paypal and Japanese

[rhodopsin]

So basically - paypal does support Japan in that it can be used by japanese people with japanese bank accounts. BUT - the paypal site is not in japanese! To sign up - a japanese person would need to know english. Stupid.

But anyway - I am quite new to this kind of thing but I write to ask whether this sorry state of affairs could be circumnavigated. Is there anyway that on your site - you could ask them to fill out a form in japanese that asks them the same questions that the paypal sign up form asks them. Then, your website takes these answers and places them in the relevant form on the paypal website.

Complication - the paypal form has a word in image thing going on to stop automated sign ups. The person has to read the word in the image and type it out. Our japanese user could be asked to do this here - after we have loaded the paypal sign up page and populated it with all the sign up stuff they gave to us before.

Then the japanese person can press submit. Then is taken to the next stage of the sign up - giving bank details - which is in japanese on the paypal site apparantly (clarification anyone?).

Has anyone tried this kind of thing? Is it even possible?

[bill]

We had a conversation about this just a short while ago:
Anyone know what the PayPal Japan site is? [webmasterworld.com]

I don't think your idea of working around PayPal's Japanese deficiencies would work. You could certainly write a tutorial in Japanese to show people how to go through the process, but I doubt many would use the service. PayPal themselves have to fully implement a Japanese interface with Japanese customer support for this to go anywhere.

[rhodopsin]

RE "I don't think your idea of working around PayPal's Japanese deficiencies would work."

Can you elaborate on why not? Sorry I am very new to this kind of thing and cant see the flaws in this approach.

[bill]

Would you give your banking details and PayPal password to some random third party e-commerce site just so you could buy their widget?

[rhodopsin]

maybe someone can confirm - but i think the part of the paypal process where they give bank account details is in japanese. it is just the first bit of the sign up (name, address etc.) that is in english. Bizare. I read this elsewhere on webmasterworld. will try to track it down

[bill]

I understand your frustration, but it's really up to PayPal to implement their system fully in Japanese. There are all sorts of legal implications that come up with operating a system like that. If PayPal aren't willing to give Japanese customers service in their own language then there may be a reason.

Are you also going to field customer service questions in Japanese when your customers come back complaining that most of the PayPal system is in English and they don't know how to process transactions, check their balance, add money to their account, or other such matters? Just getting people through the signup is only one step in the process.