Forum Moderators: buckworks
If so what other "Paypal type" providers are seen as being more acceptable?
So because people don't use their PP account a second time, it automatically means that they were disatisfied with PP?
That's quite a sweaping call here...
Most just used PP because it was offered and forgot about it and that they had created PP accounts. These customers usually are more interested in purchasing an item or a service rather than thinking about the technology that made the purchase possible. And if they are not offered the option of buying through PP again, then they won't.
It has nothing to do with customer satisfaction with Paypal. To test satisfaction, you need to verify that with surveys, after the purchase with a random group and compare with a control group that did not use Paypal.
Again, SWOT analysis. Show me a real study people.
Come on now, how much easier does it get than PayPal? If you have an account, you're out the door in less than a minute in most cases. If you don't have an account, the same holds true if you are using auto fill.
So, what's the big scare with using PayPal?
In the UK getting your own merchant account to trade online is not easy, extensive checks are made into both yourself and your business.
Virtually anyone can get a PP account, comparatively few can get a full merchant account and to suggest they carry the same credibility is nonsense.
When was the last time you used a big well known ecommerce site and found yourself being sent to PP?
How can anyone claim to be seriously in business when they cannot personally take a credit card?
How can anyone claim to be seriously in business when they cannot personally take a credit card?
But you can take a Credit Card. Am I missing something in the interpretation here? A PayPal account is not required to purchase. Unless of course the site has opted for that feature (it is available).
Credibility to whom? For most consumers, the PayPal name is credible.
But you can take a Credit Card. Am I missing something in the interpretation here?
I think you missed the word personally when quoting me.
When you take payment by Paypal do your customers have to leave your site and go to PP?
Are there any PP logos etc they have to see?
Last week my brother wanted a specialised book and found it on a small site, he went to buy it and found himself being sent to "something called Paypal" he had no idea what is was so back clicked and bailed out.
He is mid-thirties, a highly qualified professional and has been on the net for some years. Because he has never used ebay he has no idea what PP is.
There are a lot of those out there
When I started out in this field Paypal was my only option and without them I would not have been able to get started the way I did.
Long ago I got a regular merchant account and sales did go up but I was growing at the time so it's hard to say what was the cause.
I don't offer Paypal as an option now becuase I can't find a way to offer it without it looking like it's my main payment gateway. Sure, I could place text that explains that but I don't like to add any un-needed information to the mix when the customer is about to make a purchase.
Either way, Paypal has a place in e-commerce and although some of the "elite" like to bash it, it really has done sooooooooooooooo much for the little guy I believe it deserves a place in the entrepenuer's hall of fame (if there is one)
Jim
Either way, Paypal has a place in e-commerce and although some of the "elite" like to bash it, it really has done sooooooooooooooo much for the little guy I believe it deserves a place in the entrepenuer's hall of fame (if there is one)
Well, that's a nice thing to say, kudos to you.
It is still doing so much for the little guy. PayPal has helped some people become millionaires. It continues to help people in many ways from the small mom and pop to the large corporation. It is a quick and efficient method of conducting ecommerce. Not only online, but offline too.
It's an option. If you are a big company and can afford all of the different methods of accepting payment, you will most likely integrate PayPal into the backend, it is almost a mandatory requirement if you really want to be a leader.
I've used my PayPal account for years. I've never, ever, ever, had a problem at any point. None, whatsoever. I send money, receive money, transfer funds, set up payment pages, do email campaigns with embedded PayPal links for subscriptions, purchases, etc.
For the cost, and the minimal time involved to set up a PayPal account, there is nothing (yet) that compares.
Ok. Back up what you say and provide the source for this "fact".
Here is tibit for you:
[msnbc.msn.com...]
It talks about active acounts over a quarter, which are way lower than what I was talking about.
[edited by: Peter_Cornstalk at 7:26 am (utc) on Feb. 24, 2006]
So because people don't use their PP account a second time, it automatically means that they were disatisfied with PP?That's quite a sweaping call here...
So is publishing statistics of how many accounts have been registred in an attempt to make it appear everyone that signed up is satisfied and use the service.
The point is, defending them on those statistics is ridiculous since they are misleading and do not reflect anything other than:
1. Alot of people signed up in the past to get $5.
2. Alot of people sign up because it is the only way to pay for something.
3. Alot of people sign up because it is free and you have nothing to lose and never use it.
4. Alot of people are scammers and sign up, use it once for unethical/criminal activities and abandoned the account for another one.
This is the majority of their "accounts" and means nothing.
Personally, unless you are top 10 ecomm site or have a major offline presence that I am personally aware of, I will not leave CC info unless you have paypal (or unless I am truly desperate for your product).
PayPal is revolutionary and does great things for all of us doing business in the 'verse...
Seems to me there is a lot of mud slinging going on here.
Oh and you can find a article here talking about active accounts last year on PayPal's own site where the active acounts were only about 30%.
[shareholder.com...]
Hardly slinging mud...
As far as the number of credit cards in circulation for "proof", I would be happy to supply the numbers and sources for a large fee.
Credibility
What ever the PP fan club may say, when someone hits the buy button and is taken off to PP that says, by definition, I cannot handle this part of the transaction, I need help from a third party, hardly reassuring.<snip>
When was the last time you used a big well known ecommerce site and found yourself being sent to PP?
How can anyone claim to be seriously in business when they cannot personally take a credit card?
Exactly.
If customers won't enter their credit card number on your website, you need some serious marketing help.
I hope all my competitors use PayPal! :)
PayPal is growing faster than eBay's auction business. It's also commanding an imposing headcount. eBay had 71.8 million active accounts at the end of 2005, while PayPal watched over 96.2 million accountholders (with 28.1 million of those active this past quarter).
That article is the author's forecast that PP is doomed to lose more market share. I won't argue that - I don't have the numbers or knowledge to know one way or the other. My point was if you're going to throw numbers around - especially on a controversial subject - give us the source so we can read for ourselves.
Re: mudslinging - not necessarily pointed at you. PP has a polarizing effect on the Ecomm membership (and likely all of WebmasterWorld). Some say it sucks while others praise it high and low. What amazes me is how many people take sides. For Pete's sake (pun not intended) it's a service! There's a bigger picture here that's being overlooked. We buy services from any number of providers but that's all they are, services. The moment we let our emotions get involved (read through the longer threads on PP here and you're likely to see the pattern) with running our business is the moment we've lost objectivity and begin to hurt our business. It's a business! Make business decisions based on how well the service suits it and not what I or anyone else says about it. I much prefer to make business decisions based more on facts than on someone's opinion - especially if I haven't met them face-to-face. :)
[edited by: lorax at 5:04 pm (utc) on Feb. 24, 2006]
He is mid-thirties, a highly qualified professional and has been on the net for some years. Because he has never used ebay he has no idea what PP is.
There are a lot of those out there
A lot of highly qualified professional people who have not heard of eBay and Paypal? I don't think so.
I hear guys in the pub talking about Paypal and eBay, and I am talking about guys who don't even own a PC. In the community Paypal is much better known as a provider that Worldpay for example.
Here's a test. Ask 100 people at random the following question.
"Name me a company that takes or processes credit card payments on the Internet".
I would be willing to bet that Paypal would be amongst the top numbers.
Can I pay through Paypal?
Sure - and if you have Website payments pro setup - you wont even know who processes it.
1. Alot of people signed up in the past to get $5.
2. Alot of people sign up because it is the only way to pay for something.
3. Alot of people sign up because it is free and you have nothing to lose and never use it.
4. Alot of people are scammers and sign up, use it once for unethical/criminal activities and abandoned the account for another one. >>
But didn''t you say before that most Paypal users are not satisfied? Where do you add them up in your list?
If I follow your lead, there's probably one or two people still using Paypal in the world and that are legitimate users that have no problems using it.
That could be either, Brett, Pageoneresults, Lorax or me.
Gees, if we are the only satidfied Paypal customers, I wonder why they don't shut it down...
with 28.1 million of those active this past quarter
Trying to predict doom and gloom for PP because only "30% of accounts were active" in the last quarter is certainly spinning the stats to backup your own conclusion.
The point is, they are not all that significant compared to the number of credit cards in circulation and they use their registerd member numbers without qualification to make it sound as if they have more people actively using their service than what really do.
But didn''t you say before that most Paypal users are not satisfied? Where do you add them up in your list?
number of active accounts/number of accounts = active satisfied users
Just as valid as stating number of accounts = number of satified users don't you agree?
Just as valid as stating number of accounts = number of satified users don't you agree?
There are a number of services that I am an "active" user of, but that does NOT mean I am satisfied with the service: phone company, etc.
PayPal would like you to belive that they have 96 million people endorsing their service, when it is just numbers on a computer disk.
In over 10,000 paypal transactions, how many chargebacks do you think I have had?
None?
I also talked to my bank. They saw the double authorization and took one of them off. They said they had never heard of a company that authorized twice and thought it was bordering on illegal.
Since then I have made sure never to use the Paypal account to buy anything but small things and never allow them to touch my bank account under any circumstances. It took me years to even use the debit card they kept haranguing me about, and then they screwed up my Paypal account mightily and gave me the same snotty attitude they had years ago.
Also, what about the Paypal Pro thing? Last I heard, pretty much no shopping carts worked with it. It doesn't seem very professional to release something like that and to never have tested it with any shopping cart to see if it could actually be integrated by a human being.
My customers get a choice between using my cc processor and using Paypal. Over ninety percent don't use Paypal. I think that says something.
Like I said before, provide a real SWOT analysis and a survey with a Paypal user group and another one with a control group who purchased with another solution. Compare all of this information and only then can one claim that Paypal is bad and unprofessional.
As someone else said, the Paypal is bad argument is based on emotions, and judgement calls. This is not verified data. And on the public relations angle, it seems to me that the stronger criticisms come from people with vested interests in promoting that image about Paypal.
Those people are often
a) Other payment processors trying to grab a piece of market share.
b) Merchants with solutions that are usually more coslty than Paypal who feel that since they have comitted to an expensive solution, that Paypal is therefore unprofessional - i.e., if it costs more, it must be professional.
There are several alternative payment processors that "take" the customer away from the original Web site they started their purchases so the transaction may be completed at the payment processor's gateway. Yet, I see no criticisms over them. They do the exact same thing Paypal does. Often, they too offer limited customization to the payment processing pages.
In many of these solutions, vendors never see a credit card number. What some folks here seem to say is that only those who look at the actual credit card number and do final checks, are a serious businesses. Why is that, I don't know. Mind you, Paypal offers a solution for those who want to look and validate credit cards themselves...
And about Mom and Pop stores, I don't see what is the fuss is all about smaller businesses. It's as if being small is evil and means customers will receive bad services, bad products and be ripped off.
There are limited numbers of blue ship companies. Everything else is a small to medium size business trying to posture as a big guy. As Mom and Pop are the backbone of the economy, I have no shame being called a Mom and Pop. Everybody has to start somewhere. Being a Mom and Pop doesn't mean that you don't work as hard or satisfy customers less than others. Usually, one expect mom and pops to try harder and have simplier procedures, being more flexible, because its in their interests to do so.
Peter, right now you're arguing over numbers. All business inflate numbers. I won't hold PP to a higner standard than I do others.
No argument here, just stating facts.
As someone else said, the Paypal is bad argument is based on emotions, and judgement calls. This is not verified data. And on the public relations angle, it seems to me that the stronger criticisms come from people with vested interests in promoting that image about Paypal.Those people are often
a) Other payment processors trying to grab a piece of market share.
b) Merchants with solutions that are usually more coslty than Paypal who feel that since they have comitted to an expensive solution, that Paypal is therefore unprofessional - i.e., if it costs more, it must be professional.
Conspiracy theories... that is not rational.
The bottom line in my experience with PayPal is that they are very unprofessional compared to Wells Fargo. They have an adversarial attitude toward merchants. They take away your right to deal with the card banks when disputes occur and after dealing with them before, I have no confidence they have employees with good judgement. I won't use them ever again.
