Why we're dumping PayPal

[movietub]

Afraid your experience is simple one amongst 1.5 billion internet users.

Hardly a basis for a serious conclusion on what works best for the majority of web sellers.

Earl

But thats my point exactly. You cannot ask or be told the best solution, you have to experiment to find the best solution for yourself.

It sounded like the poster I quoted was saying 'why change, works fine as is' which is a great way to live a peaceful exisitense but not the best way to develop and grow a business.

 

But thats my point exactly. You cannot ask or be told the best solution, you have to experiment to find the best solution for yourself.

It sounded like the poster I quoted was saying 'why change, works fine as is' which is a great way to live a peaceful exisitense but not the best way to develop and grow a business.

Experiment.

Science and facts for me.

Although horses for courses ,can come down to your individual target market.

Although not sure about worldpay .? I do believe I own 70% of it already or was it part of Sir Fred's pension pot?.

Earl

 

[bdw]

I am still waiting for someone to tell me that they would not buy because a site does not take Paypal.

What I actually said in this respect was, "When making a purchase I will generally use Paypal by preference if it is available."

I did not say that I would only buy from Paypal websites.

 

[Tom McClelland]

But thats my point exactly. You cannot ask or be told the best solution, you have to experiment to find the best solution for yourself.

It sounded like the poster I quoted was saying 'why change, works fine as is' which is a great way to live a peaceful exisitense but not the best way to develop and grow a business.

When a new prospect rings us up and asks questions about our products we often mention that payments are processed by Paypal so you need a Paypal account or to enter a debit/credit card number into the Paypal system (ie a process which from the customer point of view is either virtually identical to other payment methods or greatly superior if they're already a member). The proportion of potential customers who express even the mildest disquiet about paying via Paypal is vanishingly small (and reducing, anecdotally, a few years ago we got disquiet about this more often than we do now)

There are plenty of things about every business, including 12Pay, which could definitely be improved if only we had enough time and money to spend on them without spending time and money fixing things where there is no evidence that those things are broken at all.

Paypal may well not work for other businesses, but it works well for us and doesn't appear to present a difficulty to any significant number of our clients.

 

[Connexions]

Paypal 'can' only really be a problem when its used for online shopping selling items (like the op) and doesnt really apply for those offering services like ours. Having said that, there would have to be a high number of item sales for you to have chargebacks, although they do happen ofc.

Its an interesting debate about 'whether you loose sales not offering paypal'. I guess it boils down to 'do people who have paypal also have a credit card. A large amount dont i would think'.

 

Its an interesting debate about 'whether you loose sales not offering paypal'. I guess it boils down to 'do people who have paypal also have a credit card. A large amount dont i would think'.

Bit confused there .

How can you have a Paypal account without either a debit or credit card.?:|

Earl

 

[Connexions]

My wife has a paypal account with her bank account attached to it. Am i missing something?

 

My wife has a paypal account with her bank account attached to it. Am i missing something?

Brave woman.

Earl

 

[Connexions]

Brave woman.

Earl

thats true but only way to get your money away from their hands i think

 

[silvermusic]

It strikes me some folk need to take their head out of the sand regarding PayPal and look at the benefits rather than going on old, out of date and quite frankly inaccurate information. While I accept it may not be suitable for some types of products, i.e. those items highly sort after by the criminal element, for most people both customers and retailers it offers many benefits.

Firstly let's put one myth to bed. If you're a customer buying on a web site that offers PayPal you do not need to set up a PayPal account in order to make a purchase, just pop in your card and address details the same as any other third party service provider. Of course you'll be given the option to set up a PayPal account if you so wish.

The PayPal/eBay connection. Why does this put some retailers off, I've no idea, if anything it should be seen as a benefit. Almost everyone who buys and certainly anyone who sells on eBay has a PayPal account, it's a form of payment they're familiar with and quite happy to use. Added to that, there's tons of people who sell small amounts that have money in their accounts burning a hole in their pocket, given the size of the eBay population I'm not going to turn their money away.

PayPal as a brand. Look at the actual real figures for the last few years, PayPal's biggest growth area is outside of ebay, more and more sites are using it, even household name retailers. It's a brand that's well recognised in it's own right as being safe and trustworthy. You never have to give you card info to unknown sites, has to be a great selling point in the customers eyes for us smaller guys right?

On a personal level losses from PayPal funded sales are so small I don't even measure them, in fact I had to go through several years PayPal spreadsheets to find any, a figure of less than one in a thousand as someone else said earlier is about right. Losses are a fact of life from any such service, WorldPay, SagePay, etc. No one is immune to them. Using common sense I see no reason why they should ever be higher on PayPal.

..anyway I'm off to enjoy a glass of something nice and a mince pie.

 

[movietub]

When a new prospect rings us up and asks questions about our products we often mention that payments are processed by Paypal so you need a Paypal account or to enter a debit/credit card number into the Paypal system (ie a process which from the customer point of view is either virtually identical to other payment methods or greatly superior if they're already a member). The proportion of potential customers who express even the mildest disquiet about paying via Paypal is vanishingly small (and reducing, anecdotally, a few years ago we got disquiet about this more often than we do now)

There are plenty of things about every business, including 12Pay, which could definitely be improved if only we had enough time and money to spend on them without spending time and money fixing things where there is no evidence that those things are broken at all.

Paypal may well not work for other businesses, but it works well for us and doesn't appear to present a difficulty to any significant number of our clients.

I understand your comments entirely, your point of view also. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

And I agree paypal is sufficient and just almost identical to any other gateway even if you don't have a paypal account.

The problem is that I felt that way prior to my business partner pursuading me to include protx in the next website release. The reality was that paypal transactions did not decrease, but new customers appeared that clearly had stayed away before as they were not paypal friendly. The fact that none of your customers tell you they don't like paypal is niether here nor there. If paypal only puts them off the site they will never get as far as speaking to you.

This thread demonstrates that even on the commercial side there is a lot of mis-information regarding paypal. Imagine how many casual shoppers have the wrong idea. For every person that loves paypal and recognises its benefits (to the shopper) there will be someone else that sees it (even though its not) as an over complicated addition to the simple process of typing ones credit card number to complete a sale.

If you only offer paypal you will largely only sell to paypal friendly shoppers, that much is common sense surely.

 

[movietub]

Experiment.

Science and facts for me.

Although horses for courses ,can come down to your individual target market.


Earl

Science is experimentation, thats also where we get facts from. You couldn't be less entrepenureal saying something like that! If business was a simple matter of tried and tested textbook approach then everyone would be a succesful businessman.

Honestly.

 

[sherry_d]

You cant simply say paypal is good or bad. You have to TEST, some markets respond very well and love paypal like B2B download products. You may get chargebacks but hey thats part of the business, I wouldnt worry over it unless its a significant % of your sales .

I must say again please TEST no one can tell you for sure, I have used paypal and it does well in some markets esp when dealing with the more internet savy people. In some markets it simply wasnt converting that well. The best is to offer both, I have a payment processor and also a paypal button and I get occassional sales from paypal

Also everyone seem to think with paypal, you can see its paypal, there is paypal pro which is also good if you are testing the water, only downside is there are monthly fees in addition to paypal fees, I think £20 a month.

 

[jasonnoguchi]

Seriously, the chargebacks frustrate me as a business owner but as a consumer, I personally use paypal a lot more than CC. Which means that there will be some sales I won't have made otherwise without paypal. Since my business do not involve retailing physical products which i will stand a capital loss if a chargeback occurs, I have continued to offer paypal.

 

[cocovirgin]

cannot agree more. we had a ebay shop, very small busniss with very small profit...we stopped business last summer...
The paypal would froze the account money if the buyer open dispute, the seller will never win...we lost a lot, cannot afford it now
Paypal is attached to eBay, leave you no choice to open paypal when open a shop on eBay
We had better to be a buyer not a seller, because a seller can easily lose than really make money.

 

Science is experimentation, thats also where we get facts from. You couldn't be less entrepenureal saying something like that! If business was a simple matter of tried and tested textbook approach then everyone would be a succesful businessman.

Honestly.

OK now I know where your going wrong.

"Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them. "

Earl

 

[movietub]

OK now I know where your going wrong.

"Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them. "

Earl

Is that not experimentation? You clearly rely on dictionary definition and text book approach to run your business.

In which case may I respectfully suggest the following textbook?

Available in large print if required

 

Is that not experimentation? You clearly rely on dictionary definition and text book approach to run your business.

In which case may I respectfully suggest the following textbook?

Available in large print if required

No you argumentative twit its a fact finding mission.
.

I tried that book but it was much to advanced for me.:|

Earl

 

[bdw]

I was looking at something else just then and I came across this link.

https://www.paypal-offers.co.uk/page.do?page=intro&currentTab=merchants

It's interesting to note how many large companies and well known businesses now use Paypal. Clearly they don't see any stigma in doing so.

Lots of household names in there, e.g. BBC, American Airlines, Emirates, William Hill, Ladbrokes, 888.com, CD Wow, DABs, DHL, Vistaprint, Maplin, Misco, Skype, Boots, HP, Lloyds Pharmacy, House of Fraser, BHS , Burtons, Laura Ashley, Nike, Toys R Us, TK Maxx, Gadget Shop, Goldsmiths, etc, etc.

Interesting, eh?

 

[sysops]

Lots of household names in there, e.g. BBC, American Airlines, Emirates, William Hill, Ladbrokes, 888.com, CD Wow, DABs, DHL, Vistaprint, Maplin, Misco, Skype, Boots, HP, Lloyds Pharmacy, House of Fraser, BHS , Burtons, Laura Ashley, Nike, Toys R Us, TK Maxx, Gadget Shop, Goldsmiths, etc, etc.

Interesting, eh?

Not really, no.

They do it for the same reason we did it, to attempt to increase conversion rate.

But for every site you name that offers PayPal, I can name 10 that don't. Does that prove anything? No, no more than your list does.

 

[quikshop]

I've taken the decision to no longer offer PayPal as a payment option from the 5th Jan

We made the decision to drop PayPal from our martial arts shop several months ago for very similar reasons.

We reached the point where we would be getting a dozen or so PayPal payment disputes a week from customers because they had either;

a) Changed their mind after order had been sent out,
b) Order didn't arrive the next day,
c) Quote "by accident"

We even had one customer dispute her own transaction within minutes of placing an order and said "I'll cancel the dispute as soon as my order arrives".

It is difficult to know the true impact of not offering PayPal but revenues have increased more than 80% (from a low base) since removing PayPal and the few charge backs we get can now be properly managed and challenged.

The level of fraudulent order attempts and completions has dropped significantly.

To summarise, we've seen no negatives and several positives to our business in dropping PayPal and just offering RBSWorldpay.

 

[sysops]

Out of interest Dave, what % of your orders were PayPal before you dropped it?

 

[quikshop]

Out of interest Dave, what % of your orders were PayPal before you dropped it?

Between 10% - 20%, I don't remember the exact figure but it was enough to make it a difficult and potentially risky decision.

 

[sysops]

Interesting, same ballpark as our 12%.

Being completely numbers obsessed, I will no doubt post my findings after Q1 2010, that should be long enough to get a good idea of the impact.

 

[bdw]

But for every site you name that offers PayPal, I can name 10 that don't. Does that prove anything? No, no more than your list does.

That may be so but lots of decisions like this can be helped by watching what the the big boys are doing. Companies like the BBC, BHS, Boots and American Airlines are better resourced than anyone in here. They have specialist marketing people who are probably much more clever than you or I. These guys will have done the research and concluded that Paypal is generally speaking a popular and valid means of taking payments from the public. I am happy to agree with them.

That does not mean that it is right for everyone and you may still conclude that it is not for you. Not knowing your business I am no position to dispute this. I hope it turns out well for you.

 

[sysops]

That may be so but lots of decisions like this can be helped by watching what the the big boys are doing. Companies like the BBC, BHS, Boots and American Airlines are better resourced than anyone in here. They have specialist marketing people who are probably much more clever than you or I. These guys will have done the research and concluded that Paypal is generally speaking a popular and valid means of taking payments from the public. I am happy to agree with them.

Having worked in precisely that type of environment, I'm going to have to disagree.

Your assumption that the big boys get it right is flawed. In fact in many cases they get it horribly wrong, because the decision is being made by a clueless middle-manager who has no feel for things 'on the ground'.

I'll add one thing - if you are going to base your decision on what the big boys do, surely you have to do it on numbers. Since 95%+ of large retailers don't offer PayPal, surely that means we shouldn't.

That does not mean that it is right for everyone and you may still conclude that it is not for you. Not knowing your business I am no position to dispute this. I hope it turns out well for you.

Thank you, and I'll be sure to report back with data.

 

[bdw]

Your assumption that the big boys get it right is flawed. In fact in many cases they get it horribly wrong

My assumption is flawed?

I think it is logical to assume that over the piece the big boys are more likely to get it right than we are. To assume that they are all wrong or that decisions like this are taken largely by "clueless" people is illogical. Sure it can happen - but to all of these companies previously listed?

Also, I don't have any data on this but I would be willing to bet that the number of large retailers using Paypal is much more now than it was a year or two ago. I would also be willing to bet that in a year or two there will be many more. This in itself tells a story.

Love it or hate it, Paypal is the single most popular online payment method. As a seller I think they are expensive, autocratic and the quality of their support is questionable but what I think is not important. It's what buyers think that should motivate these decisions. If buyers start shifting en masse to some other payment method then I will think about changing but while Paypal continues to grow and to become more and more universally acknowledged, dumping them does not make sense to me.

Anyway, this is going nowhere so let's just agree to disagree on this particular point.

 

[movietub]

My assumption is flawed?

I think it is logical to assume that over the piece the big boys are more likely to get it right than we are. To assume that they are all wrong or that decisions like this are taken largely by "clueless" people is illogical. Sure it can happen - but to all of these companies previously listed?

Also, I don't have any data on this but I would be willing to bet that the number of large retailers using Paypal is much more now than it was a year or two ago. I would also be willing to bet that in a year or two there will be many more. This in itself tells a story.

Love it or hate it, Paypal is the single most popular online payment method. As a seller I think they are expensive, autocratic and the quality of their support is questionable but what I think is not important. It's what buyers think that should motivate these decisions. If buyers start shifting en masse to some other payment method then I will think about changing but while Paypal continues to grow and to become more and more universally acknowledged, dumping them does not make sense to me.

Anyway, this is going nowhere so let's just agree to disagree on this particular point.

You are missing out a major factor in paypals success. They were the first and their footprint on the web makes it crazy not to consider using them unless they actually put you customers off - which will always happen in some niches. That doesn't mean they are good, it is entirely possible to remain the biggest simply by being the biggest from the outset.

as has been correctly noted, many more big companies use a fully integrated api with other large gateways, they hide the gateways own branding entirely. You say above that you feel ok to follow in the footsteps of large companies, so why follow in the footsteps of the minority?

You argue that the big boys are more likely to get it right than us, but thisargument is deeply flawed. For one, we are not big boys! If the BBC use paypal its because they will be able to bend them over backwards for great processing rates. As a result paypal get to affiliate themselves with the planets most reverred broadcast group. Maybe thats not the case but you can bet your life that big companies don't simply call round and tot up the best option on paper, they will be having management from paypal and all their competitors fly in to explain why teaming up with them is the way forward. Any such deal is extremely valuable and the reasons for making the decision most probably would not apply to your or our businesses.

I would not ditch paypal, yet - although I do have sky high hopes for google checkout which is growing at a faster rate than paypal now. I would not use paypal only either. I have come to these conclusions not by listening to people that have tried before, not by mimicking other larger businesses, but by trial and application within my business.

 

[bdw]

You argue that the big boys are more likely to get it right than us, but thisargument is deeply flawed.

Someone else claiming that I am flawed? You guys will be giving me a complex. :|

 

[movietub]

Someone else claiming that I am flawed? You guys will be giving me a complex. :|

haha! Don't take these things to heart, the big boys don't

Don't be offended, just fight back. so long as their is reason to your argument then it will always be well recieved, even if I think I'm right and you're wrong...

 

[cjd]

I think it is logical to assume that over the piece the big boys are more likely to get it right than we are

Why?

I have been a 'big boy' and I can assure you the 'big boys' will generally get it wrong most of the time but get away with it most of the time too - because they have deep pockets; until they finally run out of cash for stupidity - which we are now seeing daily.

Small boys have to be a damn sight smarter than the 'big boys' or they'll find themselves being bullied into situations that are not in their best interests.

 

[bdw]

I have been a 'big boy' and I can assure you the 'big boys' will generally get it wrong most of the time

Did you get it wrong then when you were a big boy?

 

[cjd]

Did you get it wrong then when you were a big boy?

Yes, regularly - sometimes because I made my own mistakes but mostly because the machine of the company forced you to do things you knew were daft but you did them anyway.

Most things are done because they were done before and there's a rolling budget for them and no-one cares whether they make money or not. Advertising budgets of tens of millions - just p1ssed up the wall, companies bought and ruined etc etc.

Don't take any lessons from big companies - they know very little, except how to do what they've always done.

 

[logicfusion]

The big boys frequently get it wrong in my opinion.

Look at some of this countries largest banks (now a national disgrace) , that have now been bailed out by the tax payer. The executives should be ashamed of themselves.

In this light, how can anyone rely on what a supposed 'big boy' is doing?

I believe times have changed.

Another point people keep overlooking. Paypal is based overseas. The UK courts have no juristiction.

What are you going to do if Paypal decide to 'freeze' your account due to some obscure term they have in their contract with you? Have a look on Google to see how this has effected small businesses.

Paypal is a well known brand. I conceed that much.

 

[bdw]

I agree that major businesses and institutions can and do make mistakes. I do not agree that ALL of those listed as offering Paypal have done so.

We are talking about many well known and extremely successful commercial companies including major high street stores. I think it is stretching it a bit to claim that all of their marketing people are incompetents in this respect. But as I say, you must do what you think is right for your business.

 

[sysops]

I agree that major businesses and institutions can and do make mistakes. I do not agree that ALL of those listed as offering Paypal have done so.

How do you feel about ALL of the ones who don't offer PayPal, which must outnumber those who do 20:1?

 

How do you feel about ALL of the ones who don't offer PayPal, which must outnumber those who do 20:1?

You really do need to give your research department a kick up the bum.

Quote"

Yes, the upstart firm with only 133 million users and more merchants than Visa, MasterCard and American Express combined, is just 100 months old.

Earl

 

[movietub]

How do you feel about ALL of the ones who don't offer PayPal, which must outnumber those who do 20:1?

I too want to know what BDW has to say about this. Having already said that there is logic in following the big boys, that clearly would suggest paypal is a very poor only option.

Not that I agree with following another companies example, but as you state you do, how can you consider paypal a good option?

The argument is at odds with the facts of the situation.

 

Couldn't agree more with your comments. PayPal needs to sharpen it's act if it's going to survive but sadly I fear account holders will keep using as there's not a mainstream viable alternative.

Cheers

There's Nochex

 

[movietub]

There's Nochex

And google checkout, as viable alternatives go a checkout service offered by the internets biggest and most likeable company is a pretty good one. Also cheaper.