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People who want to buy your frame are happy to put down a good chunk up front, and would prefer to do so to know it's happening and to mentally commit to it and to let the anticipation and excitement begin.
I tend to throw money first, ask questions later... much prefer the "here's just under half up front" approach as it gets us both committed early.
I also tend to prefer to have a final payment... I've seen that with some providers of custom stuff, that paying everything up front removes incentives to keep things progressing at a decent clip.
My preference is:
- Let me pay in as friction free a way to put down the deposit, make it a meaningful enough amount that you don't have cash flow issues to get started
- Let me pay the final amount at collection/delivery time, and let a conversation happen in between for progress updates and whatever options need to happen
The way a deposit is paid, and the way the final payment is made... these don't have to be the same thing, but it helps if they are.
You could bypass the whole of Shopify/etc... and use Xero, an accounting tool. It has a fixed montly fee for your bookkeeping, and can be joined to PayPal so that transactions are instantly reconciled there, and this allows you to issue PDF invoices that contain clickable PayPal links that will auto-reconcile that invoice, and if people did want to pay the rest by bank transfer then it would be easy to join that up together too (with payment references).
Oh... and cash flow works both ways. I put the final payment for my Seven on credit card, and have wiped it over 2 months. You cannot exclude credit card as any major purchase may be beyond cash on hand and require a little juggling on the buyer side.
- Let me pay in as friction free a way to put down the deposit, make it a meaningful enough amount that you don't have cash flow issues to get started
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does taking payment immediately put people off
Not if you have clearly communicated, short (< 1 month) and reliable delivery dates. If you fail any one of those three tests, people will wonder why you need to be holding their money for so long.
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You could take full money up front, 50% non-refundable, per example.
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Velocio
gbj_tester
Murphy's_Law
Maybe also to note: In Europe (hence the P2M and cnc example) it is still very common to pay by bank transfer. Cash cards (maestro etc.) are a lot more common, with bank transfers or payment of an invoice the only options for buying online. Lots of websites will let you place the order, and send an invoice (electronic or paper) and then will only process your order once the invoice is paid. As a native of the UK living in Switzerland, this all seemed pretty annoying and clunky when I first got here, but now is fairly routine for online purchases.
I guess my point is.... If you're hoping for your market to expand beyond the UK, bank transfers and such like aren't such a big deal.