GunPal

GunPal

v.s.

PayPalGuns

There has been a lot of buzz about GunPal lately in the firearms community.  People are excited about it because Paypal is notoriously against firearm transactions.

GunPal is a non profit organization and donates the fees you pay per transaction to the “pro 2nd amendment” type organization of your choice! (if it’s on their list)

The transactions fees (receiving money) are as follows:

For Transactions greater than $10 (Ten Dollars):

  • 2.8% + $0.30 for all transactions

For Transactions under $10 (Ten Dollars):

  • 4.8% + $.30 for all transactions

Compared to PayPal:

  • $0.00 USD – $3,000.00 USD     2.9% + $0.30 USD
  • $3,000.01 USD – $10,000.00 USD     2.5% + $0.30 USD
  • $10,000.01 USD – $100,000.00 USD     2.2% + $0.30 USD
  • > $100,000.00 USD     1.9% + $0.30 USD

As you can see the fee schedule is set up a bit different, but very competitive.

Both PayPal and GunPal do not charge the person sending money anything.

Concerns:

1) How will buyer disputes be handled at GunPal?

PayPal is often a source of frustration for buyers that have a dispute with their transaction.  It’s a long arduous process, and the outcome (what ends up happening with the money) sometimes seems like it was decided with the flip of a coin.  I have heard so many PayPal horror stories when it comes to sellers losing their product, and the money they were initially paid for it, and vise versa from buyers who paid for a product and they didn’t receive it or it came damage or not as advertised.

2) Why does a place that calls itself GunPal have no branding related to guns?

Seems like a strange decision.  There is not so much as a picture of a firearm on their ENTIRE site, not even in their logo.

I watched the main Flash animation for a good couple of minutes, thinking that someone holding a gun would appear any second.. but all I saw is a race car, a guy standing on a mountain top, a woman that just had a good putt, and a couple doing some akward airplane gesture on a beach.

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My concerns aside.  I wish this company lots of success, I hope they get a lot of PayPal converts, and importantly never forget about listening to their customers.

Visit their website www.GunPal.net to learn more


Comments

4 responses to “GunPal”

  1. Buyer Disputes are handled in accordance with our User Agreement (summary: Open a support ticket, and actual intelligent people will investigate and determine who gets a refund.)

    Our fee structure has changed somewhat, we are now 2.8% +$0.30 across the board, with discounts for business accounts. see https://www.gunpal.net/gp?req=fees for the latest information.

    We don’t feature any guns on the website because GUNPAL is created for and by gun users, it’s applications exceed the firearms industry niche. You can use GUNPAL to pay for e-bay auctions, dinner bills, etc. You can use GUNPAL to send money to anyone with an email address.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      Hi Ben,

      I understand what your saying, that your users are able to pay for items other than guns. I still don’t get the rationale behind calling it something as specific as “GUNpal” and not even include a picture of a gun on the site, especially since it was created “for and by gun users” as you say.

  2. I just noticed this as well. GunPal has a real branding problem. If you check out CalGuns you’ll read that the lame logo GunPal is sporting was created by a user. It’s hideous. They’ve tucked themselves into a niche and they should brand themselves accordingly. Naming yourself gun-anything and then trying to say you’ll be non-polarizing enough for to go head to head with PayPal et al is one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a while. It’s never going to happen.

    They should also spend some time on their site’s SEO. Forum and blog spamming (as they seem to do constantly) isn’t a marketing plan. I’ve got gun sites I own with a higher Google PR. This blog has the same PR as the GunPal website. It’s pathetic. I realize GP and Paul from CalGuns have been scouring the web trying to clean up any reference to Ben’s unfortunate “incident” (which is a whole other very telling can of worms) but it does seem like even the most benign comment on the lowliest blog is answered with ample URL spamming.

    I would like to see you do a real review of GP with actual users on your blog. I’m sure from a SEO perspective you’d hit a home run. There’s a lot of interest on this subject. I’ve exchanged PM’s and emails with some websites that have tried it and the feedback has been interesting. Finding merchants who use the service and will discuss it openly might be a bother but if you can put it together (and deal with the heat) a lot of people would certainly read it.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      I totally agree with you John. I’ll consider doing a review.