Guest Posted July 14, 2003 Share Posted July 14, 2003 Hi, I'm currently using the PayPal IPN to accept creditcard payments. I'm not particularly happy with PayPal at the moment. The extra step of creating a PayPal account OR signing into a PayPal account seems to deter some customers. I'd like to see what other Payment companies others use and hear why they like them. Thanks, Shawn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newid Posted July 24, 2003 Share Posted July 24, 2003 Shawn, I use paypal. Mainly because I've used them from the beginning and I do alot of selling on ebay (as most ebay sellers will tell you, it's almost a sin NOT to accept paypal payments these days on ebay). But you're right. Having to go through a completely separate "join" process at paypal may deter some customers from ordering. I've gotten over this as most of my customers DO come from ebay in one way or another. And since they're using ebay, I feel that they really need to be a member of paypal anyway for security reasons. Anyway, there are a couple of things that you could do that may help. 1. Switch to another solution. From what I've see, 2checkout.com has a really great package. It's somewhat similar to what I used before paypal gave us the "web accept" buttons to use on an e-commerce site, which was ccnow.com. You don't have to create an account to make a purchase, HOWEVER, 2checkout actually becomes the retailer for the products/services that you sell. You will have to pay a higher transaction fee than you do at paypal (2.9% at paypal compared to 5.5% at 2checkout) and you WON'T get your money right away. They have a 2 week schedule that they use to dispurse the monies owed to you by them. You might also want to consider your own merchant account. The main thing you get with your own merchant account that you won't get with paypal or 2checkout is the ability to enter orders yourself. This is handy for those who take phone orders or take orders in person at shows or whatnot. Paypal will not allow you to enter another persons card info, and neither will 2checkout (apparently 2checkout WILL let you, but only in emergency cases and they have to be pre-approved on a case-by-case basis). The ONLY 3rd party solution I've seen that allows you to enter orders manually is propay.com. In the past, I've heard of something called "credit card factoring" which is the practice of using one merchant account to process transactions from more than one merchant. This went against most merchant account agreements because it was too risky. How propay.com is able to do it, I'm not sure. But you can probably bet that in order to sign on with them, they are going to want to see that you ARE a legitimate seller and not a scheme of some sort, because it would mean THEIR ass if something went wrong.... 2. Use the negatives at paypal to your advantage. The negatives of using paypal (customer has to sign up with them, etc), are actually positives to the customer. They just don't know it yet! Explain to your customers that you use paypal BECAUSE. Let them know that as a paypal member, they will be able to send payments securely to millions of people who are also paypal members. Also let them know that the key to paypal is that YOU as the seller, will NEVER see their card info, and neither will any other seller that they pay through the paypal system. This is the main reason that I PREFER to use paypal as a buyer. You know the benefits of using paypal as a seller. Having the money available to you IMMEDIATELY through a debit card associated with your account is a big one for me. When someone pays me using paypal, that money is available to me RIGHT AWAY by going to any cash machine. You also save on monthly "service" charges that you'd have to pay by going with a traditional merchant account while still getting a "per transaction" rate that is comparable to a traditional merchant account. But, as a buyer, I PREFER to use paypal (and most paypal members are the same way). Because I know that when I buy something using paypal, the seller will not see my card info. I trust paypal payments more than I trust giving my number to someone using a traditional merchant account because I know that paypal is VERY rigorous when it comes to security and making sure their sellers are on the up and up. The first sign of incompetence, and paypal will freeze a sellers account and investigage them! Many people view this as a negative on paypal. And many people with good intentions who've gone through this nightmare with paypal will likely never use them again! But for the most part, account freezes happen because something isn't ringing correctly with a seller. Now I might be opening flood gates with this last comment, but I can only speak from experience. My brother sold stuff on ebay for awhile. I showed him how to do it and he was doing well for some time. THEN, he started getting lazy. Not shipping orders for a week, then two, then not answering emails altogether. The negative feedback remarks started looking like a rap sheet! Paypal froze his account with the money still in there. He could not refund payments, anything. But, in my opinion, it was his own fault for slacking. When he asked me for help, I opened his inbox (which he had admittedly not done in a couple of weeks because it was overbearing for him), and low and behold there were several emails from paypal trying to get in touch with him due to all the complaints they were getting. Paypal tried to sort it out, but because he would not reply, they froze his account (as per their agreement). He brought it on himself. Me? I've been with paypal for four years now (since X.com was around) and have never had a problem with them. Don't get me wrong though. I make DARN sure that there is never too much money in my paypal account in case they ever do freeze it. I always keep under a couple hundred dollars in there, and I recommend to everyone that they do the same, cause when paypal starts investigating, well, it could easily take a month or so, and your money is frozen in space (earning them interest of course), until it's taken care of. Anyway, there are two sides to every coin and it certainly won't be difficult to find MANY people who have plenty of reasons why you should not use paypal. So expect them. But if you, as a seller, trust paypal and enjoy using them, then you should maybe consider trying to instill some of that trust into your customers. Let them know WHY you prefer to use paypal. You don't see alot of this going on nowadays as compared to back in the day where you could get ten bucks from paypal for referrals. At that time, EVERYONE was telling each other how great paypal is! I put paypal's referral system down as probably the most successful in the history of the net. Amazon started it, and did great with it, but paypal's affiliate thing put them ALL OVER ebay in a matter of a few days. There's no telling how much they paid out in referral fees in that short amount of time, but apparently, it worked! Just ask the guys that USED to own paypal (if you can find them).... Beau Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 24, 2003 Share Posted July 24, 2003 Depends where u are.......... I'm in the UK and currently use Worldpay on several different osc sites. Have to say that there service and setup was great and they gave me regular updates on progress. Pricing isn't bad I suppose, but it looks more professional than paypal (although I accept that as well) more people choose to pay via CC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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