Browser optimization...

[gcr]

It appears that i-lance is optimized for Internet Explorer, I use FireFox and Safari more so than IE.

IE shows listing titles all on a single clean line, FF tends to bunch them up on double or multiple lines.

Using FF and Safari in the product listing page you can see a small alignment error with the "Overview - Event Overview" text on the left side, it sits up higher than the "Meet The Seller - Learn about this seller" text on the right side.

Small yes, but I notice all these little things! :D

[Peter]

You don't miss much ;)

Thanks for the heads up. We'll take care of that for the upcoming version.

Regards,
Peter

[gcr]

I try! I love picking out the fine details.

I'm 95% certain on purchasing ilance for my future operations.

I'm just filtering through every link, tab, button, page etc seeing if I can get that extra 5% lol...

It's pretty damn good!

I keep thinking along the lines of conventional payment such as posting money orders/cheques or doing a bank deposit, where the buyer can gain immediate access to the sellers details so that they can initiate the payment via the above payment methods.

It appears ilance is geared up more so for electronic payment formats.

[Peter]

It can be used both ways. For example, if you disabled all payment support from the payment modules area, you'd be running an offline system where users post their listings and your marketplace generates fees to be paid. They can pay you in cash, sure - or check, mo, or they can pay you via Paypal like other sites.

In terms of payment support, it offers a wide variety of payment providers from IPN (paypal style) or live CC support (Authorize.net, eWay, PSIGate, way). These are built in to allow you to run a professional marketplace where your customers can pay invoices your site is generating online OR offline :)

When you are working in offline mode, your users handle their own payment and sale. Your site simply tracks their feedback and transaction as Successful, Neutral or Negative for others to review.

Regards,
Peter

[gcr]

Sorry, I think I confused the question.

With conventional payment types, such as postal payments and netbanking bank deposits, I was meaning to refer to the seller and buyer on the site, not the site owner.

So, a seller somehow invoices the buyer for how ever many products they purchased into a single invoice, with a single combined postage amount.

This would be compiled by the seller on site, and sent, which would go to the buyers email address and/or their PMB.

It would show the sellers postal address for payment, bank details and so on. This way it's semi automated for the seller in regards to bringing all the sales together for the same buyer. ie; I bought 5 items from you and you invoiced me in 1 single invoice that combined the products and the seller puts in the postage price.

Some sellers sell hundreds or thousands of product weekly, image trying to send out manual invoices 1 item at a time and not being able to combine items into a single invoice... OUCH.:eek:

Same way as "the other auction site" does.

[Peter]

Some sellers sell hundreds or thousands of product weekly, image trying to send out manual invoices 1 item at a time and not being able to combine items into a single invoice... OUCH.:eek:


Yes, I do see your point clearly. At the moment this is not available but I mean PHP is php, it can be added as desired. One thing that is solid about ILance is you are able to modify source code vs other solutions that encode/encrypt/compile all sources leaving you with templates only. To be honest, the invoice consolidation feature will be a possiblity because we just added a new field to the invoice database table called `parentid`. This way, multiple invoices can be assigned to a parent transaction but it's currently not this way at the present time.

The way the Buy Now / Purchase Now for product listings in your marketplace is handled in ILance is basically as follows:

1. Seller lists an 1 item (let's say video card) but has a qty of 5.
2. A buyer commits to purchase all qty of that video card.

- at this point, the seller has listed 1 auction selling 5 items of the same product.

3. During the purchase process of the buyer, he clicks "buy now" and enters the amount he wants (5) for example.

4. The buyer now sees a new menu which looks like a shopping cart. He sees a sample of the product thumbnail he's buying along with the description, title, amount, tax and total amount. If shipping costs are defined by the seller when listing the auction, a shipping column also exists. Shipping costs are defined by the seller based on where he is able to ship the item to. This is not like ebay where the "user" enters an imaginary "figure", the seller must define the shipping cost and stick with that. This may be changed in the future but for now .. it works and no existing ILancers have reported any issues.

This here is the "buyers" invoice for the purchase order. He now clicks "continue" after he selects the payment method he will be using to pay for that item.

Here's where the logic can be this or that way -

When you enable escrow, that "invoice being paid" for the qty 5 video cards will then redirect that buyer to the standard ILance invoice payment menu to confirm the details, view the transaction and ensure all seems correct. When the "pay now" button is engaged, the ilance product will determine if the payment is successful (funds from the buyers online account from a previous deposit most likely) and he's paying into that escrow account for that listing / item he just bought from the seller. After the payment is good, both parties can manage the payment process and the buyer can release funds to the seller once the item is delivered. Keep in mind, the admin also has forceful controls to refund the buyer or forward the buyers funds into the sellers online account.

When you disable escrow, that invoice being paid is between the buyer and seller. Your site merely advises the "buyer" to contact the seller via PMB and/or email (because when a purchase is made email contact is revealed) and they can manage their own sale offline the marketplace avoiding you becoming involved. When this logic of offline is used, the ilance product cares only about the feedback process for that offline purchase. In other words, they do the payment (for example, buyer pays the seller via Paypal outside the site, nothing to do with you) and then the buyer and seller both have "controls" from their selling and buying management areas to leave and submit feedback, etc.

As you can see, the process changes quite a bit when escrow is used because the person buying the "item" is in fact paying you (the site owner) to hold the funds until the sale is completed or confirmed that delivery was sent and the buyer received the goods and/or service. And because you have the real funds (from the buyer) when the sale is completed that seller now has an online account balance credit of the buyer's payment MINUS any escrow fee you may or may not charge. So because you were already paid as the first step from the buyer, you have the real funds. When the "escrow funds" are released to the seller, he simply receives an account credit so that he/she can then use the Withdraw Menu within ILance to request that funds be sent to the seller.

You can define how much money a user must have in their account balance before they request a withdraw. For example, you can set it at $100 (default) which means if the seller had 0, the video card sale was worth about $600, he can request funds because the amount he now has is over $100. If the seller only had $60 worth of sales in his account he cannot request withdraw until he has at least $100. You can change that limit as you see fit. In fact, if you have many users requesting withdraws, you can simply send them their funds via wire transfer once per week or whatever you like so you're not running to the bank every day sending money to your sellers. You would know the bank deposit account infos for all your users because they would need to add a "Bank Account" from their My Accounting menu in order to send the admin their deposit wire info. For every withdraw request in your marketplace can be completely managed from the Withdraw Manager within ILance AdminCP.

I hope this clears it up :) .. if not, let me know..

Peter

[gcr]

When you disable escrow, that invoice being paid is between the buyer and seller. Your site merely advises the "buyer" to contact the seller via PMB and/or email (because when a purchase is made email contact is revealed) and they can manage their own sale offline the marketplace avoiding you becoming involved. When this logic of offline is used, the ilance product cares only about the feedback process for that offline purchase. In other words, they do the payment (for example, buyer pays the seller via Paypal outside the site, nothing to do with you) and then the buyer and seller both have "controls" from their selling and buying management areas to leave and submit feedback, etc.


OK thanks!

Something that is probably worth looking at would be the seller being able to issue invoices to buyers. Product sellers will have a hard time keeping up with what's what if there is no invoicing system made available to them.

If the seller cannot send out even a basic invoice via email with all the relevant details on it and where they can also print this out as a packing slip when they receive payment they will most likely abandon the site.

I recall some time back our site members were asking about combined invoicing, where the seller can combine a number of sold items into a single invoice that is emailed to the buyer, and then it can be printed out when paid for. They wanted this feature, and we already had single invoicing/email set up. Good, but it wasn't good enough for sellers.

I would love to see this a reality on the iLance platform, if not, it's another thing I will need to have developed.