2Checkout vs. PayPal

[openmind]

Hi, we have been selling a PDF file (some type of ebook) through our site using PayPal. Sales have been quite OK given the fact that we are just starting out.
Now, we want to add 2Checkout as a payment option so customers can pay via credit card too.
How much do you think our sales can increase because of this new payment option?

[Quadrille]

0%

Visitors can pay with a credit card via Paypal.

You'd probably better installing the Google checkout if you want a second system - at least you'll get some curiosity value.

BUT - I have not looked at 2checkout for a good while - see if there's any recent good news; last time I was looking into it, the only ones who liked it were paypal rejects - those who had failed to ripoff paypal, or who had set it up so badly they'd been bounced. I didn't need those people!

[openmind]

HI Quadrille,

Many thanks for your quick response. However, our customers can't pay via credit card because we are located in the EU not the US.

[Corey Bryant]

You also might take a look at Clickbank or Worldpay

-Corey

[esllou]

openmind, you've got me confused. We accept credit card payments through PP and we are also in the EU.

We have both on our site and 80% of orders come through 2CO. I still think a lot of users look at the PP option and think, "Oh, I haven't got a PP account so I can't use that."

For the first month, we ONLY had PP and orders were low AND PP only accepts payment from about 50 countries. We missed out on some of those (already few) orders because of this.

Once we added PP, our orders more than doubled.

I had one big problem with 2CO in that they continually rejected orders based only on IP/billing differences. It took me about a month until I convinced them I was selling often to people living abroad temporarily so there would often be differences in physical location and billing address (bank back home...) Now there's a special "note" attached to my account not to reject sales based ONLY on this IP/billing discrepancy.

[sharbel]

We had a lot of problems with 2CO and their rejecting good orders. Also, they are way too quick to refund someones money even if they received the product and you did everything 'right'. Their policy is (unless its changed since last year when we dumped them), that the customer must be 100% satisfied, or eligible for a refund. I really hated that..

[climb512]

We had PP and 2CO for the first 2 years of my eCommerce site, and although most customers prefered 2CO, we had very serious support issues with them. Various little things went wrong which should have been quick fixes, but turned into huge headaches. For one period of time (about 3 months) they owed us several thousand dollars but no one would take any responsability to look into the discrepancy--they finally paid in full but it was a huge hassle.

The second major issue was their insistance on having a full inventory of our products and a very restrictive language that we could use to refer to them--basically, they insist that you make it clear to the world that 2co is the one offering all your products for sale, and that you are just a "rep" for those products. I felt this made our business look like one of 1,000 affiliate sites for our products, instead of the source.

Finally, we traded 2CO for Auth.net and have had no problems whatsoever for over a year. Sales are way up this year as well, but probably due to unrelated factors.

[Corey Bryant]

Finally, we traded 2CO for Auth.net and have had no problems whatsoever for over a year.

Just keep in mind that Authorizenet.com is only an electronic payment gateway (like LinkPoint and Verisign's Payflow Services). You still need a merchant account to accept credit cards

-Corey

[openmind]

Hi esllou,

Maybe there are some EU countries in which PP allows you to accept CC. We are located in the country with the largest economy within the EU and PayPal does NOT allow us to accept CC's. If you can accept CC through PP then I guess you are located in the UK?

[openmind]

esllou, it's me again, have just checked your profile which says you are located in Italy. Interesting that you PP allows you to accept CC's, maybe I should move to Italy too, they do much better food than the Germans and seem to be more laid back too...

[esllou]

I would go back and check things again if I were you. Actually write to support and ask them outright if you can take CC payment.

Because it sounds to be as if there's been a glitch somewhere along the line for you to not be able to accept CC payments living in Germany. You need to revisit this issue with them.

[openmind]

Hi esllou,

Thanks for your advice, as a matter of fact we have asked them several times and got the same response.
Also, so far I have not seen any German company that accepts credit cards via PayPal.

[openmind]

esllou,

Just to make sure we are on the same page: Are you really talking about accepting CC through PP for customers who DON'T have a PP account?

[Essex_boy]

id choose 2co over paypal any day, I have seen from previous sites that ive run that sales increase when offering 2co as opposed to paypal.

Although I have had problems with 2CO and would suggest you try worldpay