Tuesday marked the dawn of a new era in the history of online payment, when a new baby in the industry was born. This system named Ribbon, makes digital payment easy, the developer designed a one page checkout system which enables someone to sell on Facebook, twitter, Email, on the web and later to come, Pinterest, YouTube and other media.
Ribbon, an alternative to PayPal
This company was co-founded by Hany Rashwan and James Elkins, Rashwan was the brain behind this innovation and he caught the inspiration last year when he was watching his friend trying to sell online. According to Rashwan, he said that when he was in the junior college, “PayPal has a horrible checkout abandonment rate” 95% of people always leave PayPal shopping page. The youngster has been a programmer since 12, and since then, he started sorting to develop an alternative. The early version is a simpler version of Shopify.
As he shares his experience with users, he said, many people had been looking for a way to monetize their following on other platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. The system for online selling today only redirects traffics to other locations, like PayPal. Etsy or other market place, and the percentages here are really unfair, and the users are the ones generating the traffic. Why not pasting the link instead, but now, Ribbon has offered to do so.
Ribbon allows a seller to add product, digital, physical or service, and a URL is given. “Think bit.ly with payments” as Rashwan describes, the URL is only one-page check out. What you only need to do is to copy and paste this URL to your Facebook fan page, Twitter stream or your email in order to sell product.
Some already in market social commerce includes, Chirpify that allows you to sell on Twitter and Instagram, also Soldside works on Facebook comment. It will take you to a different place if you click it on Facebook, than on Twitter. What distinguishes Ribbon is that, it is able to auto detect where user is coming from then channel the result accordingly. Rashwan explains that “If you click on it inside Facebook, it will go somewhere different than if you click on it inside Twitter,” The Facebook experience is that users are not taken out of Facebook, but to an app.
Ribbon has its own system of processing payment and it is not built on PayPal or Stripe. The company already partnered with credit card companies such as MasterCard, Visa, Discover payment and Amex. The price charges for Ribbon’s service are 5 percent plus 30 cent for a transaction. Stripe price is 2.9 percent with 30 cents while Gumroad is 5 percent plus 25 cents.
Ribbon grew its user base from 250 to 3,000 within few months when he ran a private alpha. It is open to all today and you can sign up an account here.
