Today I spoke with STRAINLY, clearly asking him about the problem of false invoicing that could be done by his team, here is his answer, what do you think?
Hi there,
1. This is a one man show. I am one single operator, with one dev who has limited access. You can argue you still need to trust me. Fair enough.
2. When you think about it, whether me or anyone working for Strainly (in theory, even 100 people), would still have to pay for the ordered item! It is a net negative operation. I spend $100 out of my pocket to get $6 fee. I am net negative $94... Great! I now sit on a huge inventory of seeds and clones after repeating the operation to collect fees. I now need to operate a store to sell those acquired genetics... Why would I run Strainly in the first place? I'd rather sell seeds with a bigger margin in the first place. Seedbanks take a lot more than 6% fees.
3. As explained, you are eligible to a fee refund if the buyer backs out. So imagine I am the buyer (hidden behind a fake profile), I back out after the seller paid the fee... Now you (the seller) come back to me saying this buyer did not pay, please refund my fee. And you get your money back. As the admin, I can verify the buyer never paid the seller. If the buyer paid the seller, then no problem. Seller is happy. There is no flaw here. I spent years mapping out this thing.
4. But now let's suppose I do this for a couple of months... and refuse to refund the fees. All vendors leave, nothing is left on the platform, Strainly shuts down. I lose my personal savings invested in this platform. Just to give you an idea... tens of thousands of dollars invested in the past 6 months only... There is just no incentive for me to do this.
5. Regarding your suggestion. Again, Strainly is not moving the money between parties. Buyers pay sellers DIRECTLY. Strainly does not even see the transactions. You guys want the flexibility of using a multitude of payment methods. THERE IS NO WAY TO DEDUCT A FEE. You need to realize that this industry cannot be served by the regular payment processors. It will never work like eBay or Amazon. With those platforms, they hold the money and transmit it. Huge regulatory implications. Also, this implies you leak your identity and sellers go through full KYC/Identity verification (like you do on Paypal for instance). You will never accept that, rightly so.
6. Pay attention to items descriptions and sellers' profiles. They usually say if they ship overseas or not. If they accept your request and then refuse to ship to you, they contact me and ask for a fee refund. Simple as that.
7. If I ask for the fee after the transaction is made, no one will ever pay... I cannot run after you guys.
Sounds like a poorly planned, poorly executed business plan. First its free then wait "I wanna make money" so I'm changing the way it works. This sounds like the time I was told I was fired from a job but never asked to leave. Paychecks kept coming.
