Enable Deposits for Bookings

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  berkayxx95 1 year, 9 months ago

  Is there a feature I missed to enable deposits for bookings? Sometimes, a seller may be worried that they’re listing a high-value product, and would want a guarantee that the transaction would work smooth. If not, can you implement it? If so, when do you think you can finish it? Is there anything I can do to help as well? Thanks in advance!

  

  ihor 1 year, 9 months ago developer

  If possible send more details about this feature, do you mean charging some extra amount in addition to the booking amount, as a deposit in case if the booked item will not be returned?

  

  berkayxx95 1 year, 9 months ago

  Yes that’s correct. So for similarity, Airbnb does the same thing as well in case a guest misuses the apartment (throws a party, or leaves it unclean). The deposit will be returned some day after the booking is complete, and the seller has no disputes.

  Or another example can be given like the deposit when we rent a house. In our case, the deposit is to ensure that the buyer will return the product in the original condition. I hope my explanation was helpful.

  

  berkayxx95 1 year, 9 months ago

  Also, I forgot to add, is it possible that sellers can have an option to require buyers to upload an ID in case there is a dispute? Some products listed can be critical, and the seller might want additional guarantee to keep his product safe. I think Airbnb has that feature.

  

  ihor 1 year, 9 months ago developer

  Thanks for your suggestions. This is just the initial version of the Bookings extension and we’ll definitely implement more features with every update, the same as on the most popular booking platforms. Implementing deposits may be an issue because WooCommerce doesn’t process returns/refunds automatically, this should be triggered on the payment provider side.

  

  berkayxx95 1 year, 9 months ago

  Hmm, so would it be reasonable to implement a one-time payment instead in Booking mode? The seller can see that as deposit, and once the booking is complete, the admin, who is me, can manually release the funds if Woocommerce does not support automatic refunds.

  

  ihor 1 year, 9 months ago developer

  Bookings are implemented as one-time payments already, but there’s no option to charge some extra amount (as a deposit), I’ve added this to the backlog so this may be implemented. Please note that you would have to make a payment manually for each booking (to return the deposit), this may be a hassle depending on the number of bookings. Maybe there’s a workaround, like charging a deposit in cash, not via the website (e.g. when users check-in, and then they can get it back on check-out)?

  

  berkayxx95 1 year, 9 months ago

  I think that workaround would work, but the lack of a trusted party between the seller and buyer may be abused in some cases. So, I’d be fine manually processing deposits.

  

  berkayxx95 1 year, 9 months ago

  Also, I think woocommerce already implemented this https://woocommerce.com/products/woocommerce-deposits/

  Deposit seems to be critical for my case, so please let me know if you can implement charging additional fees aside from booking. I think this feature would be useful to you as well, as major marketplaces like Airbnb charge certain fees besides reservations, such as cleaning fees.

  

  ihor 1 year, 9 months ago developer

  There will be more pricing features for sure (there’s a flat price per night at the moment), but there’s no ETA for the deposits feature yet. There may be a workaround, like adding a custom tax in WooCommerce that would add a fixed % to all booking amounts (and it’s possible to set a custom tax label, like the “cleaning fee” or “insurance deposit”). I’m not sure how this works on the payment processor side, returning a deposit for each payment may be considered a partial refund, and payment processors have some max refund %.

  

  berkayxx95 1 year, 9 months ago

  I think the refunds on Stripe processes smoothly as I tried it today. However, if I add a custom tax, then all bookings will seem like they’ll have a deposit. I want to give my sellers the option to ask for deposit. Is that possible? So, some sellers can enable deposit while others’ don’t

  

  ihor 1 year, 9 months ago developer

  Unfortunately there’s no such option at the moment, this would require adding some conditional logic to the booking price (depending on the seller choice in the booking settings), but thanks for your suggestion – I added it to the project backlog.

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