Paypal

[maxine]

Hi

My website uses the Paypal shopping cart for retail - it's going ok but I wonder if customers are put off with having to register with Paypal first?? I've recently heard a few bad reports of Paypal but when I did a web search all the criticisms seemed to be from a few years ago - 2000, 2001 - has anyone any advice or warnings or even anything good to say about Paypal? Have they fixed all their problems?

Thanks
Maxine

[cyanide]

hi maxine,

well, yes lots of people have bad mouthed paypal.

ofcourse, the bigger you become, the bigger the target you are.

Personally, I would be more concerned about what kind of e-commerce solution it's providing.

I wonder if customers are put off with having to register with Paypal first?

this would be my main concern. I wouldn't like the idea of having any potential client leaving my site.

There's nothing wrong with offering Paypal, but I wouldn't make it my main/only choice.

There are lots of payment processors around. You should do some research.

[djoakes]

Dear Maxine:

I just joined on here so my comments are a bit late to your original posting.

However, for an inexpensive shopping cart solution that is easy to set up and full of features, consider Just Add Commerce (JAC). It costs $300./year (could be higher now?) and offers a ton of options. If you would like to see a site I developed using JAC, visit www.coinsandbears.com

Good Luck.

[Mardell]

I have found that customers, who would otherwise be leary of submitting their credit card information to a smaller website, are more apt to order when processing goes through a larger outfit like PayPal.

[Traffic]

I am realy concerned about Paypal fees for sellers. Though I am very much impressed with the whole system I am now thinking of another way to accept money on my website. The FEES is really KILLING Me.
Does anybody know a good alternative to PayPal with less fees.?
I do hope that someone from Paypal listens to this Post and I am pretty sure that there are thousands of users who think the same way like me.
Regards
Cheri
www.trafficwithcash.com

[TrafficProducer]

PayPal Support Club. Review and helpful links, coding examples, warnings, other shopping cart links, etc. PayPay is a on-link banking system that allows website owners to integrate shopping cart technology into their site. Find out more, includes links to helpful site about PayPal shopping cart technology.

http://www.paypal.ukshoppers.com/index.html

[Inspector4424]

To anyone that thinks they can make money without spending ALOT of time getting the formula right. There is no easy way to generate capitol. Paypal is a very fair way to pay small ebay auctions. However if you plan to do alot of selling, you need to set up your own credit card receiveing account. Only then can you get to where you actualy make money.

Good Luck,
Ben

[kjohnson5576]

I've looked around for other merchant accounts and have been pretty disappointed. I've seen some that charge a little less as a percentage of the sale but there are setup fees approaching $100 and a $20/month statement fee, and usually minimums, plus fees to get your money etc.

If you are selling over $1000 a month in a PayPal Business Account, you qualify for lower rates and the rates are significantly lower.

I've had some customers complain about signing up with PayPal, but they do if they really want something. If I start approachine $7000-$10000 a month in sales, I'll certainly give more options. Until then...PayPal is not really that bad.

[Moondancer]

We use two different card processing services on our sites to offer clients a choice... paypal(which requires registration) and 2checkout(which doesn't)... 2checkout is a bit higher in fees but almost comparable to paypal.. it very rarely gets used.. but it is nice to offer an alternative for those customers who recoil at the thought of a paypal account.

[JMac]

I use a PayPal shopping cart on all my small business clients' websites. In the privacy and "about" pages, I list the reasons we've chosen PayPal and topping the list is "the BUYER protection policies in place". I link that to the PayPal page that talks about money back guarantees and the other buyer benefits. Many people check that link out. I talk about not giving your credit card information to just any business out there that tells you to - always look for https - all that kind of thing.
I find that linking to the clients' Reputation on PayPal helps sell, too.
Fees - "pay now or pay later, we all pay" is the first thing that comes to mind. I have access to other shopping cart systems but they all seem to require more from us than they provide themselves. I'll look at user friendly shopping cart systems when they come along but unless you're putting $5,000 + through your PayPal account each month - the fees are along the same lines. (At least we don't have to tack on the ebay fees!)

JMac

[scootertopia]

Be very careful with paypal. I have a good friend who had an ebay account. He is an honorable, dependable businessman. paypal has over $50,000 of his money tied up for 180 days. No time frame for the release, all based on two customer complaints, that appear to be fraudulent. Almost two years of good business no unresolved complaints. It appears to me that they jump at the opportunity to seize funds. I tried them at one time but found merchant services is much more professional. I would do some research on paypal. last I knew they were in court on at least one class action for similar events.
Good luck,
Mike
www.scootertopia.com

[albaby]

Been using it since 97. Best for auctions, But LOTS of small time ecommerce store use it.
Biggest prob with Paypal is useablilty: One has to to ANOTEHR thing to get it to work, JOIN. That turns some folk off.
On the other hand, a person could use it one time, and never again, and all its takes is putting in the your email, the cc data, and cliking OK.

One DOENSNT have to "actualy join" as so many think. You just ignore the e-mails after the trans is thru.

It is NOT high proced with a biz acct, no requirements either, just sign up. I wouldnt call 2.37 % a high charge myself.

Plus, join, and now you have an acct and YOU can buy off ebay FAST.......... and several other 1000's upon 1000's of merchants. You get a free debit card to withdraw your $$$, its pretty neat. AND ITS NOT GOING ANYWEHERE SOON with Ebay owning it.

I am not a investor, but wish I was!

Al
Tucson

[ben332211]

use paypal on my site to accept payments for optional bonus packs for the primarily free game I program and run at www.mechg.com and it suits my purpose fine.

The fees are minimal in my mind, and it's a great system that's easy to set up with no overheads or monthly charges.

I pay my website hosting out of it too, so it means the sites comings and goings are easy to track, and I don't have to have the hassle of setting up a real life bank acocunt for it, :D

I think it has its uses, for new or small businesses or sites offering a few products on thier primarily non-business site, but fo rbig companies, a different payment system is obviously preferable...

I think it's a good system to accept though, even if you have a surcharge to those using that method, as it opens up your site to more potential customers, who may not have the means to pay another way...

[tsindos]

Cyanide said "ofcourse, the bigger you become, the bigger the target you are."
I am in Cyprus trying for a long time now to put PayPal on my site but they do not cover such a small island.
Apparently, they are not that big...

[ben332211]

They don't cover Japan either... :(

They do cover alot of the world though, :D

[oldhippy100]

I'm surprised PayPal don't cover Japan... they accept payments in Yen, and they certainly cater for buyers in Japan, I know because I deal with a few...
My biggest problem with PayPal is their fee levels for small transactions... if you're billing someone for only a pound or two, their fees are enormous... around 10-15%!! But I have to say that overall they're cheaper than most merchant accounts, as there's no set-up or monthly charge.

[zbatia]

I use PayPal to sell the Discounted Transcender software simulation exams (as an authorized dealer) as well as accept the payments for affordable Web Hosting. I like the simplicity (I did not find anything complicated). At the same time, there is some number of folks who fill out the form but don't pay. This topic gave me a piece of mind to try to find out what was a cause of non-payment.
http://www.rtek2000.com/transcender2.html
http://www,rtek2000.com/Tech/WebHosting.html

[SyrenSong]

I've got to agree about PayPal being the least expensive way to go for small businesses.

Less than 3% per charge.
No setup fees.
Buyer and Seller protections.

Yeah. Folks have to join, but information and hassle-wise, it's no worse than what you have to do to send a gift certificate through J.C. Penney's, or make most other online purchases. They certainly don't ask for any more information than the other "big dogs" do.

I've got a couple of clients using PayPal and they love it. They've had no problems and no hassles. They're small businesses, so most other online services like PayPal just don't make sense for them. They simply don't get enough sales to warrant expensive merchant account fees, etc.

I recommend PayPal wholeheartedly.

Syren

[claudiasneed]

I must say that at one time PayPal was the only "game in town". As a matter of fact I was going to use them my self until I used them my self! All I wanted to do was pay for something with my MasterCard, but before I could do that I had to answer questions about my bank account including giving them my acct. number!!! This had absolutely nothing to do with my credit card transaction! At that point I was Fed-up with them, being a "customer" at that point I felt that no consumer needs to be put through that kind of questioning. I feel that if I won't do it I will not make my customers do it!! SO, I ended up paying through PaySystems, no hassle just a "normal" transaction. I now use them on my own site as my Payment processor! Also another very good payment processor is StormPay, I'm adding them to my other processor to give my customers a choice. But after MY experience with PayPal I would NEVER recomend them to ANYONE, not even my competetors!!!!

[Moondancer]

I've been tracking this thread because I found it interesting.. From the postings I believe it boils down to 2 considerations... what your customers say about your payment processing service and what you personally have experienced with various processing services. Your most important consideration, of course, is your customers' wishes first.. However, considering there are as many choices in those types of services as everything else on net, it's probably not that difficult an issue to settle.

[swstyles]

Many of my clients don't want to deal with getting a merchant account. Most of the sales they generate from their websites wouldn't constitute paying the merchant account fees. Paypal is a great starting point for the small business owner trying to get a foothold on the web. If my client doesn't already have a merchant account I strongly suggest they go with paypal.

My partner and I are photographers and we currently shot a couple of ice skating competitions in phoenix and sold the prints online. We generated 1000's in sales and we used paypal. I ran the shopping cart from our site and the final payment was made through paypal. We had over 500 paypal transactions and a total of 546 orders on the shopping cart. 24 of the unfinished 46 orders were duplicates and the other 20 were not completed because of unkown reasons. That is a pretty good percentage of people that had no problem using paypal.

We received a couple of calls because some people didn't understand what paypal was. But once we explained the process, they had no problem signing up for an account. We have had a lot of success using paypal and I will continue to be pro paypal as long as it serves me and clients well.

[SyrenSong]

I'm with you, swstyles!

For small businesses, non-profits, and artists, etc., that just don't have the extra cash to put into a merchant account, PayPal is truly a blessing. It also gives experimental businesses a chance to wet their feet. The same with someone offering a brand new product and artists. They may go a month or more without making any sales, but then suddenly they make $1,000 in a single month.

That may not sound like much money to some people, but when you're not used to making that much money from a website, that's a lot of cold, hard cash that you would never have seen without a company like PayPal to help you take credit card payments.

It's a wonderful service and the price is right for folks just starting out. I'm behind them 100%!

Syren