdrawal, you handle that from your withdrawal manager in the AdminCP. You as the admin can also set a fee for withdrawal requests.

On the other hand, if you do not have escrow enabled, the payments are considered "offline". That means buyers and sellers still have the same management controls from their My Control Panels to manage the buyer's Project and the provider can review his bid proposals, they can leave feedback, use mediashare and everything else but the payment aspect will be up to the users outside your marketplace. You wouldn't want anything to do with this anyway. In this case, you're simply offering a marketplace platform for users to connect, trade and conduct business with one another.

Let me know if that covers your questions. If not, please ask away :)

Regards,
Peter

[Peter]

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards,
Peter