Business accounts from "paypal"

[spiky]

I have been considering the options for placing the facility to accept credit and debit card payments on a small retail site (<20 products) and have found "paypal" fron X.com

This system seems to offer no set up fees and very low commission rates, in fact it seems almost toooo.. good.

The paypal service is new to the UK and I am not familiar with it (in fact I've not seen in on any sites)

Does any one have any experience of this service ? or is it one to stay clear of ?

(I have no affiliation to any credit agency)and as a new e-tailer I do not currently have a merchant account either.

Any other suggestions ?

Thanks Spiky

[Marcia]

spiky, I know a lot of crafters that have been using it, and they're all satisfied, though some have reported better sales using propay. I've taken payment with it myself, and the money got deposited right into my account, no problem.

It's a whole lot cheaper to pay just a percentage of what you sell when you start than it is to pay upfront and monthly fees.

PayPal just raised their rates for credit card processing, but it's still very reasonable. I haven't heard anything negative about them.

If you want to still check out more options, you can check out Mal's Ecommerce - he's UK based, and there might be some info on his site, or you can email him.
www.ait2000.com is the url.

I generally do my crafts sites with a craftmall for the credit card processing strictly for the link and traffic value, which is excellent, but it's only a U.S. option.

Incidentally, one of my crafters sells items on Ebay (using PayPal) and has a link to her site. Between the ebay sales and the site visits she's doing great. You might think about it if your products are suitable.

Keep us posted on what you find out, and good luck with it!

Marcia

[littleman]

Mal's Ecommerce has a very nice free service. I've been using it for two years now, and collect 35-50 orders a month through his site. I'd recommend it for anyone looking for shopping cart system, but doesn't want to shell out the cash for a SSL key or the cash/time to set up your own cart system.

[Marcia]

littleman, the shopping cart code is nice and easy too. The credit cards still have to be done through some processor though. I believe you can use his cart and use PayPal or Propay. Are you aware of any others with no setup or monthly?

[littleman]

No, but I was satisfied with his service so I stopped looking. Your right about the cc processing, of course. I do my own processing, it is a little more work but it is cheaper. Also, I like processing my own orders
because I always have to make small adjustments from being out of stock of this or that. Such concerns wouldn't matter if you were reselling nontangible. I also have to have my own merchant account because I have a small walk-in business and need to process the cards in the store.

Looks like he is abandoning www.ait2000.com it hasn't been loading right for days.
He has another mirror at [mals-e.com ].

[Marcia]

His service has even been working well for some crafters who have sites (dynamic) at freemerchant.

According to one lady I talk to, her banner and link exchanges bring her in as much business as her s/e traffic..but that's normal for that type of business - they buy each other's stuff, and do a lot of link and banner clicking. It's one of the peculiarities of that bunch (which is why I have to start getting into that area more, especially with the yahoo fiasco).

Thanks, I will check the other URL out for mal - I'm signed up there, and might as well use it in conjuction with paypal which is more reliable than the local post office lately.

Thanks!

[spiky]

Thanks Marcia, and thanks Littleman.

I had problems loading ait2000.com so the mirror site link was appreciated.

I'll look at these options and try to find propay details (to see if they offer european business accounts )

[spiky]

thanks for the links to mals site.

Look's like he's sunning himselve in Spain right now (judging by his current E-mail)

The mirror site link works well and the cart service seems the bizz.

Having researched all the options, we've decided that a merchant account seems the best medium to long term option. most other options are still US only and only starting to expand into the european market.

[Brett_Tabke]

I've been using PayPal for Ebay stuff - both buying and selling. I am also trying it on a clients domain that has but one item for sale. I am throughly satisfied with it. I just wish it were global.

[rcjordan]

looks like alot of people are using it...

Heavy holiday traffic was behind two days of sporadic system meltdowns at PayPal.com [news.cnet.com], the company said Tuesday.

[tedster]

>I just wish it were global.

No, they aren't fully global, but they do serve 25 of the most wired countries -- and now they're offering a money market account so you can make some interest while your funds sit around. Pretty sharp.

I'm using PayPal for a small CD sales business (just one item) and it's a great fit. Still, I could use some Fiji coverage (true!), now that the coup there has settled down.

[Napoleon]

Aarrrggghhh.... I signed up for PayPal for my first low value product. Everything was going swimmingly, until, on one of the last tests before going live, I noticed that the payment page presented forces a country of residence of USA.

If you live anywhere else at all, you have to click on another link and fill a lengthy and horrible form to join PayPal, before going on to pay for the item.

Totally useless... the percentage customer loss through trying to force them through this pointless hoop would be horrendous.

I emailed PayPal to challenge them on this, asking what benefit there was in this two track approach and they didn't answer the question - just restated the above route.

I could have lived (just about) with the subset of countries covered, but the loss of Europe, Australasia... in fact the whole of the non-USA world is a non-starter. Goodbye PayPal.

Does anyone know of any other credit card accepting facility which does not put ridiculous barriers like this up, yet is EASY and QUICK (and cheap in terms of zetup fee) to set up?

[physics]

Yes, beware of the PayPal cart:
[webmasterworld.com]

[Brett_Tabke]

The "euro's must register" is tough, but understandable. I read a report that said 97% of the fraud PayPal/X.com experienced last year was directly from Europe and Africa. So, the need to register is understandable.

PayPal is NOT a bank, and are not privey to the same kinds of fraud control measures that reqular banks enjoy from credit card companies. They _have_ to be hyper agressive at fraud control to ensure the integrity of the system. Last year, they went a bit to far with it (imho) and walked on a few people processing cards that were ok (deemed them as fraudulant). It's not a perfect system, but at 2.5% vs 7 to 15% processing fee, I think you can afford a bit of hassle. I've had good luck with them both personally and prefessionally with clients (more of the later than former).

[Marcia]

>beware of the PayPal cart

I've definitely heeded that advice. Mal's works so well for certain sites that I'm right now changing a site over from just a secure order form to setting up Mal's cart in conjunction with taking PayPal for payments.

The added convenience is that if the clients eventually change over to another type of payment processing, it will only take a minor adjustment rather than a major overhaul.

The only major problem is that the cart is set up for different levels of shipping, and with this site each item has a different shipping cost. That's taking a little extra maneuvering to work out.