Tickets Plus

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  • This topic has 13 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by Thomas Claffy.
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  • #1229722
    Thomas Claffy
    Participant

    I guess I am a little out of bounds asking a pre-sales question about Tickets Plus as I have not purchased it yet, but I now have 2 community organizations very interested and I am still puzzled about 2 aspects of the functionality here. I will be offering (I hope) a ticketing solution to community events held by community organizations. From what I see in the documentation, all of the management is in the back end so this will leave me right in the middle of the fray.

    1. How does a customer of mine, i.e. an event organizer in my case, manage their ticket setup and sales? Is the plug-in even capable of this?
    2. I am assuming that I will use WooCommerce requiring immediate payment for a ticket, but does that allow me to set up multiple organizations each with their own PayPal accounts? OR is that a WooCommerce question?

    I may just have to pay for this and install it on my dev site so I can try to work thru some of these things but I would think you could tell me if it is feasible or not.

    #1230385
    Geoff B.
    Member

    Good evening Thomas and welcome back!

    Thank you for reaching out to us.
    I would love to help you with this topic.

    1. How does a customer of mine, i.e. an event organizer in my case, manage their ticket setup and sales? Is the plug-in even capable of this?

    The short answer is yes, but on top of Event Tickets Plus you will need our Community tickets add-on (that extends Event Tickets Plus): https://theeventscalendar.com/product/community-tickets/

    2. I am assuming that I will use WooCommerce requiring immediate payment for a ticket, but does that allow me to set up multiple organizations each with their own PayPal accounts? OR is that a WooCommerce question?

    Yep, the Community Tickets allows every organizer to provide their own Paypal account.

    Let me know if that helps.

    Have a great day!

    Geoff B.

     

    #1230542
    Thomas Claffy
    Participant

    I already have community events; that is the basis of my community calendar. So this is all good news.

    1. So Paypal is integrated with Tickets Plus and Community Events which means I can skip the WooCommerce? That simplifies it for me and the cost is all the same.
    2. Last time I looked split fees functionality was pretty unpredictable but I can just as well bill my friends (the charitable organizations that will sell tickets) after the event. Is that the best approach?
    3. My annual budget is already about twice what I had originally planned and now I have to add Tickets Plus. Is there a discount for bundling? I will be using Events Calendar Pro, Community Events and Tickets Plus? Probably not…lol
    4. Do organizers design their tickets in the front end also? This is kind of coming back to me but I am also smack dab in the middle of multiple political websites for my friends running in April and I’m a little fuzzy on all of the moving parts sometimes because there is a lot moving.

    I guess I need to purchase Tickets Plus. I am a little fuzzy on how the organizer is going to get the list of attendees. I see that they can get a list and/or use the automated check-in but I don’t see any details on how that is implemented.

    Thanks for the concise answers. Sorry for the follow-up.

    #1231105
    Geoff B.
    Member

    Good evening Thomas,

    I feel that I might have miscommunicated what I meant.
    To be able to do what you want to achieve, you will need:

    1. the Events Calendar (which you have)
    2. Event Tickets: https://theeventscalendar.com/product/wordpress-event-tickets/
    3. Event Tickets Plus: https://theeventscalendar.com/product/wordpress-event-tickets-plus/
    4. Community Events (which you already have)
    5. Community tickets (which is a completely separate product than Community Events): https://theeventscalendar.com/product/community-tickets/

    1. So Paypal is integrated with Tickets Plus and Community Events which means I can skip the WooCommerce? That simplifies it for me and the cost is all the same.

    No, you will still need WooCommerce for customers to be able to purchase tickets.

    Technically speaking, all of the transactions will go through your Paypal account.

    The Paypal address of each organizer is built-in to our plugins for a couple of reasons:

    1. Allowing the use of Paypal split payments (if your Paypal account type allows it)
    2. Allowing you to manually pay your organizers if you do not use Paypal split payments.

    2. Last time I looked split fees functionality was pretty unpredictable but I can just as well bill my friends (the charitable organizations that will sell tickets) after the event. Is that the best approach?

    I am sorry to hear you feel that way about split payments.
    However, this does not reflect our experience with it.

    Not only are there are no report of any issues with that functionality, but thousands of our customers are using this very happily.

    So, in the end, this is up to you.

    You don’t have to use the split payment approach if you don’t want to.
    You can simply pay your organizers by billing them after you look at the reports.

    3. My annual budget is already about twice what I had originally planned and now I have to add Tickets Plus. Is there a discount for bundling? I will be using Events Calendar Pro, Community Events and Tickets Plus? Probably not…lol

    I totally understand where you are coming from.
    We do have some bundles available, but it looks like we currently do not have one that fits your needs unfortunately.

    The good news is that the time saved with these plugins should most likely make up for their cost (depending on the size of your operation, of course).

    4. Do organizers design their tickets in the front end also? This is kind of coming back to me but I am also smack dab in the middle of multiple political websites for my friends running in April and I’m a little fuzzy on all of the moving parts sometimes because there is a lot moving.

    I guess it depends on your definition of design.
    All tickets will have the same overall look and feel.

    But organizers will be able to do pretty much all that you can when creating tickets: add an image, stock options, attendee list options, details, dates, price, name description.

    I guess I need to purchase Tickets Plus. I am a little fuzzy on how the organizer is going to get the list of attendees. I see that they can get a list and/or use the automated check-in but I don’t see any details on how that is implemented.

    Actually, you need to buy Event Tickets Plus AND Community Tickets (as seen at the top of this reply).

    Community Tickets will provide the organizer with the ability to log in and see their events and reports.

    It also lets you control what they can and cannot do via additional setting in Events -> Settings -> Community.

    I guess the best thing is to try it out for yourself at this point. Our user primers should get you up and running in no time.

    And of course, if you have questions, we can most likely help.

    Let me know how that goes.

    Best regards,
    Geoff B.

    #1232236
    Thomas Claffy
    Participant

    Geoff,

    Thanks for the clarifications.It is looking like I will add these two modules based on demand. I have one area where I am still foggy and that is fees and payment processing. Mine is a small community calendar so I have limited resources that will use this feature and I want to at least pay for my licensing cost and maybe recoup some of the other plugin costs. So if I do split payments and charge a flat 5%, will I get 5% of the ticket price or will PayPal deduct the entire fee for the ticket transaction from my account or will they deduct their 2.9% + 30 cents from my 5%. I would post this in a public support forum but I don’t see anywhere to do this. I’m a little foggy yet on how to price this and how the money flows. Can you possilby give me a breakdown on a $25 ticket? I want 5% and the organizer wants to cover their paypal costs by adding a convenience fee.

    Thanks for your patience. I just need to make sure it’s going to be palatable with my organizers. Last year, they charge $3 for a $25 ticket with another ticketing solution so a convenience fee is not out of the question.

    Tom

    #1233022
    Geoff B.
    Member

    Good afternoon Thomas,

    Thank you for writing back.

    if I do split payments and charge a flat 5%, will I get 5% of the ticket price or will PayPal deduct the entire fee for the ticket transaction from my account or will they deduct their 2.9% + 30 cents from my 5%.

    That is a great question. If you have not already done so, I would recommend reading the following:

    1. https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/configuring-community-tickets/
    2. https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/tracking-sales-getting-paid/

    Simply put, you have control over how the fee is presented and calculated.

    What split payments does is that it literally splits the money at the moment of purchase.
    Normal Paypal fees apply to any transaction of course (based on the type of account you have with them).

    So in your example, 5% of the ticket price is sent directly to you and the rest of the ticket price is processed via the organizer’s Paypal account.

    Both of you are then subject to any Paypal fee your account type receives.

    Let me know if that helps.

    Have a great day!

    Geoff B.

    #1233030
    Thomas Claffy
    Participant

    Thanks Geoff,

    1. I’ve been thru both pages and I’m pretty scared by this:

    “Refunds and cancelled events are significantly more difficult to handle. Refunds are deducted from the site admin’s total, with nothing taken from the community organizer’s profits.”

    So an organizer could sell 100 tickets, cancel an event and I am on the hook for the refunds? How can that possibly be true?

    2. There is no option to let all of the monies go direct to the organizer and I bill for my fees?

    #1233640
    Geoff B.
    Member

    Good evening Thomas,

    Thank your for your answer.

    1. I’ve been thru both pages and I’m pretty scared by this:

    “Refunds and cancelled events are significantly more difficult to handle. Refunds are deducted from the site admin’s total, with nothing taken from the community organizer’s profits.” So an organizer could sell 100 tickets, cancel an event and I am on the hook for the refunds? How can that possibly be true?

    I understand what you are saying and I can totally see how this could end up being very uncool for the site owner (in this case you).

    Simply put, this con is a result of the way split payments work technically speaking.
    PayPal is looking for a main “responsible” for every transaction. As it turns out, this has to be the site owner (at least for now).

    By the sound of it, I believe that Split Payments might not be good for your specific situation.
    But, we do have many customers that just love that.

    So I believe the “safest” way to go for you is to collect all the money, run a report (e.g.: once a month) and based on the sales versus cancellations, pay your organizers accordingly.

    2. There is no option to let all of the monies go direct to the organizer and I bill for my fees?

    At this moment, this option does not exist.

    However, you are welcome to:

    1. hire one of our recommended customizers to do the customization for you.
    2. submit this as a feature idea here: https://tribe.uservoice.com/forums/195723-feature-ideas

    Have a great day!

    Geoff B.

    #1234865
    Thomas Claffy
    Participant

    And there are no other options thru Woo Commerce? That’s a real shame as I am not willing to be on the hook for the organization and I can’t justify the cost of a customization which will be hundreds of dollars if not more? I also do not think my relatively small groups can afford to wait until after the event to be paid which is the only safe way plus they then have to trust me with all of their money. This is not a sound for a community calendar approach.

    #1236020
    Geoff B.
    Member

    Good afternoon Thomas,

    I hear you and, in your context, it does not look like this is a fit.

    To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no, there are no other options available through WooCommerce.

    Even if you look at other WooCommerce similar plugins (https://woocommerce.com/products/product-vendors/ or https://srd.wordpress.org/plugins/yith-woocommerce-product-vendors/), the concept is always the same: the site owner is “in charge”.

    So as you can see, this is not so much a question of wether or not our Community Calendar approach is sound or not. But rather that we are limited by the currently available technologies.

    With that in mind, Paypal’s refund process is pretty straightforward.
    For that reason, as much as I can understand your very valid points, I believe that with the proper disclaimers for customers and a very clear contract with your organizers, this could work.

    But this decision is entirely up to you.

    The only other option (that still relies on trust) is that you set up an affiliate program with your organizers.

    Simply put, you could use a tracking parameter in the URL to the ticket purchases on their systems and trust that they would pay you upon each sale that is completed.

    I wish I had a better answer for you, but for now it’s the best one I have.

    Best regards,

    Geoff B.

     
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    #1236674
    Thomas Claffy
    Participant

    And as I look at this further, MidwestTix operates exactly in the same manner. From their website: “At MIDWESTIX we customize the event proceed payouts according the to the nature of your event(s). For example, a long term, on-going venue might recieve a bi-weekly direct deposit. But for one-time events, proceeds will be distributed immediately after the event. We accommodate many payment options to meet your needs.” Yup, that’s their typo…lol…

    So what seems to me to be an odd approach seems to be the industry standard. Having been in a business where I managed funds having a fiduciary trust in the past, I was rather hoping to avoid the inherent liability and work involved with this arrangement.

    So I will investigate this further with PayPal. There is still the issue of charge back claims to consider. Perhaps a simple all sales are final statement covers that. Thanks for the kind support.

    #1239350
    Geoff B.
    Member

    Good evening Thomas,

    Thank you for your awesome understanding.

    You might be on to something. I am pretty sure there is a need for other users just like you.
    Maybe your actions will help make this type of feature available to others.

    Let me know if I can assist you further on this topic.

    Best regards,

    Geoff B.

    #1252422
    Support Droid
    Keymaster

    Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

    Thanks so much!
    The Events Calendar Support Team

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