Hey Marius, Mikko,
This is not a dumb question, this is a very relevant point that needs to be addressed asap guys.
Reasons:
-There are a number of members who don’t want to use Paypal.
-Sharetribe allows to create “give away” listings to be created, hence not involving a payment.
So why would we allow only sellers receiving Paypal payments to get reviews from the other members. This is in my opinion a major flaw in the design.
In our situation, where a lot of members give away through our marketplace, this flaw is completely defeating the purpose of our marketplace, as members giving away things through our platform cannot build their reputation by getting reviews!
As Marius suggest, you guys should create a noop payment gateway where the transaction flow is completed without punching out to Paypal.
And one argument that was given to me that it would allow some bad members to artificially create good reviews is not really valid because:
- we monitor closely who’s on the marketplace and can easily see a suspicious transaction pattern with some members
- you could artificially acquire positive reviews the same way using Paypal by creating low value listings ($1) and completing a lot of low value transactions. It would cost you less than $10 (of commissions) to artificially acquire positive reviews, which is a small investment if your goal is to rip off other members of hundreds of dollars.
So Sharetribe please please please, fix this as soon as you can because Paypal is no longer the hottest payment gateway people are looking for, and the quick fix suggestion above is likely an easier one than allowing other payment gatewas (Stripe, Bitpay, etc.) in the short term.
Trully hope you’ll have some positive news for us… I’m sure Marius and I are not the only one…
Keep up the great work!!
Thanks!
Alan