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Added Paypal payment option and not impressed.

Women 25-34 demographic does not use paypal

         

lgn1

2:11 am on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I have heard that by offering paypal, you should increase your orders by around 15%

While its not working with us. I added paypal last week as a payment option, and I have not received one
paypal order. 97% of our orders were credit card, with the remainder 3% being money order.

I guess the Women 25-34 demographic which represents my main market, are not into paypal.

yowza

2:19 am on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I'm not sure about the demographic breakdown of those who prefer paypal; however, on one site my visitors choose Paypal about 40% when given the choice between Paypal, Credit Card through Linkpoint, and Check or Money Order.

Essex_boy

5:35 am on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



i dont think it has anything to demographics its just Paypal.

For every 7 orders on CC I get one on paypal just he way it is.

elgumbo

10:22 am on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I guess the Women 25-34 demographic which represents my main market, are not into paypal.

I'd of thought there would be a lot of ebayers in that demographic who are more than used to paying via paypal. Maybe it's the paypal/ebay association that makes people prefer the the more "professional" looking CC process?

Morocco

1:50 pm on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



How long does it take to integrate PayPal?

amznVibe

2:01 pm on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If I see a vendor with BOTH paypal and credit cards, well of course I am going to use the credit card option and stick in my paypal debit card #. That way I get 1.5% cash back (I fit in that demographic by the way ;) )

lgn1

4:35 pm on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



My payment page is laid out so that credit card payment is at the top, followed by phone order (where we try to get the credit card by phone, for the seriously web paranoid), followed by paypal and finally money order.

So the Paypal option is below the fold. Also since we are new to paypal, we have a reputation of zero.

Paypal refuses to boost our reputation, despite the fact that we are an industry leader in our niche, and been doing business on the web since 1998.

We actually prefer that people pay using credit card directly, but we did expect at least some people with a paypal balance, or a bank balance, but with all credit cards maxed out, to use this service.

It has been a week and paypal is still a big zero. It only took a day to intregrate it with our shopping cart and setup Instant Payment notification, so its not a biggie if the whole thing flops.

One other thing. We deal directly with the bank (or its processor) so our credit card processing is done seamlessly on our site, rather than being directed to some third party processor for payment.

yowza

4:47 pm on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I would keep the option even if you only get an occasional order through Paypal. It doesn't hurt anything; the account is free. Your layout seems to be the most logical, if Paypal is your less-favored option.

I know that many people choose Paypal when the website looks a little suspect. However, you say that you are an industry leader so I assume that you have a very professional and streamlined shopping cart. Maybe it means that people trust your website.

How many transactions do you do daily? What is the average product price? If you do tens or hundreds of small transactions a day and nobody has chosen to use Paypal, it would be odd to not have had any Paypal transactions; however, if you sell two or three big-ticket items a day, it wouldn't be a surprise to see no Paypal payments.

Do you prepopulate the Paypal form? If you do, you may get more Paypal orders.

kursaalflyer

11:38 am on Aug 24, 2004 (gmt 0)



Has anyone else had a problem with PayPal payment and account verification. The site I administer has a single payment page with a PayPal button and a Nochex button. I've rigged it up so that I can tell how many click-thru's are going through to PayPal and its averaging 20 a day but completion rate is less than?1%. It turns out that if you are a UK trader you cannot have people with or without a PayPal account pay using PayPal without haveing their account verified, wether they are UK based or not. Something, I thought, to do with PayPpals recent security upgrades. The more I look at it though it looks like the influence of the British banking system rather than PayPal making life difficult. Does anyone know any different. I've been in contact with PayPals techies and they confirmed the button was OK (which is also confirmed by the very few sales completing). should I just be patient - or is htere something invisibly wrong?

Essex_boy

1:16 pm on Aug 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



After al the trouble paeople have with Paypal, I know ive lost sales in teh past, why you dont just drop it.

If people can use PAYPAL then they can use a CC for payment.

Morocco

3:22 pm on Aug 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



PayPal doesn't hurt anything. Its just another form of payment option. I can't imagine why it would hurt orders. There are 50 million people worldwide with PayPal accounts who shop on eBay. Knowing this, why would it hurt to offer it as a payment method?

There's really no reason why you shouldn't.

But, I would really like to get some input on integration times for PayPal. The .pdf is 168pgs. On a scale of 1-10 where would it fall. PayPal has had major problems with merchant adoption and they think its because of integration problems.

pdivi

4:57 pm on Aug 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



In my experience, integrating the IPN just took one person a day or two including testing. This was for a subscription product, which is arguably more complex that "one-off" transactions.

The visitors on the paypal developer board are very helpful if you ever get stuck.

I've become a huge fan of PayPal after having used some other 3rd party processors who run their businesses like kids operating out of a dorm room. When you think about the sophisticated features that PayPal offers, and the rates they charge for the service, it's a pretty good deal.

Still, the bulk of my orders (90%+) come through Authnet.

lgn1

7:28 pm on Aug 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Took me a day to integrate it with my shopping cart. Most of the time was spent trying to figure out what portion of the 168 page manual was relevent, about 10 pages in our case.

They do have quick guides, but they are all over the place in different developer's section, and you can really get confused as they send Sandbox's, API's, PDT's and IPN's at you all at once. The developers section needs to be a little better structured (ie hide alot of stuff in an advanced topic section).

Its been two weeks, and still no paypal orders. Im still waiting for my stats, to see who abandoned paypal, before paying.

RedWolf

3:38 pm on Aug 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I would say since I added PayPal around may in addition to my normal credit card option that PayPal amounts to about 10% to 15% of orders and about 15% to 20% in dollar volume. Sure most of these might have had a credit card they can use, but I want to make it as easy and enjoyable for them as possible to pay me. PayPal costs a bit more than normal credit cards, but I sell high margin products so it isn't that big of deal.

Integration time for me was an hour or so including testing, but I use Mal's E-Commerce for a cart and it has most of the work already done. I just needed to set up the PayPal side and enable the option in the cart.

ogletree

3:54 pm on Aug 26, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



People that use ebay use Pay Pal. That is a real stat. If your customers use ebay they will use Pay Pal. Even then I think some people only use it for Ebay. I never use it unless it is for Ebay.

JohnieWalker

6:08 am on Aug 27, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



LGN: PayPal is a good add-on just as Discover card is to MC/Visa. You can do without, but having it won't hurt. To make sure it's paypal's fault that no one uses it (although it took a full day to implement the system) - try changing the layout of your payment page for a week or so. People who finaly made up their mind to pay are eager to have it over and done with. If you offer PayPal first, they might take this option.

sun818

7:59 am on Aug 27, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



> For every 7 orders on CC I get one on paypal just he way it is.

That sounds about right for web store sales. On eBay, I'd say 7+ orders on Paypal gets one credit card order.

Your implementation of Paypal on the web store is very important especially during checkout. Other than phone number every bit of information is already stored on the Paypal servers. If you ask your buyers to fill out the Bill To and Ship To before they use Paypal, the convenience of using a Paypal account has just disappeared. If Paypal is implemented efficiently on a web store, I prefer it over credit card. Paypal is more secure since your CC details it not distributed all over the place.

phantombookman

8:34 am on Aug 27, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Paypal still equals Ebay - IMHO

I have never sold a single item on a website and taken payment via PP.

People still confuse PP with the ability to take credit cards.
Several friends of mine who also sell on Ebay take PP but have no merchant facilities. We share a lot of the same customers, all those that use PP with them pay me directly with their card.
PP is expensive and a greater risk than a merchant account.

I also think that if it is the ONLY way to pay by card then a site loses a lot of credibility. Personally I would not spend much money with anyone who did not have a merchant account.

Regards to all
Rod