Forum Moderators: buckworks
This site I am managing only accepts paypal. It has a VERY POOR conversion rate despite the fact that it has very stable decent targetted traffic (fluctuates from 600 to 1200 uniques). The design of the website is good. It is optimized for ease of use as well as for SOE purposes.
(We do receive enquiries for other forms of payments from time to time, but not so often that makes me believe Paypal is the issue here.)
I am not sure if I should implement credit card processing gateway. If only accepting Paypal does not have much effect on conversion rate, I'd rather spend the effort on finding out what else is wrong that leads to such low conversion rate. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Much is said about to increasing popularity of Paypal, a great deal of it is true as well but in my experience...
Paypal=Ebay
I never get anyone wanting to use Paypal outside of Ebay.
It may be more popular depending on what you sell perhaps. I sell books whereas if I sold computer games it may, perhaps, be more popular.
I believe a lot of people mistake the popularity of Paypal, it is not so much that people want to use PP but that they want to use a credit card.
Hope this helps a little
Regards
Rod
We have tweaked the site quite a bit already, and it hasn't really affect the sales at all. We are currently blaming the problem at Paypal religiously even though we do not have a solid proof. Hopefully implementing another form of payment will have some positive effect on the conversion rate.
Mind you, that's just perception. And since PayPal no longer requires people to have an account before making a payment, it'll become more pervasive as time goes by.
I added PayPal as an option to our web site several months ago, and am getting a non-trivial number of orders that are paid via PayPal. I can't say whether those orders would have been placed anyway if PayPal wasn't available, but it was easy to integrate with and if it makes the customer happier, I'm all for it.
You won't really know whether PayPal is the reason for the poor conversion unless you either survey those who bail out of the shopping cart or (preferably) implement a real CC processing solution.
There was a good discussion in this forum about 4 or 5 months ago regarding PayPal and the "legitimacy" aspects of using it. Might go back and see if you can find it.
Nice Marty, I like that. Very well put.
What worries us more is the little information needed for processing credit card transactions. They only need credit card number and expiry date for each transaction. They don't even check CVV, Addresses or even the card owner's name.
"if you're going to run a "real" business, you should be able to manage a "real" credit card processing solution."
I do not see anything unreal about the security and the ease of implementation of PayPal.
I would like to see some stats from paypal regarding where, why and how many people abandon their 'path'. I am sure they have the statistics ...
And then they could let us know, whether prepropagating will/will not help and what they are planning to do about it ..
Oh, and to the person that said 'real' businesses should be able to take credit cards, qualifying as a 'real' business in the UK is not easy. Small traders are scum, and market traders (i.e. me) are bottom feeders, as far as the banks are concerned.
I did eventually get a merchant account with a small bank, but had to show them the 6 months of sales I had had through Worldpay first. (I was using Worldpay as a bureaux, and paying just under 10% fees).
But now as well as paypal I offer an alternative that does not need registration (paymate express). About 15% of credit card buyers use it. So maybe paypal is not such a big turnoff for buyers after all. Still its good to have an alternative available if people don't want to register. I find very few US buyers have trouble with paypal and that European and British buyers are the most likely to opt for paymate express.
We have two sites. Both accept PayPay, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.
One site sells imports from Indonesia and hardly ever gets a PayPal order.
The second sells Beads, which happen to be popular on EBay. About half of our orders on this site are paid for through PayPal.
PayPal is a big deal for some target audiences and a big yawn for others. It all depends on the community with whom you are trying to do business.
here in the US anybody can et a merchant account. the big problem is the cost. for a small business it really makes a lot of sense to use paypal.
i think online shoppers do understand that in the end they are paying for it and do not mind a little less 'integration' into the merchant's website.
also with all these easily accessible merchant accounts around it is nice to us one with known security.
my two cents
how can we really find out just how popular it is?!
I personally would not use a website that only took Paypal.
By way of comparison I have one interesting example, my friend who sells very similar things to me only takes Paypal, we share many customers and all those that use Paypal for him use merchant for me so clearly the customers in this case, given the choice, prefer merchant.
The other biggie of course is that it costs me twice as much to take Paypal!
Regards
Rod
the big problem is the cost. for a small business it really makes a lot of sense to use paypal.
I'm not sure PayPal is really such a bargain, at least for those businesses that don't qualify for their "Merchant" rate. For those doing less than $1k/month in volume through PayPal, the transaction rate for US-based purchases is 2.9% plus $.30/transaction.
My merchant account rate is less than that - maybe I've just got a better-than-average rate on my merchant account, but I don't see PayPal as a cost-saving measure by any means; if anything, it's an even-money proposition compared to my mechant account.
If you maintain over $1k/month for 3 months, you can qualify for a lower 2.2% rate. But I don't see that happening in my business any time soon, unless I abandon my merchant account entirely. And that's not likely to happen.
If PayPal was considerably more expensive than my merchant account, I wouldn't offer it as an option - and I don't think I'd miss very many sales opportunities. But since it costs roughly the same and was trivial to integrate into my web site, I don't mind offering it.
The reason for this is that getting a murchant account and credit card processing is very hard for a small one person operation. In fact even though I show a good income on the business and significant growth over the past two years, I was turned down for card processing due to "lack of income". And if I get the machine set up through my bank I have to keep $2k in the bank minimum, which would kill my growth right now.
I don't have any problems getting people to pay with PayPal, in my opinion it is perfect for small business and I don't think it makes anyone less legitimate at all. In fact one of the reasons I like using PayPal is because of the protections they provide (mostly because of their experiences, and now ownership, with Ebay).
I've been using PayPal for over two years for my business and honestly I don't really have a single reason why I would want to switch. It's easy to use, easy to customise, and my costomers don't seem to have any problems with it.
sorry, but just my .02
O well.
I'd have to agree with everything you said, I have no problems with paypal, and i found my customers were not willing to pay other fees and obtain merchant ID, Paypal is quick and simple and for my customers a lot cheaper than other options.
Im only starting off, but have found all my customers wanting ecommerce sites, want to use paypal. (1) because they have heard of it via ebay, and (2) Its a lot cheaper and less hassel than other options.
The idea of not having to register sounds good too, in in the UK and cant wait for this to happen - im sure paypal will become even more popular when this is implemented
Andrew
First, I use PayPal for a lot of my bills as well as paying for stuff online. I have the PayPal Mastercard (the DEBIT card that uses your PayPal balance, not their BankOne credit card) and like the cash-back bonus.
I have a check/debit card from my bank to, but I don't get a cash back bonus on that.
Once a month I figure out what my bills are going to be and deposit that money from my checking account into my PayPal account. Then I use the PayPal mastercard to pay the bills online or over the phone, and get the cashback bonus. I usually save about $85 a month by paying bills this way, and then I have an "extra" $85 in my PayPal account to either spend on crap or use toward the next month.
For merchants that accept PayPal, I find that it's really convenient to only have to type in my e-mail address and password and NOT have to type in credit card numbers, addresses, etc (since the shipping address is given to them by PayPal I don't have to type it in). I like the fact that no one can automatically re-charge my PayPal account without my permission, or double charge me accidentally, or have access to any of my personal credit card or banking information that could be stored in their database and get hacked later. It's nice to have that extra peace of mind.
Honestly I would like to see more vendors using PayPal INSTEAD OF just credit cards. It's so much better for buyer security. And yeah I know a lot of merchants hate it because if something does go wrong they freeze the entire account until its resolved instead of just the amount in question, but since I don't sell anything I don't have that problem. :)
Anyway, this is just one person's opinion ... I don't know how many other people do this.
Depends on the business. Have a merchant account, SSL certificate, etc. 95% of customers chose paypal on the payment page over the credit card option. Granted 95% were website owners so that probably accounts for it. For website services over $500, probably 50% mail checks, 30% Credit Card, and the other %20 still use paypal.
it is not so much that people want to use PP but that they want to use a credit card.
I thought paypal now allowed payments with just a credit card (i.e., without having to open a paypal account).
Ignore Phpexpert I think he has already been booted. He was obviously url dropping his company left and right in almost every thread.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Who wants to type in a CC # on some random joe-user website?
I'd rather see a site with a BBB link and Paypal payment gateway than their own merchant account any day of the week..
As a keen supporter of Internet shopping all I know I know as a CUSTOMER is that if paypal is the only option I won't go there. Just don't trust the site. I EXPECT a merchant to offer full credit card processing. Call me old fashioned but thats just the way I see it.
I am with an orgainzation that has sold online, has used other online payment services such as verotel, as well as PayPal, and has gotten chargebacks only from the former system (not to their blame)...
If I got an email from a supposed customer who said that above quoted assertion to me, I would be glad that they wanted to leave and not place an order. I would wholeheartedly want them to leave as fast as their little legs could take them. It would tell me that they purposely WANT the freedom to fraudulently issue a chargeback after they get their goods/services. They fear PayPal because they fear the inability to get away wirth fraud.
PayPal, although not perfect, it does provide a far improved security risk than going it alone or direct cc access ---especially if you require turn off the paypal option for the purchaser to bypass the Paypal account signup process.
Any customer who refuses to understand that is not a customer you want because they KNOW how to fraud you.
Until you've been frauded with multiple chargebacks, you just do not realize how much risk there really is. PayPal offers some good protection, although still not perfect, of course.
If I went to a small site and seen that they didn't have PayPal I might think twice before buying from them. I know I can get my money back with PayPal, but what about that small site?
Over 40 million member accounts.
> If a website only accepts paypal as payment,
> how much do you think it will affect the conversion rate?
Depends on the target audience. I've been around 5 figure a day sites where paypal beat side-by-side tests 2 to 1.
A quality shopping cart is extremely important to good conversions.
