Tradeshift – The Next PayPal?
Tradeshift is an e-invoicing site and, like other sites in this space, it allows people to create invoices for just about any product or service and send it to clients and customers for payment. Unlike the others, however, Tradeshift is a whole new way of thinking about online payments and processing.
The site’s creator, Christian Lanng, hate credit cards. With a passion. He likes their convenience (for the user), but hates the way banks process them from the seller’s perspective. The way he sees it, most of the requirements and steps required to become a merchant and process a credit card – not to mention the fees – are too complicated. That might have worked in the 1980s and 1990s, but not now.
Tradeshift allows not just for invoicing, but also for document trading, analytics,collaboration, and more. Suppliers, sellers, providers, and consumers can all come together to trade easily through Tradeshift.
At the heart of the site is the idea of dynamic currency exchange where invoices pay themselves through auto-payments which are transacted when the exchange rate is best during that time period, saving money over each transaction.
The site is free to use for basic users and has a flat rate for enterprise and governments who use it. No per-transaction fees, just a flat rate and that’s it. By itself, that is a big step forward as even PayPal requires transaction fees to process money for you.
Definitely an interesting step forward, Tradeshift is in beta with several world-wide partners signed on as clients and testers, including governmental bodies in Brazil and Europe.
