How can I collect large payment online?

June 21, 2010 9:23 AM

I'm looking for an online payment system to work with existing website/online inventory database. The catch: I'm selling some high dollar equipment.

My company sells used construction and agricultural equipment, and we're looking for a way to let people put down a set amount of money for an item. Once this deposit is paid, we'd like the item taken off our inventory list so other customers don't inquire about the item before we get a chance to remove the item manually (we have an event once a year when we mark prices down to obscenely low prices, and during this sale our phone lines are overloaded, mostly with questions about items that sold first thing in the morning - we'd like to reduce this).

PayPal is an option, although I've never worked with PayPal for anything over the $200-ish dollars for things bought and sold on eBay. Has anyone sold anything really expensive - cars maybe? - with PayPal (we're working with tractors in the $100k range and combines in the $275k range, although for now we're just looking PayPal will also take a percentage of the revenue, which is something that we've taken into consideration.

What are some options for a)collecting payment ($2500 for a deposit) and b)removing the item once this deposit is payed?

posted by whiskey point to work & money (2 answers total)

Paypal should work fine for items of 2500 USD, but I have only used it as a buyer so far. Removing the item once its deposit is payed should be easy: you could just have 1 item in stock for the price of 2500 USD. The 'real' price is then mentioned in another separate price field or the article description itself.
posted by oxit at 10:32 AM on June 21, 2010

for the ~3% fee on paypal I'd consider having them wire it to your bank. You can call your bank and they can provide wiring instructions they take to their bank. They are used all the time for mortgage payoffs and transfers.

Plus I hate paypal, so I'd rather see your bank make $50 wiring fee than paypal make $75 on this. If you have a good biz bank account it might be free for wires even.
posted by thilmony at 12:31 PM on June 21, 2010