I’ve added ‘split payments’ into the title of this thread just to make it easy to find beyond the specific ‘mangopay’ bit i.e. as generic title for this body of work. I am also going to use the term “SPG” for “Split Payment Gateway” . . which could then be Mangopay or Stripe or paypal or other!
In context of potentially quick turnaround required for French use (and budget contribution associated @MyriamBoure), I am wondering if there is a possibility for a significantly stripped down MVP of this feature. Following discussion with @oeoeaio today, some rough thoughts on what this might look like:
all responsibility for getting producers / hubs and customers signed up with and registered with SPG, and appropriate docs etc is held by the instance or Hub wanting to use split payments. There is not an interface for doing this within ofn, nor does ofn take any responsibility for getting it right. OFN would have a field for api key or something similar, as with other gateways
I can see that this is more of a problem for customers, maybe customer sign-up needs to be slightly more supported . .
OFN will have an interface that confirms which money will be sent to which account for any order cycle [or other . . is OC the right level for controlling this?], drawing directly from line items, fees, taxes, shipping and payment methods etc. Probably for MVP this is not manually changeable except by changing underlying data e.g. fees
OR could be pulled up for order cycle and allow changes to line item amounts (to allow for undelivered produce) and when Hub hits ‘ok’ all payments are made
All payments will default to escrow - so payments are not actually made until Hub has hit ok as above
Any customer refunds for whinging etc that happen after that have to be handled manually [by who? Hub handles this ‘as a service’ to producer . . ?]
OFN will ignore all the complexity of a zillion invoices going to a zillion places. OFN will generate an invoice per order as currently is. Generating a zillion invoices is post-MVP. ‘Correct’ invoices or information can be accessed by logging into SPG account
So in this very stripped back version, all OFN actually has to do is:
have some controls / activation option to allow split payments to be turned on for hub / order cycle [as only option available if it is on]
have some kind of interface that takes/ displays information from the order, order cycle, fees, taxes, shipping and payment methods etc, and outlines what money will go where
give someone (hub owner?) a button to push when they are happy for that money to move
connect to one or more SPGs that then actually take and move the money, as instructed by OFN
@kirsten Sorry your tag didn’t ping me via email but I’ve been on here a little bit today reading. I think order cycle is the right level to control this.
I have other questions related to making payment systems easier to integrate that has more to do with the Spree upgrade. I’ll write those over there in that thread.
@MyriamBoure
I’m curious why Stripe or PayPal can’t do what Mangopay does. The not super tech savvy spec looks like both have parallel and chained payments.
Sorry it took me a while to answer.
I think most of what you suggest @Kirsten is doable. I’m not sure if that will fit with our client needs, but we can try… specially I thin generally in OFN we consider the final buyer as the client, but they consider the producer as much as a client, so all the hassle of collecting document manually from farmers would be in their priority I think.
I like your idea of “tuning on slip payments” for a hub. And yes I think payment has to be managed at the OC level IMHO. I like what you propose, having a screen where th hub manager can check that everything is ok and press OK button to allow money to be transferred to producers e-wallet.
The hardest part here will be to explain producers how to get their money from their Mangopay e-wallet, etc. I’m not sure if it’s realistic to say that the hub manager is going to handle all that manually with every producer, but we can see while we go.
Also the zillion invoices case is something we won’t be able to skip as far as France is concerned. Having a slipt payment without the split invoices mean no one will use the split payment, as the main reason why people want a split payment solution is because they don’t want to be legally considered as a middleman, but as a business provider. Legally if the hub is issuing the invoice it means he is responsible. Some hub might be happy to have a slipt payment system without wanting the split invoices, but most of the users we talked to and who requested mangopay do want it.
@eric I don’t think Paypal has the same multi-vendor solution, else if you have a link please do share it. I compared Stripe and Mangopay, I’m not sure about the specificities and sincerly I don’t really care which one we choose to start with, as long as it’s cheap for the users and it works For me Stripe multivendor was not as easy as Mangopay, and I guess that’s also why most marketplaces in Europe choose Mangopay to operate. It will depend a lot on our client also if it moves forward, they might want a specific split payment system.
I haven’t yet researched which of these work in which countries but the limited release/invite only probably tips the scales towards Stripe for a solution that could work on three continents.
it seems LemonWay is a good competitor to Mangopay in Europe, 1,2% + 0,18€ commission instead of 1,8%+0,18€… https://www.lemonway.com/en/prices/
Braintree is 1,9% + 0,30€
Stripe is 1,4% + 0,25€
Ping @lin_d_hop@CynthiaReynolds and @enricostn in your reflexion for UK about which split payment solution to start with regarding Europe.
If Stripes marketplace solution can work for all three continents of course that could be a start if we mutualize our funds around it, but we should do it in a way that makes it quite straghtfoward to add others, as in France w would rather choose Lemonway (instead of Mangopay maybe, they seems to be much more competitive now and I see various big players switching
I know @enricostn you are going to say : wait for the spree upgrade to be done so that we don’t have to do all that again afterward, I guess that makes sense… depending on how much time spree upgrade take of course, but if it’s less than 4-6 months I guess we should wait ?
@myriam - we should definitely wait for the spree upgrade. Not waiting will increase the cost of development, possibly by a large amount. UK have parked a couple of features now because the consistent conflicts became a dev burden.
Definitely my preferred option is Stipre across contininents. UK won’t have many ££ to contribute and this will be a very very very (did I say very?) costly feature.
quick question - prompted by feature comparison with Local Orbit (now and required) - would an interim feature in which Hub could at least hit a button and pay suppliers by Stripe be of any use? Now that the Stripe connector is in there perhaps it would be relatively technically manageable?
I realise that it wouldn’t solve the french / European ‘ownership’ problem, but it would solve the admin pain of manual payments problem for everyone else? @lin_d_hop@MyriamBoure@sstead ??
I think it would depend on whether ALL suppliers in an OC need to accept Stripe payment, or whether it is an ‘opt in’ set up. while hub managers would love this, I can’t imagine very many hubs here where ALL the suppliers are good with stripe payment. It seems to me that in every OC there is always going to be one or two producers at least, who want payment by cheque. We have many producers who aren’t on-line at all, and certainly don’t do on-line banking. So for us - I’m not sure a ‘pay suppliers by stripe’ button would be useful. @CLFC - your thoughts? If however, there was a way that the hub manager could use stripe to pay some suppliers, but not all, then that would be VERY useful.
Hi @kirsten, I’m looking at exploring something like this for Food Assemblies in the shorter term. I am going to look at using Zapier to link things together (postgres to stripe or something similar). So as a first iteration we might be able to do something quite simply.
@tschumilas This would be a feature for producers who take payment by bank transfer. Stripe can send money to bank accounts.
@lin_d_hop - would ALL the suppliers in an OC have to take these automated payments, or could some ‘opt out’ and have the hub process their payments via cheques… I’m asking this because I remember from previous discussions on split payments, that it would have to be an ‘all or none’ kind of set up for the hub. So I ruled out any form of split payment here, because we’ll always have some producers who don’t want that. So my question is - can the automated payments be selective - ie: for some suppliers and not others in the same OC?
ok cool, very keen to hear / happy to engage in how you go with this @lin_d_hop - it’s high on the user requests for Aus too and we’ve just been saying no it’s a 100 years away. But our use cases are completely fine with taking the money in the hub first and would be delighted if they could then pay the producers with a click using the already in-built stripe . . for example, or some zapier thing that you come up with. Just pinging @oeoeaio and @stveep as our Stripe gurus . . just in case they have insights on how hard this might be, given that Producers on the system can / should be already able to set up stripe accounts . .
I think it will still hinge on delivery notes such that we have a proper internal system for recording the difference between ordered and delivered. Will keep posted when I get to ideas
@tschumilas - We don’t use Stripe at all, for any kind of payments, so it wouldn’t be of any use to CLFC. With a handful of exceptions, all of our producers are paid by cheque. The odd one may get an Interac e-mail payment on occasion. I believe our bank doesn’t charge us anything for Interac transfers. I can’t envision our Board approving a payment method that goes from nearly zero cost (we DO pay for cheques) to losing 3% of every sale to Stripe fees. Well, 2.9% +$0.30 per transaction in Canada. That would just mean having to increase our fees to cover the cost, drives up prices, drives down shopping.
I don’t see it as something that would be useful for OUR situation, but obviously it’s different elsewhere.
yep but there would be a charge when the hub charges the customer and then likely another charge when the hub pays the producer. Not having a ‘marketplace’ solution and doing it as two transactions might mean getting double billed
I’m interested to see how this would work as well, especially on the “charge” side. Could be a very first value proposition that some of our users (who don’t mind about being middlepersons) might want to use (depending on the cost of course, might be prohibitive…)… I will start the legal investigation in september, as we still have Spree upgrade and two other priorities before we open the split payment priority file (if I look at top10 priority list), will keep you posted.
hey,
Mango pay should be usefull for transition from some hubs here in Belgium.
Is it the same for UK @NickWeir for hub without Food Assembly ?
tanks for work on this subject.
For me Stripe multivendor was not as easy as Mangopay, and I guess that’s also why most marketplaces in Europe choose Mangopay to operate. It will depend a lot on our client also if it moves forward, they might want a specific split payment system.
