Re: AIS PayPal Webpage

On Jun 8, 2006, at 7:12 AM, Robt R Pries wrote:


John is correct in that every section and cooperating
society that I talked to at convention wishes to
participate just as they have participated in the past
in having their members able to join at the same time
as they are joining or renewing with AIS. That does
not mean that they are not considering setting up
their own PayPal accounts also. I talked with
representatives of SIGNA, The Dwarf Iris Society, The
Aril Society, the Siberian Society and all expected
they would also do their own. All have to yet discuss
this with their boards. Of course the Japanese Society
already has this. The DIS does not even have their
website running again but some officers expressed the
hope that they would have Paypal when that occurred.
I agree, many societies are thinking about having their own sites. That would not mean that they would not want to be part of the AIS PP page.

In anticipation of the question " Why doesn't AIS just link to the individual societies' PP page?" I offer the following:

I have been thinking about this problem and unfortunately I do not think that is a viable solution. The issue is that if there is a link on the AIS PP page to another society PP page it could take the user out of our context without completing a transaction. Suppose:

User signs up for AIS PP subscription and elects to "continue shopping"
User signs up for some Section PP subscription adding that subscription to their cart and elects to "continue shopping"
User decides they want to subscribe to <a society that has their own PP page>, clicks on the link and is taken to SJI PP page. They complete the <other society> transaction and are returned to the <other society> confirmation page.

They never get to complete the transactions they have selected from the AIS PP page because they are not automatically taken back there. It might be possible (I am not sure) that when they are transferred to <other society> PP page that a new page would be opened, but at a minimum that would mean that the subscriber would have to complete two transactions.

If an <other society> doesn't want to have PP subscriptions on the AIS page, that is ok. We intend to maintain the membership page as it is today because some people will still want to pay by check and we can direct individuals to the <other society> main page from there.

The disadvantage(s) that an <other society> would have in having a subscriber use the AIS PP page are:

- at the completion of the process the subscriber is returned to the AIS page (probably the main page) instead of the <other society> home page.

- the <other society> doesn't get notification of the subscription until that AIS Memsec forwards the email to the <other society> membership secretary.

- Payment to the <other society> is not made typically until the end of the month.

in my personal opinion, I don't see the last two as significant. AIS Memsec is likely to forward the subscription information within a short time frame. The first issue can be easily rectified by he <other society> membership secretary emailing the new subscriber with a URL. Certainly using the AIS PP page or requiring subscribers to do a separate transaction is up to the individual other societies to decide what is important to them in terms of convenience. I have had one society say "If it loses us a membership because someone doesn't want to do 2 separate online transactions (that don't cost them anything), well, so be it. " which I personally find astounding, but it is up to them. (don't ask I am not going to tell>



It is important that AIS do as much as possible to
help our sections. It is similar to the the federal
government and the states. Some states lead the feds,
others profit from the experimentation of the leaders.
I believe it has only been about a month that SJI has
had their join button in place, but during this time
they have been gaining a steady stream of new members.
Any idea how many? How does that compare to the number that have in the past been signing up by mail?
(We can probably never know the answer to that but it would be interesting to have some hard data.)

For each day we wait to have a system in place we miss
potential membership. This is why I am so impatient. I
realize we are all volunteers and it is not just
John's responsibility to accomplish this. I suugested
this over a year ago and am very disappointed that it
has taken AIS this long, and still we do not have this
in place. I would rather see us actually do something,
then have a debate over the cents that is being
charged. I don't want this to sound like a blast at
John, his accomplishments for AIS have been enormous
and I have great respect for them. It is more a
frustration with our system. I understand the value of
deliberation. I am also guilty at times of being slow.
I hope that e-mail somehow can speed our progress of
keeping up with society.

--- John I Jones <jijones@usjoneses.com> wrote:


Of all the Sections and Cooperating Societies, only
the SJI has a
PayPal page. The ASI has a PayPal method but you do
it via email.

I believe SSI is planning on having a PayPal page on
their site.

Most that I have heard back from (SPCNI, SIGNA,
Dwarf, SSI, ASI [not
confirmed yet], Spuria, SJI [maybe]) want to be on
our page.

John


On Jun 7, 2006, at 11:01 AM, Jill Bonino wrote:


I agree with John's proposal.  If we are providing

a new service, such

as PayPal, to other sections and societies, we

should pass along the

cost. They would have to pay this fee anyway if

they had the

service...Which brings up the quesitons, do we

know how many of the

Sections and Societies already use PayPal or

another payment service

to obtain members through their own websites?

If there are none, this is something we can

promote to the Sections

and Societies to help them gain members

too...Their websites could be

linked for payment purposes to our website?  Is

this possible?

If some of them already use PayPal, they might

consider dropping their

own individual service to use ours?

Would this significantly increase Tom's work as

MemSec?

Jill




----- Original Message ----- From: "John I Jones"
<jijones@usjoneses.com>
To: <aisdiscuss@aisboard.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 9:48 AM
Subject: [AISdiscuss] AIS PayPal Webpage



When we process a PayPal (PP) payment we are

charged 2.9% of the

transaction value plus $.30 per transaction.

Foreign currency

transactions cost an additional 2.5% A multiple

subscription

transaction gets only a single transaction fee.

($.30).

The question is how much do we remit to the other

societies.

We need to establish a standard as to how we

charge the Sections and

Cooperating Societies.

I propose that we charge each non-AIS

subscription the 2.9% and the

$.30 transaction fee. That is the same amount

that a Section and

Cooperating Societie would be charged if they had

their own PayPal

service. This approach would allow Tom to use a

simple lookup table

to see how much to remit to the other group. It

would mean that we

would "earn" an additional $.30 for each

subscription that came as

part of a multiple subscription transaction.

The same rate would apply to any non-AIS

subscription that came in as

a single transaction.

The alternative would require Tom to calculate a

separate charge for

each subscription that came in as part of a

multiple subscription

transaction and distribute the Transaction Fee

across all the

subscriptions in a single transaction.

In a separate discussion Tom Gormley has pointed

out:



The existing arrangement we have with accepting



credit card charges



for Offshore non-AIS Members and domestic



AIS/Section members is



that we currently do not pass on the fees



involved with these



charges. This is based on AIS Policy (see below)



which is silent on



the subject.

It costs us $1.02 to process a $25.00 charge for



AIS Members but



since most Section charges are about 30% of that



I think we should



continue to provide this service gratis as a



warm fuzzy to the



Sections and Co-ops. As Electronic payments (and



membership) develop



and grow we can then revisit this issue. If we



choose to charge them



from the get-go how do we handle our existing



methodology on Section



payments?




As far as I can tell through a search of the AIS



minutes from 1988



thru 2003 the only mention of the Membership



Secretary accepting



credit card transactions is in Oct '97 when M.



Harlow reported that



she had sent out new ITJs that indicated the AIS



would accept credit



card transactions. There is no mention (that I



could find) of whether



AIS should or should not absorb the fee for a



credit card



transaction. There may have been a policy



decision, but I cannot find



mention of it.

I propose (although I can't make this as a



motion) that we no longer



absorb the credit card charges for subscriptions



to Sections and



Cooperating Societies submitted to the membership



office and that



PayPal charges be deducted from the amounts



remitted to the Sections



and Cooperating Societies for subscriptions



submitted thru the AIS



PayPal page. If Sections and Cooperating



Societies so choose they can



specify an additional charge for credit card  or



PayPal payments.





THE AMERICAN IRIS SOCIETY
CURRENT AIS MEMBERSHIP OFFICE POLICY CONCERNING
ACCEPTING DUES FOR SECTIONS AND COOPERATING



SOCIETIES



MARCH, 2002

PLEASE FILE FOR REFERENCE AND PLEASE ENSURE THAT



ONLY CORRECT



INFORMATION IS PUBLISHED TO YOUR MEMBERS

The AlS Membership Office will accept dues for



Sections and



Cooperating Societies when tendered by AIS



members simultaneously



with their AIS dues and paid either by check,



money order, or Visa



or MasterCard.

All dues collected on behalf of Sections or



Cooperating Societies



are forwarded by the AlS Membership Office to



the appropriate



recipients during the first week of the month



subsequent to the



month in which they were received by the



Membership Office.



As a special gesture of support to the Sections



and Cooperating



Societies, the AlS Membership Office will accept



dues from members



of these groups living outside the USA who are



not also tendering



AlS dues simultaneously, including those who are



not AlS members,



when those
persons pay with either Visa or MasterCard.

Members of Sections or Cooperating Societies who



live within the USA



and who are not paying AIS dues simultaneously



should always send



their check for renewal directly to the



membership



=== message truncated ===

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John                | "There be dragons here"
                         |  Annotation used by ancient cartographers
                         |  to indicate the edge of the known world.

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