IBAN / SEPA payments

[exxos]

I get asked this almost weekly and its even in the FAQ in the webstore. The short answer is no, I can't "simply" take payments. I can see it from the buyers point "pay for items, me ship items" but it's not that simple. Transactions *have* to go via my webstore.

<RANT>
My entire web store system is automated from taking orders to stock management, stock allocation and dispatch, tracking system etc etc. The entire thing is automated, so I have zero involvement with the operation of my own web store! crazy isn't it ? So when someone wants me to send them custom bank information, I have to spend time looking for it starters.

The last times I took IBAN it took ages to arrive. I got pestered every day "has it arrived yet,has it arrived yet". I have RSI and I really can't be logging in and out of stuff like that anymore. I can hardly use a PC these days. Then I have to email them back "no" every day. Which is repetitive. Then it gets to me thinking has the person even sent the payment.. the buyer starts getting annoyed as I keep saying NO! So they think I am keeping the payment. At that point alone I wish I had never bothered.

Then 2 weeks later I see some payment in my bank account where I have no idea what is for. Did I write this conversation down.. was it by email, facebook, the forum.. no idea cant remember what was discussed. So then I end up trying to figure out what the hell the payment was for.

Then I have to manually edit the SQL database to remove stock. If that item is out of stock then that causes more problems as it could be weeks or months before I have stock again. That's like 100 more emails of annoyed people as they paid for their item and they cant have it. Or take items off stock in the hope people actually pay for items. If they don't, then I have to remember to put items back on stock. Its very "messy"!

Then I have to remember to print out the conversation, to take it to my girlfriend as she lives 40 miles away. I will most likely forget for a couple weeks. Then its more moaning from people I have to deal with.

I also have to pack the order to weight it to work out postage to charge people. I am not going that on the offence someone actually pays for the order. Been down that road to many times. The store takes care of all those calculations automatically.

Then when my girlfriend posts the order, she has to remember to give me the tracking code, for me to email the buyer. I will probably forget. But that's more emails and work for me (did I say I have RSI ?)

Then 6 months later when I do my tax return, I have a payment where I have no idea what its for or who from. I run 2 business and keeping on top of ins and outs is complicated enough as it is. I really don't want more paperwork to deal with. Mix in the chaos if I have multiple people doing such orders.. it quickly turns into a inchrompiseable nightmare that I really don't want to deal with.

Overall the whole thing is a LOT of work in manually doing orders. It isn't simple. Also as I don't live with my girlfriend, its not simple for me to explain whats going on all the time. Also she suffers with mental health issues, she can easily have a panic attack (and has done) many times because I am trying to explain "off-the-books" orders and how to deal with them. She can only do the orders as there is a neat-and-tidy system which is simple and fully automated. I do not get involved at all with store orders.

People also have to realise, I am only 1 person. I'm not such a young man anymore. I do all this work for free and there is simply only so much "service" I can do for people.
</RANT>

Now for the more "good" news.

I haven't given up on integrating IBAN/SEPA into my store. But its not simple. It involves a lot of code changes to take "delayed payments". Either I have to remove items from stock and hope the payment completes, or then I have to return items to stock on failed payments. Its a whole different code-branch I need to write.

Also EU payments have to be done in EURO. My store is all geared up for GBP. so that's another code brach to work out exchange rates and conversions.

Then there's a "orders page" update I have to do to deal with if orders have been received and if they have been paid for or not. This is the information my girlfriend needs to send orders or not. It may sound simple but its a lot of code to update. Plus I have to do this without breaking all the current code. I can't type much because of my RSI. It's not a 5 minute job.

A problem with such "slow" payments is again stock allocation. If there is 1 item in stock and 10 people do IBAN payments, it will leave a problem with 9 orders. I get away with it on credit cards as its instant. So stock check to billing the card is done instantly. The chances of 2 people ordering the same item at the exact microsecond isn't going to likely happen. So I can ignore that problem. But with slow payments, it's not so simple as there isn't any code to deal with such problems. While I could have the stock "reserved" until payment completes, if someone failed checkout multiple times, the stock would "vanish" which could otherwise be sold to someone else. The only way I could do it, is to mark the order as a problem. Either the item gets refunded, or stays on backorder for weeks. Either Way its "messy" in processing such orders.

Reason for mentioning this is I have to enable IBAN in my Stripe settings. Though if people see that option on checkout, DO NOT USE IT, IT WILL FAIL! I have to enable it in order for me to test new scripts out.

[exxos]

So typical this.. I spent hours re-coding chunks of my webstore while not feel well. Ran into a problem on how your supposed to process USA IBAN payments, as for EU ones you have to convert to EUROs.. So wasn't sure about outside of EU payments, like USA etc. But long story short, Stripe doesn't support "cross border" bank transfers :roll:

It has debit card payments I can enable, but I haven't as they would only work in the UK. But seems while I could enable bank transfers, they would only work in the UK anyway. So it's all kinda pointless really. Even debit transactions would require the mass code changes in my store as they don't tend to be instant like credit cards are.

It does seem Stripe are working on the problem..

Capture.PNG

So there is just no way to "simply" take such payments. I would need a totally different system from start to end to deal with IBAN payments. I'm not writing a new system from the ground up (again) to deal with something else. Manually processing orders I simply don't have the time or patience for anymore.

As said in the previous posts, I am only 1 person and I can't deal with everyone's problems under the sun. I don't get paid for deal with all this stuff and it's just not fair on me to do even more unpaid work because people don't have credit cards. Sorry!

TL;DR
I'm afraid me accepting any payments other than credit cards is unlikely to ever happen. I tried. I really did.