How is Paypal working for average Joe buyer these days?

Does anyone have experiences?

[Receptional]

Back in 2004, Paypal finally stopped forcing people to sign up for an account [webmasterworld.com] before buying with Paypal.

Can I ask if anyone knows the answer to this:

If a person buys something on a credit card using Paypal, and ends up with an account they forget they have, what happens when they use that card on another paypal partner (say) 6 months later? Does it all wiork smoothly for the user?

I ask because when accounts were mandatory, users were getting stumped not on their first use of paypal, but their second, when Paypal said "that card number is already associated with another account".

Has the problem gone away? Is Paypal now as convenient as any other payment provider do you feel?

Dixon.

[peewhy]

It is still a problem, I tried to use another card but I got 'that email is associated with ....' same problem different words.

[RailMan]

Has the problem gone away? Is Paypal now as convenient as any other payment provider do you feel?

no and no
once you've made a purchase (through account optional) it seems you automatically have a paypal account and can only pay via that account in future (unless you're happy to use new cards and email addresses for every purchase)

[Receptional]

Ah.

I was about to drop our payment provider today and just use the paypal account... Thank heaven for WebmasterWorld!

Thanks.

Pretty big flaw in the system wouldn't you say? :)

Dixon.

[RailMan]

not a flaw at all - it's a pretty clever move by paypal

AFAIK, when you pay someone from one paypal account to another, it's just a change of numbers in their own database - it's not a credit card transaction - paypal charge a % for the funds transfer and keep the whole lot for themselves and nothing to pay to the banks

so if they get people to pay once with their credit card then tie them into a paypal account, paypal are quids in ...

[jwolthuis]

PayPal now offers Website Payments Pro, which allows online merchants to accept credit cards. PayPal acts as a combined gateway and merchant account.

The customer doesn't know PayPal is behind the scenes; they just enter their credit card number, etc., and the funds settle immediately into your PayPal account.

The dicount rate is fixed (depending on your monthly volume) at either 2.2 or 2.9 percent, for any brand of card, including AmEx and Discover.

[debvh]

The problem hasn't gone away, I don't have the experience/knowledge to walk customers through the process*, and I don't have enough revenue to even begin to think of using a non-paypal method of accepting credit cards. So I end up telling people to just send me a check, preferably one that won't bounce, please.

* I wouldn't even mind walking customers through the process from time to time, if there were some way for the average Joe businessperson to know what the average Joe buyer is running into and what they need to do to get the problem fixed. Anything to avoid having to accept checks!

[Receptional]

PayPal now offers Website Payments Pro, which allows online merchants to accept credit cards. PayPal acts as a combined gateway and merchant account.
The customer doesn't know PayPal is behind the scenes; they just enter their credit card number, etc., and the funds settle immediately into your PayPal account.

Are you sure the customer never knows? This is not what peewhy and Railman say above. They suggest that if the credit card number has been used in on any paypal transaction in the past, then the person can't buy again without remembering their user name and password.

it's a pretty clever move by paypal

I disagree. The real world doesn't work the way you expect. We ran an auction of promises to raise moeny for our local school. We are in a wealthy area and I know how high some af the bids go, so... to encourage this... I set up a p[aypal account to let people pay on plastic.

Well. we had a 50% failure rate even with me standing and helping friends go through the sales process. This was purely because people had used cards on Paypal processing systems in the past and had no idea (or intention) of remembering their username or password.

A customer should not have to remember a username and password to buy their product. Ever. They already need to remember their pin number for UK retail transactions, but at least that is one per card, not one per merchant processor!

50% drop out rate is too high for serious players to use Paypal. If the premium service eliminates this drop out problem, that's great, but it seems we have different opinions of whether this is still the case.

Who to believe - jwolthuis or Railman and peewhy? :)

[DryFire]

This is a huge problem with PayPal. It was costing us a lot of sales, and was the reason that we finally setup a merchant account. I can’t tell you how many times our customer (or their spouse) had previously purchased something on eBay and used either their email or credit card number, couldn’t remember how to log into their account and then couldn’t purchase from our site. We got lots of complaints, and I assume that we lost even more customers who never even contacted us about it. I and merchants complained on the PayPal developer’s forum until we were blue in the face.
http://www.paypaldev.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7319
http://www.paypaldev.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7544

Finally I just got so sick of it that we set up a merchant account. Although we still offer PayPal as an option, most of our sells go through our merchant account. You might also be interested in knowing that when we set up the merchant account we got a nice boost in our conversion ratio.

[edited by: lorax at 3:01 pm (utc) on Jan. 20, 2006]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]

[jwolthuis]

Are you sure the customer never knows?

Yes, I'm sure. I switched my gateway/merchant provider from Authorize.Net/Chase to PayPal Website Payments Pro (WPP) in September.

With PayPal WPP, there are two API's included:

Express Checkout is a SOAP-based API for traditional PayPal payments in any of six world curencies (USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, and JPY). The customer is transfered to paypal.com, pays you from their PayPal account or with a PayPal gift certificate, and is transferred back to your site. This is similar to the traditional PayPal scenario, with a web services twist.

Their Direct Payment API is a SOAP-based API for credit card transactions. PayPal acts as a gateway with the issuing bank (or AmEx or Discover). The bank approves/declines the transaction, and the funds settle immediately (instantly) into your PayPal account. The customer isn't required to interact with PayPal.com, doesn't need a PayPal account, and can use any credit card they want.

[Receptional]

The customer isn't required to interact with PayPal.com, doesn't need a PayPal account, and can use any credit card they want.

Even if they have a paypal account associated with this card? I heard that Papal offers them an account after the sale (probably skuppering my conversion stats system, but that's another issue). Sorry to keep asking. Everyone just seems so divided...

Tell you what - I'll try asking Paypal themselves. If I ever get confirmation either way, I'll let you know.

Dixon.

[jwolthuis]

I'm not sure how PayPal could offer them an account after the sale. They are never transferred to PayPal.com, and they aren't provided an email address for the customer.

[Receptional]

Well - a BIG thanks to jwolthuis.

I have just bought something on her site, using a card that definitely does have a Merchant account. The system worked without a hitch and as she says - I never even saw a paypal logo.

I'm going to try to persuade jwolthuis not to give ALL the money back - so I can see it through to the end, but it seems that her way works.

Dixon.

[RailMan]

if that's the pro system, i'm pretty sure it's US only at the mo, and probably works out more expensive than a merchant account over here

[Receptional]

Yes - it is only the US I guess.

Still. There is hope.