Oh wow thanks for that.

I'm afraid that's pretty much instantly turned me off on the idea of using Panjo to replace our classifieds. Most especially the part about sellers needing to create a Panjo account!?!? WTF?

First, it is important to note that to deliver the marketplace service, aspects of the marketplace are hosted. Due to the hosted nature of aspects of the service, buyers and sellers don't have to "create an account" so much as they have to "connect an account." Buyers and sellers don't need to create a new credential set. They simply need to connect their existing vBulletin account to the marketplace. Why? Here are two reasons...

1) The Panjo plugin helps facilitate the exchange of buyer and seller information in the case of a successful sale. Thus, buyers and sellers need to agree to terms and conditions related to the release of their contact information.

2) For sites using Panjo to generate revenue, the Panjo plugin is involved in the collection of fees. Sellers need to agree to terms related to fee collection.

Hi Panjo

Any chance of removing the (Local Pickup) prefix in the thread title? Kinda ugly aesthetically.

Here's a link to it.

Yes! Sending you an email to confirm exactly how you want us to address this.

That's a good idea. In the thread view, knowing something is "local pickup" doesn't actually add any useful information unless you also know the location.

Is that 3% on top of PayPal.? (or does Panjo circumvent PayPal)

Or, in our case with a local forum, every ad would have that header. Nobody sells anything via mail order.

Some of this info is already outdated since they switched to PayPal.

I have been implementing this and have asked lots of questions, so here is how I understand it.
Panjo currently uses PayPal as the payment processor so the only fee the seller pays is the paypal fee's + and fees imposed by the forums. At this time the PayPal fees are immediately taken out and the seller get the price of the sold item minus paypal fee. What is a little hazy is when the forum owners get paid if they are charging a fee. As I understand it Panjo collects this separately and later from the seller to then pay the forum owners BUT they are working to have this all be part of the paypal system so that at the time of the sale the seller and the forum operator gets paid.

This is really the way it has to be. The fee has to be up front and very transparent to the seller. It needs to come out of the proceeds of the sale before the it is paid.

As it is now, the seller is paid, then asked for some of that payment back after 30 days. When the seller posts his item for sale, notification of the forum transaction fee is in fine print using nebulous language.

"30 Days after your item sells, [Your Forum] will ask for a [X]% contribution."

To me, that makes the fee sound optional, and I can't really imagine my members wanting to pay a fee that comes a month after they're done with the transaction. I know I'd be annoyed.


Here's a stop-gap measure:

Panjo should instead charge the forum fee (as a separate transaction) at the time the item is purchased. That way the seller associates it with the sale and is just happy to get paid. You also know they have the money in their paypal account because they just got paid!

I don't mind if Panjo then waits a month to send me the fee. I'm more interested in the experience of my forum members.

I agree and I pointed out that it looks shady (the fine print) and also in order for this to work they really need to put the forum owners first since without them there is no point.