PayPal

Who here uses PayPal on their business account? I don't mean people who trade online with an internet shop but people who run offline businesses.

I'm interested as I have a couple of overseas clients (mainly in the Netherlands) and I got fed up of being stung for bank charges!

One of my clients just rang to sort out a couple of unpaid invoices and I told him I was thinking of setting up a PayPal account - he was delighted as he pays quite a few of his freelances using PayPal - plus it cuts bank costs to zero. That decided me and I've gone ahead with opening a PP account linked to my business account. I'm already familiar with PayPal as I use my bloke's PayPal account to shop on eBay!

So I'm interested to hear about people's experiences as a method of getting invoices paid.

 

[frank]

I have considered it but I think it seems a bit unproffesional looking for businesses.

However, I am considering using no-chex, as it seems cheaper and it doesn't appear as tacky looking as paypal

Frank

 

[YEM]

Hi,

We have paypal at the moment, as it was a short fix, while we get a merchant account sorted.

We have lost sales because of paypal. (We always follow up lost sales - we have a page in place that people must go through, prior to the actual payment page which sends us contact details). Feedback, as to why customers have not proceeded is that they don't think its safe/secure/

We are currently having a new system developed that will link the website to our customer management system and when that is in place (October/November time) we will have a merchant account through HSBC, which is much more trusted.

Paypal is ok, but when sales start being lost because of it, we had to look at other methods. We have had paypal now for approx 3 or 4 months I think (maybe longer) and it has served a purpose but it was never going to be a long term thing

Fortunately, when we offer alternative methods of paying during the follow-up (by cheque) we bring the sale back. Unfortunately though, if we didn't follow up, that would be it, as not many people will go back to the payment page and look for alternative methods, they will just log off your site and go elsewhere!

 

I wasn't planning on putting PayPal on my website. My clients usually either pay by cheque or BACS transfer (the latter being preferable as it's cheaper and saves me trips to the bank). I will only offer it to clients who would prefer to pay this way, such as my Dutch client.

 

[multilingual]

People no longer need a paypal account to use it so we can set up a page on our website for credit card payments and it is very smooth. They can pay up to £1000 without opening an account, so it's handy for the smaller jobs we get.

We don't go crazy advertising the fact though, as it can have an unprofessional feel to it, but for the amount of times we actually need to offer credit card payments (once or twice per month) it's just not worth setting up a proper system online so paypal fills the gap nicely.

JB

 

[Pebble Communications]

I use Paypal for exactly those situations. I do not have any 'pay now' button on my website as that is not appropriate for our type of business, is it.

What I have is a paypal account so that people can pay their invoices by credit card if they want. All my invoices are sent by email. At the bottom of the email is a 'pay now' link. On my invoices it lists three possible payment methods
1. by cheque
2. bank transfer ( includes account details)
3. By credit card using the secure Paypal link in the accompanying email.

There is now a 'paypal wizard' on my outlook so I can include the link by undertaking a 10 second process, and it is all set up to accept payment at the paypal end, as well as automatically inserting the pay now button into the email.

I would say it only gets used once every couple of months but has been useful as my new/one-off customers have to pay in advance, and sometimes it is too much of a rush job to wait for the other methods.

People have been perfectly happy to use it. Payment method is not even discussed really until the work is agreed and invoiced. It just gives them a faster, more convenient option, should they want it. With only a few transactions a year using credit card it is not cost-effective for me to run a bank merchant account to accept cards.

 

[SuffolkDesigns]

Plaintext - I often buy goods from UK suppliers (for offline sales) and much prefer it if I can pay using paypal. A wire transfer from here to the UK costs me about £30 so I would rather not do that

 

[YEM]

I wasn't planning on putting PayPal on my website. My clients usually either pay by cheque or BACS transfer (the latter being preferable as it's cheaper and saves me trips to the bank). I will only offer it to clients who would prefer to pay this way, such as my Dutch client.

I think, that if your clients are happy to pay in this way, then there's no problem. I think you should get an account set-up and then offer paypal as a possible method. This way, everyone's happy.

In terms of fees etc, they are cheaper than the bank so it is a cost-effective method. Just not right for us!

 

Thanks Fiona and vshosting - these are really useful responses! I doubt I'd be using PayPal more than half a dozen times a year either, but think it will be very useful for my overseas clients.

 

[Eagle]

Unprofessional?

Rubbish.

If you don't offer it, you're cutting out a gigantic proportion of your potential clients/customers.

 

Unprofessional?

Rubbish.

If you don't offer it, you're cutting out a gigantic proportion of your potential clients/customers.

I couldn't agree more with you, most of our signups/customers prefer PayPal rather than Nochex & 2Checkout.

I don't think its unprofessional at all - lots of online places using it now. For example I wanted some digital photos printing, I used: http://www.photobox.co.uk/ I was very surprised they offered PayPal.