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Alternatives to PayPal?

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Talktime

Free Member
Business Listing
Jul 19, 2016
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London
www.nationalbailiffadvice.uk
Alternatives to PayPal?


I have an e-commerce website which takes payments using PayPal. My customers are all in the UK.


I use automated payments on my website.


PayPal is upping its fees for commercial sellers in April 2021.


Does anyone have any recommendations for a PayPal alternative that can integrate into my website?


I am wondering if anyone has experience with Stripe, Authorize,.net or Braintree.
 
Talktime said:
Alternatives to PayPal?


I have an e-commerce website which takes payments using PayPal. My customers are all in the UK.


I use automated payments on my website.


PayPal is upping its fees for commercial sellers in April 2021.


Does anyone have any recommendations for a PayPal alternative that can integrate into my website?


I am wondering if anyone has experience with Stripe, Authorize,.net or Braintree.
Click to expand...

What are they increasing their fees to?

Stripe is great. Takes a week for funds to hit your account, but the fee is only 1.4%, and you're not in danger of Stripe suddenly freezing your funds or your customer opening a dispute and instantly blocking off a certain amount of funds.
 
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3-4 days to hit the account?


PayPal is immediate, but customers have 90 days to raise a dispute and a clawback.


I had an account freeze by PayPal in 2018, I had to go to the Financial Conduct Authority because the dispute was not related to my business or my account, but the stop was very damaging to the flow of business.


Do you have the fee schedule for Strips? And can you link to it?
 
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Talktime said:
3-4 days to hit the account?


PayPal is immediate, but customers have 90 days to raise a dispute and a clawback.


I had an account freeze by PayPal in 2018, I had to go to the Financial Conduct Authority because the dispute was not related to my business or my account, but the stop was very damaging to the flow of business.


Do you have the fee schedule for Strips? And can you link to it?
Click to expand...

The fees are 1.4%+20p for European cards, 2.9%+20p for non-European cards.
https://stripe.com/gb/pricing
 
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Talktime said:
That's better than PayPal, - 2.9% + 30p per transaction.

That doesn't sound much, but over a 12 month period, its a sizable chunk of my sales.
Click to expand...

It is a chunk and remember that comes out of your Profit - furthermore it's charged on the VAT inclusive price.

If you are selling at a 20% margin that means almost 20% of your profit is going to Paypal.
 
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Stripe is great, plus you can choose to automatically donate 0.5-1.5% of your sales to fund sustainable climate technology if that interests you!
 
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Multiple other companies you can use.

However what do your customers want to use? If they want to pay by clicking one button and you require them to enter a load of details - will the customers want the hassle?

Perhaps offer multiple options for the customers. Just don't be surprised if many of them stick with paypal. Even if they have to move to a different seller to do so.
 
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CianGlic said:
Stripe is great, plus you can choose to automatically donate 0.5-1.5% of your sales to fund sustainable climate technology if that interests you!
Click to expand...

And of course increase prices by a few percent to cover the extra cost.

Be better investing in the likes of Shell etc - get money for the investment as well.
 
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Definitely recommend Stripe! Very developer-friendly, good interface to I have seen a massive shift to Stripe instead of PayPal the last few years.
 
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Mr D said:
And of course increase prices by a few percent to cover the extra cost.

Be better investing in the likes of Shell etc - get money for the investment as well.
Click to expand...
Yes, because investing in fossil fuels is the answer to that problem...
 
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CianGlic said:
Yes, because investing in fossil fuels is the answer to that problem...
Click to expand...

Or more useful, the investing in other sources of power is done by ..... the companies wanting to be around in a few decades.
They want your money tomorrow not just your money today.
 
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Depends on your audience, how frequently they make purchases etc. Need to weigh whether a different platform will save you enough to justify changing what your customers are used to.
 
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I offer both options TalkTime. I allow buyers to pay with paypal or they can use a credit/debit card via stripe. Just under 70% of people use the stripe option which does save me money but I like having the PayPal option on there too.

Do make sure though if you use Stripe that your e-commenrce platform conforms to Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) otherwise purchases from European customers might get blocked.
 
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Talktime said:
Do you have the fee schedule for Strips? And can you link to it?
Click to expand...

With both PayPal and Stripe you can connect direct to Xero Accounting software, which then pulls through all the receipts and fee transactions automatically, without the need to extract a separate report.

If you then set up bank rules within the software, you can even streamline the postings.

I really recommend Xero. I love it and it has incredible flexibility in posting and reporting, plus as an accountant it has automations at the final accounts end, which saves me time, allowing me to keep my fees competitive.
 
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japancool said:
Why would I just *give* my money to fund sustainable climate technology rather than investing in it?
Click to expand...

You can do both. This is an easy way to automate your money towards alignment with your values if it is something you believe strongly in. No judgment here, just sharing my thoughts.
 
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CianGlic said:
You can do both. This is an easy way to automate your money towards alignment with your values if it is something you believe strongly in. No judgment here, just sharing my thoughts.
Click to expand...


However in order to get a decent return on the money its useful to invest in companies that will both avoid collapse and be making profits in the future.
Oil companies, turbine makers, battery makers, plastic manufacturers, alcohol makers and so on.
Not forgetting of course amazon.
 
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Talktime said:
Alternatives to PayPal?


I have an e-commerce website which takes payments using PayPal. My customers are all in the UK.


I use automated payments on my website.


PayPal is upping its fees for commercial sellers in April 2021.


Does anyone have any recommendations for a PayPal alternative that can integrate into my website?


I am wondering if anyone has experience with Stripe, Authorize,.net or Braintree.
Click to expand...

What platform is your website built on (WooCommerce, Magento, OpenCart, Wix etc)? This will determine to a degree which payment providers you can consider.
 
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I remember opening an account with WorldPay. Maybe it's changed now, but there were a number of documents and whatnot to provide before the account was approved, which took some time.

With Stripe, did it online, a few minutes and job done.
 
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japancool said:
I remember opening an account with WorldPay. Maybe it's changed now, but there were a number of documents and whatnot to provide before the account was approved, which took some time.
Click to expand...
Also Wordpay customer service is absolutely dreadful, much like PayPal. hence why I rate those 2 as the worst payment providers! Alex
 
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As pointed out on another thread, PayPal will move on fees if you put enough business through them.

We offer PayPal, Shopify payments and then also Klarna and SplitIt, basically the more ways we can give a client to pay the better!

Give PayPal a call, they will look at your account and maybe give you a discount. We were on 2.9% + 30p but it's now 1.4% + 25p and in 3 months that should come down to 1.3% + 25p.
 
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We rid of PayPal 2 years ago, I am not sure who and why people still use or like them for merchant services, other people in similar industry have also followed suit and go rid.

Stripe is going to be the best recommendation, absolutely faultless for years on end, good fee structure and fast payouts non of PayPal buyer protection joke scheme or holds on your money - Just straight up business.
 
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HostOX said:
We rid of PayPal 2 years ago, I am not sure who and why people still use or like them for merchant services, other people in similar industry have also followed suit and go rid.
Click to expand...

There is a big difference between using PayPal for merchant services and simply accepting payment via PayPal. The vast majority still do the latter and have not ditched PayPal.
 
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japancool said:
Because customers like using it.
Click to expand...

I agree, that is the biggest issue but after our eBay business running with them we ditched them. Moved retail to our own site + stripe, does great and never have ANY issues of customers thinking their complaint should be a paypal case.

I guess if you have time for it accept it, but many in hosting also have similar issues with complaints being a paypal case and it all becomes extremely time consuming to resolve.

It's a shame as I like their little capital loans + their debit card you get which is a superb feature.

Even eBay are ditching them for their own payment systems which will be a HUGE source of revenue, I can only assume fees will have to increase to handle the loss.
 
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japancool said:
They also now offer a Pay-in-3 feature like Klarna, and it's cheaper for merchants than Klarna's offering as well.
Click to expand...

I agree they have some superb features, however once you have a very large consumer base IMO it becomes less suitable as numerous people do abuse their customer protection scheme to blackmail companies in a way.

Most of the larger companies especially in the hosting industry only take card payments direct now.
 
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I find PayPal much more reasonable on cases than the banks - chargebacks are just flat out fraud in the vast majority of cases and the banks pretty much always side with their customer, even when you provide proof of delivery, photos etc. Every time that happens I report them to the regulator.

There is a big scandal to be uncovered on chargebacks and the banks’ approach to it.
 
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HostOX said:
I agree, that is the biggest issue but after our eBay business running with them we ditched them. Moved retail to our own site + stripe, does great and never have ANY issues of customers thinking their complaint should be a paypal case.

I guess if you have time for it accept it, but many in hosting also have similar issues with complaints being a paypal case and it all becomes extremely time consuming to resolve.

It's a shame as I like their little capital loans + their debit card you get which is a superb feature.

Even eBay are ditching them for their own payment systems which will be a HUGE source of revenue, I can only assume fees will have to increase to handle the loss.
Click to expand...

Back when ebay and paypal split, ebay was a massive percentage of paypal business.
Now? Would expect it to be perhaps as little as 10%.

Even with ebay new payment system paypal is still involved. Customers can pay by paypal, or by one of several other payment methods.
The sellers no longer receive payment via paypal - that is the change.
 
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Guy Incognito said:
I find PayPal much more reasonable on cases than the banks - chargebacks are just flat out fraud in the vast majority of cases and the banks pretty much always side with their customer, even when you provide proof of delivery, photos etc. Every time that happens I report them to the regulator.

There is a big scandal to be uncovered on chargebacks and the banks’ approach to it.
Click to expand...

Judge and jury - do they support their customer or the big business that failed to provide what customer ordered?
I daresay there is often limited information to go on from either side.

Buyer says they have not had item, seller says item was signed for. Both can be telling the truth. Or one lying.
 
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