Payments and Risk-Taking

["Mark Harrison" <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>]

Some thoughts about payment and administration:

- The "charged" services like PayPal and NoChex are really
intended for
transferring money to people you don't know or trust. As such, you're
paying a premium for this.

- By comparison, the simpler expedient of getting the recipient's bank
details, and arranging a transfer is cheaper, and works well. (I've used
it to send money to Keith, and to get money from Paul G).

- Where one person is arranging a group order, there are three possible
areas for resentment:

1: The person making the order has ordered extra items on behalf of
people who effectively change their minds once payment has been made by
the orderer... This means that the person organising the deal gets
pissed off and is left with items in hand.

2: The person making the order is perceived to be making a profit on it
- in my experience, it's virtually impossible to break even on these
deals if you need cash up front - currency fluctuations if nothing else!

3: The person making the order puts in a lot of work, and then finds out
that some people have bought items at =A3x from him as part of the deal,
only to sell them immediately for a large markup.




I would suggest, therefore, that the following is the best set of ground
rules...

1: The organiser tries to work out a "delivered, duty and VAT paid in
the UK" price, including delivery to the organiser's house/office.

2: The organiser adds 10% to this price as a contingency and publishes
this price as the "if you want to send me money now, this is the price
you'll get charged" price.

3: For those wishing/able to collect direct from the organiser (either
individually or on behalf of a local-area group), that is the price that
needs to be paid IN ADVANCE.

4: For those wishing that the organiser should deliver, they arrange
individually a fair sum for this carriage, which is also paid in
advance. (Or perhaps, in arrears for the actuals, given the sums are
likely to be relatively small.)

5: The organiser uses the 10% contingency to over-order volumes by 5% to
cope with damaged-in-transit items, and keeps the other 5% as a
contingency against currency fluctuations / "adminsitration costs
imposed by couriers" etc.

6: At the end of the excercise, if there are spare units, the organiser
has 4 weeks to sell them AT ANY PRICE, during which all the other
participants commit to NOT selling their units on!

7: Finally, if the organiser is left with a surplus, then they have
three options, depending entirely on what they feel is appropriate:

- Keep it as a "thank you" from the group
- Put it behind the bar at the next UKHA get together as a drinks float
- Cut it up, and send small sums back to the participants!