[Asterisk-biz] group buy!

[Paul]

The way a co-op typically works is that you pay to join and you pay to 
remain a member. Because of that you might not need to have any minimum 
purchase requirements. Instead of doing credit checks you require that 
all accounts are backed up by deposits or letters of credit. You can 
even use an escrow service to protect the members deposit accounts. What 
is nice about this is that a member could be buying quite a mix of 
products and services through the co-op and he only has one deposit 
account rather than having to prepay several other vendors. Also nice is 
that if you have secured deposits in protected escrow accounts there is 
no need to pay the costs associated with accepting credit cards. If the 
member anticipates an large immediate increase in volume(he just got a 
large new customer), he might need to do a bank wire transfer to 
increase his deposit in escrow. Other than that you make it simple, 
invoices must be paid on time or services are blocked. The deposit money 
in escrow is not a prepay but is actually a security deposit. The 
members are actually the owners of the co-op and the deposit method 
protects them from sharing the loss if one member won't pay for what he 
has used.

I understand that cash flow is a problem for many. I would certainly 
want this system set up so that a member could be billed weekly. That 
would reduce the deposit amount needed as compared to a monthly billing 
cycle.

Smith - BESTCOM GROUP wrote:

> I totally agree with Paul.
>
> If we can manage to do it in a siple way with a non-proftable matter 
> it could be the way to get VoIP a great push !! Doing it we can 
> finally have a good quality, good pricing and most of all ... Maybe 
> good support.
>
> Indeed we will need someone to manage that and since we have nothing 
> but great developers here ... We could make it happen faster than a 
> few here belive.
>
> A few thing we might consider:
> - It has to be SIP and IAX and not only AIX.
> - It has to be web-based (the menagement and the buying)
> - It shouldn´t have minimum amount higher than 100 bucks so we can 
> have everybody using it.
>
> Please count with BESTCOm GROUP for that.
>
> Smith
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul" <digium-list at 9ux.com>
> To: "Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion" 
> <asterisk-biz at lists.digium.com>
> Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2005 6:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-biz] group buy!
>
>
>> Xu Wang wrote:
>>
>>> Hello
>>>
>>> We want to organize a group of service providers to get better 
>>> bargain power
>>> on rates. The target is to have >500000 minutes per month. If you 
>>> like to
>>> work together on this project, please send email to me off-line!
>>>
>>> thank you!
>>> steven
>>>
>>>
>> Best way is to setup a non-profit corp which is a co-operative 
>> association. The members pay initiation fees and membership dues. The 
>> association is the wholesale buyer that resells to members. That 
>> means vendors are only dealing with one larger customer for billing 
>> and collection purposes. The  members can authorize the association 
>> to sell things like surplus minutes or no-longer-needed hardware to 
>> non-members.
>>
>> This is all very do-able if lower-volume users are serious about 
>> getting good rates, LNP, E911 and other services. All we need is an 
>> honest lawyer to be the trustee for the initial funds.
>>
>> I don't see why such an organization could not apply for CLEC status, 
>> either.
>>
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