ikobo <<< increased popularity

Not long ago, if you happened to do a google search about ikobo, you couldn't find much about this service. Now, you find a lot of info about them. I have a merchant account with ikobo and I can confirm that they've made a lot of positive steps. They improved their live customer support, speed of payments processing and best of all, they lowered their fees to 3%/transaction. My question is: How many of you use this service and what do you think it will happen with it in the future ? I really want this service to work because my eastern european country is included in its coverage and this way I can continue my small online business.

 

hmm, 15 posts to your name and they all pretty much mention ikobo. Interesting marketing statagy. A google lookup shows many such posts in many forums...

 

Well they are not made by me. And this is no strategy. I am just interested in this service, that's all. If this were the only service covering your country, I am sure you would be interested too ...

 

I still don't like them as a professional presence but as an alternative to Paypal in Europe (which stinks) they are fine. I'm not sure why you posted here on if you should use them as a search on Google shows countless forums where they are talking about this.

Regardless, they are fine for a hobby site.

 

Guess I'm just suspicious by nature...

 

Same here,,,

 

And if my hobby turns out to be a good business ? What should I choose then ?

 

As for me everybody is free to share his experience. As I am sure that the more we discuss companies that provide money transfers online, the easier for us will be to make the right decision and avoid mistakes.
But if you say that one company is the worst and another one is just perfect I won’t believe you. As I am sure that even a bad company has its advantages and you can always find a fault with a good one.

 

True words have been spoken by yfs1... paypal sucks in europe so ikobo remains pretty much the only choice (there's also 2co but they're pretty expensive for me). It's true, I only have what you call a "hobby site" although I'm working on improving that and turning it into something more.
I suppose Doughty is also correct... there's no such thing as a perfect company!

 

Well, I feel the same way regarding ikobo, that's why I've asked that question. If their company grows, my sales will increase and I won't feel bad that I chose this company for the long run. That was is fact what I was trying to find out ... thank you

 

I don't think you have to worry about that.... if there's any way ikobo is going, it's up. what I mean is that by the way things are going they're more likely to improve than the opposite. What you may consider, is adding a second payment option so that your customers will have a choice (if you can find anything that will work in your particular case).

 

Things really start picking up with ikobo; hope they will keep doing this way. So the next step for them is to improve their customer support system and again start accepting master card.

 

I recently found a google group named ikobo. I think it could be useful for all ikobo users. It can be found here

 

thanks, it's always good to find places where people discuss this subject. we can help each other with our experiences. I'll sign up right away.

 

I use iKobo... and they are still worthless... beside the fact that you can move some money in the countries that don't have paypal, there ain't one single good thing about them:

-they have the bad habbit to be offline from time to time
-you can't send or receive more than $500/month... if you don't fax some papers to them... (which is not easy)
-as a merchant you must define every product you are sellin in their own database....
-every transaction trough the merchant account takes up to 7 workin days to clarify...
-as far as I know there is no limit to the merchant account...
-their interface is not at all user friendly... not even dumb-friendly...

But as for now... If you wanna do anything... it's about the only way

 

These are all reasons why they are fine for hobby sites but anyone with a professional shop is not advised to use them (unless its your only option)

 

You can use OsCommerce for example and add the ikobo payment contribution. It works fine. Also you can make your own shopping cart because ikobo supports 3rd party shopping carts. I use a modified version of osc and it looks great. ikobo plugin also works great.

 

thanks for the info...

 

And is it really so difficult to raise the limits? As far as I know they require a copy of your picture ID and the utility bill to verify your identity. Or is there anything else?

 

It's not difficult at all. You just have to send a scanned copy of those two documents ikobo requires. Scan those and send them to the e-mail address you have been provided with. That’s it.