The quick answer from Erick Kalugdan is that Payfree is free for consumers/buyers and not for sellers. I got curious, so I did more research on this.
Having heard about Payfree.com.ph from the e-Services Seminar, I decided to experiment and explore around with the technology they offered. PayFree is an eWallet service by Load.com.ph. Users create an online wallet which they could use to purchase items from the website. Initially, this was provided for cell phones users to purchase prepaid load credits at a discount. Now, the service has been expanded to allow even Sellers to use the eWallet. Anyone wanting to go sell online could now avail of the services for an 8% charge.
This meant that if I had 100 pesos on mypayfree wallet, I could have it deposited in my bank, but only get 92 pesos. The 8 pesos go to load.com.ph and their partners. Erick said that 2% only actually goes to them and the 6% are for discounts and referral bonuses that they give out.
To be able to get in, I first had to be a load.com.ph member. Registration was fairly easy, I typed in the info they asked me. Viola! I had an account.
Some quick notes on load.com.ph:
- Since I was just starting up, I had zero balance on my credit. Load.com.ph offered several ways of filling it up ? Load credit voucher, SmartMoney, Credit Card, Payplus and Bank deposit.
- The easiest for me was to have loaded it up through my bancnet account (PayPlus) or through a credit card. So I tried the payplus option and I get this:
- The credit card/paypal option was also unavailable.
- It seems that are still some real problems from load.com.ph. The options left for me would be a bank deposit, Smart Money or load credit voucher ? which were impractical for me.
Anyway, going back to payfree.com.ph. I visited the website and found some instructions on how to get started on the account. I?m now a load.com.ph member and I had to fill up a Merchant application form.
Inconveniently, it wasn?t an online form. This turned me off a bit. It was a downloadable word document that I needed to fill in and mail or deliver deliver to Load.com.ph Corp. in Pasig City.Their form indicated that SEC Certificate/Business Permits, Proof of
Billing and Sample Marketing materials were required for submission.
I chatted online with their online ?customer support? ? (they were using yahoo messenger) loadteam@yahoo.com. I asked them if individuals could avail of payfree.com.ph? After around 5 minutes of waiting, he/she replied ?yes… yes..as long n my ibebenta kau online.. u must have a website where u can sell ur products?
So I asked, ?say I offer memberships or subscriptions.. pwede rin ba ang payfree?? To this I received another response 5 minutes la
ter:
?just send ur email add..my superior can answer your question..ill reply na lng thru email.?
Hmm. So it appears I might that I have to personally talk with someone from payfree and have a registered business to use the service. From this short test, it is not as easy and convenient as I had initially though. This FREE (for consumers) service would be better if it was web-friendly.
I therefore conclude that the REAL PRICE for this FREE service… is some little inconveniences.
I will investigate this further once I get a reply from them.
October 17th, 2006 at 6:10 am
Ey Jozzua,
What’s the latest from payfree? Did you get to investigate further? I actually did try to inquire yesterday (on their yahoo msnger) and basically got the same response (your’s was even better). Anyway, I’m building a website and was planning to use payfree as payment method for my targeted customers. Actually, all of these plans was since early last year and I had a problem with the payment method options, so in studying the paymentgateways back then (payfree wasn’t up yet) I eventually veered away from my original plan (building an ecommerece site) to building a payment gateway for Pinas targeted solely for SME’s! Having the technical know-how and always considering how SME’s can easily go into ecommerce, I came up with a very good bizplan for it, but all was cut short because I had an irresistable job offer and I’m now rellocated here in the US. But basically, it’s like payfree..having an online wallet account (Erick K. beat me to it.. =/ ). So I’m back to my original plan. The ecommerce site of my own and had no choice but to use payfree (hehe). Still I see payfree/load.cm.ph is still focused on the online prepaid card loading rather than the payment gateway service. I say this as we had the same experience in just inquiring for a merchant account. I wasn’t expecting for it to be that inconvenient (a word doc for application? not so good customer service on the issue, etc). I mean..c’mon we’re giving you business and it’s like you don’t want it. (I had a better approach in my bizplan before where instead of waiting for sme’s to realize what I can offer them, I’ll practically reach out to them & get them setup asap! for a low-low fee than finding a freelance programmer to do it for them and pay 5-10k&up for it). Anyway, so this bizplan of mine is still floating around there, but I guess it’s hard to compete with the “established” ones. Wow, I got carried away =) Nice blogsite by the way! keep it up! Oh, and back to my orig question..so how was your merchant application with payfree? hehe.
October 17th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Hi CrashOVeride. Was not able to get any updates on PayFree. (I didn’t realize some of my images here are already missing.)Good luck on your business plan. I hope you get a chance to implement it. It’s really great if you can find and Angel to help you out with that. Although there is a paypal Philippines, it’s quite limited. It would really be great if someone were able to offer something really practical and useful.