Neteller - Pay Pal quick guide

[<Rich>]

it's because in order to generate those sales they discount so heavily they "dont make money"

whether places make money s in the eye of the beholder just look at the ENRON or goerge Bush
theory of economics------set up false ledger sheets using tricky accounting methods to justify huge bonuses and stock option sales to CEO's and other high end employees and( or tax cuts to billionares and coorporations) and when the whole shit house collapses like at Enron they've got theirs and look whos left holding the bag?

[chestrockwells]

That's right. People often forget the difference between revenue and profits, not to mention all the different sub-categories within the term "profit". Amazon has had record revenues every quarter since forever........but that's different than profits. There is so much "massaging" of financials that it's unreal. I'll give you one example that happenned yesterday. It's almost end of the quarter and end of the year. Ebay, a company that makes a little money, but whose PE ratio is astronomical, played a little game to make their revenues and listing numbers appear much larger than they actually are. How you ask? Well they had a free listing day yesterday. Which means that sellers did not "appear" to pay the 40-55 cents and up listing fee for items that they listed yesterday. In actuality sellers paid it and they were instantly refunded the fee. Last time ebay had a day like that almost 2 million items were listed in 24 hrs. So revenues were bumped up and so were listing numbers and refunds were hidden somewhere as promotional expenses.......and all this conveniently near the end of the year. So when somebody looks at their revenue, they can say, well revenues are up. Goes to show you that touts aren't the only ones that can spin a good story.
PS. Follow up on Paypal----According to paperwork they filed, they are losing $10 million a month, every month. It must be great to do that and still be thought of as a successful company, by most people.

[Dragon]

10 Mil a month? So I guess it goes without saying that neteller must also be losing money. Is it just impossible to make a profit in the money transfer business?

[Hartley]

Paypal is ok for U.S. citizens but is a pain in the ass for non U.S. citizens. Unlike with Neteller, non U.S. citizens have to pay fees for any deposits or withdrawals, have to prove that the transactions they are making is legal in their country, must send in photo id and must sign up with a credit card. Even if you want to just move money around between books (as you can with Neteller) this can't be done with paypal without going through all the rigamaroll.

For E-Bay and similar PayPal is fine but for transferring between books Neteller is much better.

[Dragon]

So the big question is, are these transfer services all doomed? Is there no way for them to be profitable? Is this method of transfers, which is like a dream come true, just that? A dream to good to be true????? Will the logical next step be to impose hefty fees on the consumer?

I'm still in shock about amazon.com. And ebay. Just a small profit?

[chestrockwells]

Who knows? The one thing that is pretty clear is that if money can be made in that business, you can be sure that major banks will be involved. Whether it be by starting their own money transfer business (like Citibank did recently) or by partnering with Paypal or whoever, it's very likely to happen. It's the same with the other pioneering type ideas like Webvan. Clearly, if there was money to be made, the major supermarket chains would have eventually set up their own services and eventually overcome the start by Webvan.
Amazon is such a household name..... but you can bet serious money that in 10 yrs time they'll either be out of business or more likely, partnered with or owned by one of the major bookstore chains or retailers. It's really inevitable because the one thing that really sucks about internet retailing is that it is so incredibly price sensitive. Been there, done that.

[brink]

The internet is fools gold. Name one successful dot com and there are 100 that went bad. Interesting reading though.