Paypal - a professional payment processor?

[creospace]

I have been giving this some thought over the past couple of weeks as a businesses person who makes purchases and doesn't run any ecommerce sites.

I have a visa company payment card and obviously a company account where I can pay by direct transfer etc. Do I really need anything else? Why should I have to go through the rigmarole of setting up a paypal account waiting and then having to get a code thing?

What are your thoughts on sites that insist on paypal only and don't take cards, is it really professional to make someone sign up to pay?

Gary

[multilingual]

Gary,

As I mentioned in another thread, PayPal no longer require people to sign up to make payments.

JB

[creospace]

I couldnt see any other way of doing it with the company I dealt with, I had to pay to an email address? Certianly they didn't inform me of this, not to say they may not of known.

[Pebble Communications]

I use paypal for all my card 'sales' as it was the cheapest and easiest option for me. I don't do enough to warrant paying for a proper bank merchant thing so I can take cards directly.

All that happens is that when I e-mail people's invoices to them I include a Pay now button at the bottom of the e-mail and that takes them straight through to that transaction on Paypal. All the details are already completed apart from their card ones. They don't need a paypal account to pay me.

It's not perfect, I'd rather be able to take card payments over the phone, but it's not economical for me at the moment.

I'd find it odd if that were the only payment option though. My clients can also make direct transfers (BACS or CHAPS) or send me a cheque. I've even taken cash from one local client.

Fiona Bailey
www.pebblecommunications.co.uk

[Hedgehog Toys]

From experience i will avoid Paypal at all costs but this is not to say that other providers are awful. Nochex for example, we have found them to be fantastic.

[crus]

No,

but should be part of yourt sales stratergy.

I deal with onbe of the largest domain companies who have integrated paypal successfully alongside other payment methods.

D

[autolycus]

I've tried to avoid taking payments via PayPal.

Firstly, this is because I don't feel (purely personal opinion of course!) that it projects a very "professional" image. In my mind, PayPal is still heavily associated with eBay sellers rather than "proper" (for want of a better word) businesses.

Secondly, I have heard horror stories of PayPal freezing accounts etc. See www.paypalsucks.com.

Finally, there is the issue of cost. Paypal charge something like 3.4% (from memory) for every transaction, plus 20p. I think that applies to *all* transactions (even debit card and inter-account transfers) once you enable credit cards on your PayPal account.

By contrast, getting set up to take credity cards over the phone via a merchant account has cost us:

£150 setup fee to the bank

bank charge of under 3% per credit card transaction
bank charge of about 60p per debit card transaction

£10 per month to www.protx.com for their virtual terminal service

If we wanted to take payments on our site as well, then we'd just need ot pay protx.com £20pm instead.

So, for us, PayPal worked out more expensive (and most of our customers pay by cheque so it isn't like we are getting good rates for doing lots of transactions).

Dave.

[DavidHorn]

PayPal are definitely have a 'bargain bin' appearance - but they do their job reasonably well. 3.4% isn't too bad either.

For US clients you can use PayPalPro which integrates fully with your site - but it's a nightmare to set up from a developers point of view.

[Rob Holmes]

Well we decided to add paypal to our systems after requests from US customers (who we block using our Worldpay)

It works as well for them as anything else.

Rob

[DuaneJackson]

60p on debit cards?! That's almost twice what we are paying.

I agree withthe comments that paypal looks cheap, I'd avoid it.

If I have two sites to buy from, all being equal except payment methods - I'd not use the paypal one.

[SillyJokes]

Customers like it.

[clairemackaness]

For a small business like me, paypal is the only sensible option. I've never had any complaints and at the end of the day it comes with the assurance that if I am dishonest they are covered with payment protection.

[Top Hat]

Customers like it.

Customers do like it.

Based on our last 10,000 sales
Credit Cards 80%
Paypal 19%
Cheques 1%

Paypal is 3rd in the list of payment buttons and 1/2 the size of the credit/debit card button.

[ewan]

Use NoChex, Paypal is like the AOL of payment processers, absolutely sh*t for anything professional. (http://www.paypalsucks.com/ says it all)

NoChex has not had anything bad coming from its thousands of users at all + its cheaper!

[YMW]

NoChex has not had anything bad coming from its thousands of users at all + its cheaper!

I have heard a lot of negative things about nochex, esp about 18months ago so perhaps they have improved now.
I just read a survey on another business site where people were not in favour of nochex at all, so it is interesting to hear the complete opposite here!

[ewan]

I've personally heard only praise for NoChex from several shopping cart forums, I'm surprised that there were complaints, what were they about exactly?

Anyway, the general consensus is that while it may be reasonably easy to implement, Paypal isn't great for a professionally made online store. The problems highlighted by paypalsucks.com make it seem too great a risk to have any large amounts of money running through Paypal.

[YMW]

Thank you for your reply. I will have another look at nochex. I think if I remember correctly the problems were to do with refunds, I think partial refunds (which wouldn't be an issue for us anyway) and occassionally people had paid using nochex, the money left their account about was not credited to the retailer. So it was floating about somewhere and nochex wasn't vey helpful.
As I say it was a while ago and I can't remember all the details, but if you say you have read good things recently it sounds worth another look :)