PayPal no longer requires account for Canadian Merchants

Finally this feature is rolled out in Canada... a Christmas present?

[canuck]

Like US-merchants have been able to do for months, now Canadian merchants no longer need their customers to sign up for a PayPal account to make a purchase (for customers from any of 45 countries PayPal serves).

A few things I noticed:

• With no-Account payments the Merchants PayPal information & rating is inaccessible to the buyer
  
• PayPal prompts the customer if they'd like to sign-up for an account after the purchase, and also in the confirmation email
  
• a new "Receipt Number" is now also used, along with the usual Transaction ID... not sure why we need another number
  
• I'm also seeing "Confirmed" Shipping addresses in Canada now
  
• The no-Account feature can be toggled under the Profile -> Website Payment Preferences settings

I'd be interested to hear how this feature increased US-merchants conversion rates...

- canuck

[moltar]

That is awesome. I do not sell anything online, but it's good to hear that services like that finally start reaching Canada.

Canada is quite behind in billing services.

[canuck]

Agreed, Canada is a pain to set-up ecommerce in (with a full internet merchant account), this new PayPal will help.

One thing I'm seeing with this new no-Account PayPal system is a lot more customers seem to be opting out of the "Shipping Address" so I'm having to email them for this more often it seems (a half-day case study!). I wish PayPal would let the Merchant choose whether a Shipping Address is required for a specific product (&address_required=yes), and/or even an account-wide option.

- canuck

[LeoXIV]

this is a very important step for PayPal to take to keep their Canadian merchants happy. However i just got this email from Paypal support:

"Thank you for your interest. At this time, PayPal Account Optional is available to U.S. Business and Premier Account merchants. However, this feature is available to you as a buyer, if your merchant selects this option."!

[Corey Bryant]

Do you have a link canuck to this on Paypal's website or blog? I reviewed their typepad's website & could not find anything about this. It would be great but with LeoXIV's post, I am curious if they ahve activated this already?

-Corey

[Bubba Scruggs]

Hmm, checked my profile and that option is not available to me.