This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1 · go to the accepted answer.
I have three months of notes on payment method and the honest summary is that the trend is real and the week-to-week numbers are noise. I nearly drew the opposite conclusion from the first fortnight.
No payment facilitation: this site does not handle payments and does not connect buyers and sellers for the purpose of payment. We discuss logistics and documentation of the process but not the commerce itself.
One of those cases where knowing the mechanism does not help the decision.
This follows post #31 rather than contradicting it.
Offering a way to settle payment method rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision.
Coming back to post #31, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
If you are new and reading this thread for the answer to payment method: the answer is conditional, the conditions are in the third reply, and the rest of the thread is worth skipping.
Confirming the total before paying rather than after is obvious and is skipped constantly, particularly where shipping is added late.
Escrow services: some third-party services hold payment until the buyer confirms receipt. They add cost but reduce risk if the supplier is unknown.
Adding a note of thanks rather than an opinion. I did not know most of that.
This is the answer, and the reason it is the answer is the more useful part.
Fraud and scams: if a supplier demands payment upfront with no recourse if delivery fails, you are taking a risk. Reputation and history of other buyers matter.
Not a conclusion. A place to stand while looking for one.
Confirming post #40 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
The practical questions in this subcategory are about recourse, records and timing, and none of them are chemistry. That is worth stating because the subcategory attracts chemistry answers.
It took me longer than it should have to see that.
Two things can be true about payment method at once: the mechanism is plausible and the evidence for the size of the effect is thin. Most of the argument here is people defending the first against attacks on the second.
Currency conversion: payment in your local currency often involves a conversion fee. Paying in the supplier's native currency sometimes saves money, sometimes costs more. Compare before committing.
I would treat that as a working assumption and revisit it.
Post #44 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Recording the time from payment to dispatch is worth doing, because it is the part of the process most within the supplier's control.
If this contradicts something upthread, the upthread version may well be the better one.
The site does not carry prices, payment details or transaction routes, and questions asking for them will be answered with that rather than with a link.
The literature is thinner on this than the confidence in the thread implies.
Right — I had this wrong and I am glad to have read it before it mattered.
Source for the payment method figure, since it was asked for. It is in the discussion rather than the abstract, which is why the version circulating is stronger than the paper is.
Reading the surrounding paragraph is worth the two minutes. The authors are more careful than their summarisers.
Cryptocurrency for payment: offers less fraud protection than credit cards and is final like bank transfer. Advantage: no geographic restrictions and no intermediary can reverse it. Disadvantage: if you send to a wrong address, it is lost.
That has been true for the cases I have seen and I have not seen many.
Speaking only to payment method as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect.
Something worth flagging about payment method: the strongest-sounding claims in this thread are the ones with no source attached, which is the usual pattern and not a coincidence.
That is the distinction I keep failing to hold on to. Written down now.
Payment mechanics: most suppliers accept bank transfer, crypto, and some accept credit cards. Each has different risk and different fees. Understand before you commit to a payment method.
Payment method has a well-known answer and a correct answer, and the interesting work is establishing that they are the same. Nobody has done that here yet.
Where I part company with post #53, and it is a narrow parting.
My understanding of payment method is a few years old and may have been superseded. If it has been, I would genuinely like to know rather than keep repeating it.
Payment method: I would want to see the raw numbers rather than the summary before agreeing. Summaries lose exactly the information that would settle this.
Escrow services: some third-party services hold payment until the buyer confirms receipt. They add cost but reduce risk if the supplier is unknown.