Groupon Testing Merchant Payment System 57
An anonymous reader writes with news that Groupon is testing out a service for letting merchants accept credit cards that could put it into competition with PayPal and Square. "Groupon's nascent payment service comes with an Apple iPod Touch, and a case that wraps around the back of the device, which allows merchants to swipe credit cards." The fee structure isn't finalized, but their aim is to be competitive with PayPal and Square. "Groupon may have flexibility to charge lower fees because it could subsidize the payments service from money it makes providing other services to merchants, they said. PayPal's service, known as PayPal Here, charges a fee of 2.7 percent of the purchase price for all types of credit and debit cards - including those issued by American Express Co.. Transaction fees for processing AmEx cards are often higher. Square charges 2.75 percent per swipe. Groupon's test service is charging a 1.8 percent transaction fee and 15 cents per transaction, Rocky Agrawal, an industry analyst, reported in a VentureBeat blog late Thursday."
Paypal? More like Lame, pal! (Score:5, Insightful)
Paypal takes 2.7%?? (Score:0, Insightful)
OMIGOD (Score:4, Insightful)
PayPal's service, known as PayPal Here, charges a fee of 2.7 percent of the purchase price for all types of credit and debit cards - including those issued by American Express Co.. Transaction fees for processing AmEx cards are often higher. Square charges 2.75 percent per swipe. Groupon's test service is charging a 1.8 percent transaction fee and 15 cents per transaction, Rocky Agrawal, an industry analyst, reported in a VentureBeat blog late Thursday."
OMIGOD Could it be that when barriers to entry into otherwise mono-duo-trio- opolisitc markets fall then competition drives down prices and consumers benefit?
I think the mere PRESENCE of such mono-duo-trio- opolisitic markets should AUTOMATICALLY invoke very tight regulatory structuring of those markets until such time as meaningful competition arrives.
Capitailsm can't survive it's own success if success always means the consolidation of markets. Something external has to step in and reset the game
It seems to me that people who love capitalism should all agree with me and the people who don't are just profiteers fundamentally unconcerned with the society they in or other people, at best paying some lip service to some "invisible hand" that justifies their selfish greed.
In practice, it doesn't work that way (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitailsm can't survive it's own success if success always means the consolidation of markets. Something external has to step in and reset the game It seems to me that people who love capitalism should all agree with me and the people who don't are just profiteers fundamentally unconcerned with the society they in or other people, at best paying some lip service to some "invisible hand" that justifies their selfish greed.
The problem is that if you really have capitalism, then anyone can enter an industry if they see that the dominant one, two, or however many companies in it are pricing their goods or services too high. But we don't have that, we have corporatism, where those who are already in a market use relationships with the policy makers who oversee them for mutual advantage.
In other words, we already have something external that's supposed to do what you describe. The problem is that it usually stifles real competition rather than promoting it, because human nature is to act more from individual incentive rather than from altruism.