E-Commerce
Digital Trade
E-commerce is a wonder of our modern world. However since we’re a young business, and our model runs on being lean, doing more with less, we currently do not offer traditional e-commerce payment gateways. It is simply an added expense that will have to be passed down onto our members. But before that happens, we would have to finance the infrastructure before we even know there’s a demand for it. Merchant service providers charge their clients a monthly fee and take a cut of each transaction. For example, Squarespace would charge us either $18 a month plus 3% per transaction (about $1.50), or $26 a month and no transaction fees. Furthermore, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal would further charge an extra few percentage points per transaction. We think it is important to disclose this information freely to our customers to know exactly what they’re paying for. It is our goal to provide the lowest cost, highest value products and services possible and so for the time being we are operating as lean as possible. If there is a strong demand for such e-commerce services we will gladly move to fulfill our customer’s wants. However, keep in mind that these convenient options will naturally cost more due to the additional fees. The higher website cost will be divided into a per paddle basis, and added to the checkout price along with Credit Card or Paypal fees for only those using this form of payment. Convenience has its price, but we also want our members to be happy.