CircleUp Launches SmartPay - Powered by Amazon Payments
CircleUp, a group messaging service for membership Web sites, has launched SmartPay - calling it "a powerful new service for online payments made among members of groups and teams. SmartPay runs on the SmartMessage Platform, an innovative messaging service operating across multiple channels, partner destinations and platforms."
"SmartPay is a service that lets members of teams and groups collect money using credit or debit cards for expenses like coach and teacher's gifts, team banners, group photos, event t-shirts, group transportation, group parties and more that have traditionally been paid with cash and checks."
SmartPay is enabled by a powerful money transfer service from Amazon Payments, providing users a secure and familiar payment experience. SmartPay adds value to the payment service through group messaging, accounting, reporting, email confirmations, reminders and other productivity and time saving features.
SmartPay is designed for sports teams, class parents, faith based groups, endurance sports clubs, membership organizations such as YMCA Y-Guide & Princess programs, the Boy Scouts of America and any other organization where funds are regularly pooled for events and activity expenses. The benefits to these groups include:
- Convenience: The ability to pay with a credit or debit card instead of checks or cash within the SmartMessage system is simple, fast and easy and saves the need to write a check, buy a postage stamp or visit the mailbox.
- Accountability: All requests and payments are recorded automatically online and each participant receives a confirming email of all payments sent and received.
- Security: Identity theft is a growing concern and scribbling credit card numbers or attaching a check to a gift contribution or t-shirt / team photo order form is just a bad idea
"Collecting money by email is the 'killer application' for me," said Cynthia Jenkins, a mom blogger, award winning columnist and CircleUp user. "No one likes getting stuck collecting money, but SmartPay makes it much easier."
The service is free to the group, club or team. Payers are charged a $.99 convenience fee plus 6.9% of any payment amount that goes over $20. The payment is convenient and secure for all parties and costs just a bit more than mailing a first class letter. The convenience fee includes all Amazon Payments transaction processing fees.
The service is free for the first 30 days and various other promotions will be offered to new enrollees of the SmartPay service at www.circleup.com and www.eteamz.com.
"There is a very large volume of group payments that are migrating online from cash and checks to payment cards, both credit and debit," said John Payne, CEO of CircleUp. "The shift is driven by demands for convenience, accountability and security and our customers benefit from each in a very big way."
Participation sports provides an interesting case study of just one of the very large opportunities the company is targeting with its person to person payments service. In March of 2008 the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association reported there were 140 million players of various participation sports across all age groups in the United States. Projections from these numbers show an ecosystem of casual spending that approaches $40 billion per year, much of which is in the process of migration from cash and checks to online payments.
SmartPay uses Amazon Simple Pay provided by Amazon Payments. Amazon Payments provides consumers, merchants, and developers a simple and trusted way to pay and get paid online. Amazon Payments enables consumers to send and receive payments for goods or services by using the payment methods already associated with their Amazon.com accounts.
"We are pleased that with SmartPay, CircleUp is able to extend Amazon Payments as a payment method to their customers using Amazon Simple Pay," said from Kumar Srinivasan, VP Global Product Management for Amazon Payments. "We have designed Amazon Simple Pay specifically with innovative services like SmartPay in mind - so that they can easily enable their users to make convenient and secure payment transactions."
SmartPay and the SmartMessage™ Center are available through private label partnerships with membership web sites and destinations as part of the SmartMessage Platform or as a standalone service. Existing partners include Eteamz®, a division of The Active Network, in team sports and Blackbaud®, across non-profits. Integration is fast and easy for partners, who benefit from the availability of the service for their members and share in incremental revenue streams provided by the service. Pricing varies by partner, and inquiries may be directed to partners@circleup.com.
The SmartPay service is live today at www.circleup.com and everywhere else the SmartMessage Center is available, including team websites for over 3 million members at www.eteamz.com. Over 150 million AOL® and Facebook® members may log in directly to enroll in SmartPay and collect money by email at www.circleup.com without creating a new account by simply using their AOL or Facebook user name and password.
the fees seem to be bit high to drive any adoption by the payers
Posted by: Cenk Ipeker | March 04, 2009 at 06:17 PM
Hi Cenk, thanks for the feedback. SmartPay is actually free to try for 30 days, including for the payers. Most regular payments made among team and group members are $20 or less, so we think the $.99 fee (after 30 days) compares very well with other convenience fees for things like using your debit card to pay for fast food, the fee to use a non-member bank ATM, fees to buy concert or plane tickets, etc. And $.99 compares extremely well with the alternative "old ways" of paying, like stuffing money into envelopes or digging up stamps and envelopes to mail checks. But thanks again for the feedback. We'll continue to explore ways to make it useful and attractive to users, while allowing us to cover the costs of providing the services.
Posted by: Brad Cooper | March 05, 2009 at 02:49 AM