PayPal - Is It Worth It

[Mantra]

Just wondering does enabling PayPal as a checkout option really increase sales?

I tried this briefly as a test and found that the PayPal default Logo stood out prominently above the SellerDeck Payment option making it appear as though PayPal was the preferred payment method.

The transaction charges for PayPal are much higher than other payment methods and there was a delay in the time payment was received into the account that introduced another layer of administration that could be counter productive for sites processing multiple transactions on a daily basis.

Any feedback most welcome.

[guccij]

You can have the payments paid into your account the next day - including weekends.

The more you sell using PayPal, the lower your merchant fees become.

Yes they're still marginally more than Sellerdeck but if your volume of sales increases, that's still better, no?

56% of our visitors are on mobiles. Another 17% use tablets.

You can see why PayPal for mobile and tablet users makes sense - no typing in of credit card details in a small text field.

Currently 64% of our orders are paid with using PayPal - the Express version being 97% of that, just 3% the Website Payments version.

[mje]

We removed the PayPal option from our site about three years ago - simply felt their fees excessive,also I like a monthly invoice, neat and tidy VAT reconciliation and didn't feel at the time PP offered this.

[Phil H]

Paypal

Having paypal has increased conversions/sales and a significant % of users use it.

I really dont like what SellerDeck have done recently with the new larger button for Paypal and the smaller one for 'checkout now' . I also dont like the problems paypal users have with using paypal and having to leave our site, pay on paypal and then hopefully come back. I know some customers dont get this and it really is not intuitive or standard. This does result in lost sales.

I have not spent time to resolve or change the way this operates and if anyone else has please tell me.

Thanks,

Phihl

[MDN]

We use PayPal Express as well as SellerDeck, I see around 30% of orders paid using PayPal and at the end of the day I think its far better to offer payment choices, consider most private customers may well have money from selling in PayPal so they can use that rather than wages, I wonder if the 30% would still come through if it were not an option.

I also dont like the problems paypal users have with using paypal and having to leave our site, pay on paypal and then hopefully come back

PayPal express has in-context option in the setup that keeps customers on your site, just opens in a lightbox so they are never taken away.

[Mantra]

I really dont like what SellerDeck have done recently with the new larger button for Paypal and the smaller one for 'checkout now'

Can SellerDeck fix this with a smaller 'Paypal Express' button that is the same size as the 'Checkout Now' button?

[MDN]

Can SellerDeck fix this with a smaller 'Paypal Express' button that is the same size as the 'Checkout Now' button?

Just make a new larger checkout button and name it 'button_checkoutnow_button.gif' saved to your site1 or store folder overwriting the original, add something to my hookandloopfasteners site basket and you'll see the standard checkout button is bigger than the PayPal one. The PayPal button is hosted by them so would need hard-coding to replace, easier to change the one in SD.

[Mantra]

Lee
Thanks again.
I upgraded our site to a V16 Smart Responsive theme just over 3 months ago and checking Google Search Analytics today shows a doubling in the amount of search engine clicks over this period - 30% from mobile and 12% from tablet - our business has benefited since the update.
The responses received so far suggest that 'PayPal Express' would be worth a try to capture more conversions from mobile and tablet users.

Martin
Mantra Audio

[saucysal]

Most of our customers choose PayPal

At least 75% of our customers opt to pay by PayPal. On one website, we have PayPal Website Payments Pro as the payment service provider, with a secondary option of SagePay for a few customers who have a personal problem with PayPal Pro, set up on their accounts and not seen by others. PayPal Website Payments Pro gives customers a choice of paying by PayPal or credit or debit cards. Likewise the same with SagePay. Our other websites all go to SagePay (on which we have PayPal as an option).

We consider it essential to have the PayPal option.

Sarah

[feemish]

Yes PayPal is worth it. We also take payments using Realex / Global Payments, but PayPal Express Checkout is accounting for 65-70% of checkouts. Yes, it's more expensive for us, but the customers like it. Customers also like the protection PayPal offers. PayPal nearly always finds in favour of the customer if there is a dispute. That's a PITA for sellers but means people feel more secure using PayPal.

[zgap111]

We've been using both Paypal Express and Paypal Payments Pro for 3 years now
- before we only had Actinic/Sellerdeck Payments

I can't actually see any difference in revenue for us - just more people are paying by Paypal now.
- but having extra choices of payment options is always a good thing to offer.

Sellerdeck Payments:
Setting up was easy and was nicely integrated with the software, was pretty much flawless with us.

With Paypal, a lot more labour...

Paypal Express:
It's annoying that customers are directed away from your site before shipping is confirmed - so the amount at the end is different - sometimes they have problems with this, so we also offer Paypal Payment Pro (usual Sellerdeck checkout, and customer selects Paypal at the Payment Options page)
Bugs... v16.02 fixed a bug that partial refunds were refunded in full - we have not even tried to find out how much we've lost due to this bug (we only found out when a customer queried their "full" refund...)

Paypal doesn't recognise separate UK regions (it's just "UK"), so shipping is a pain - eg. 20kg Parcel to Northern Ireland is not the same to Mainland England - we setup a special "UK Paypal" country code for only payments via Paypal.
- even this poses a problem, sometimes a customer would complain they can't pay by card, and it is always the country is set to "UK Paypal"...
- recently noticed an extension : "Shipping by Postcode" = I haven't tried it, will it work with Paypal Express?
- just noticed on the forum it says: "The Shipping By Postcode Extension is free to use for 28 days and requires an annual licence thereafter."

Our usual checkout has UK separated - England (mainland), Scotland (No Highlands), etc...
- only Paypal Express has this problem, Paypal Payments Pro goes through SD's normal checkout

We setup Paypal to be "pre-authorise", and we probably get a few that has problems when committing the payment (ie. click commit, order still says payment pending, click commit - error message regarding receiving double - check on paypal = payment is committed at Paypal, but can't commit in SD) - we have to manually check in Paypal if it's received/committed and have to manully enter a payment into the Order.

Paypal doesn't send an invoice for their fees... you have to manually login and find that report - sometimes they update their site (site looks different) and the report is located somewhere else... - we use the Sales Report for a particular month and then calculate the fees (total fees less fees refunded) - I think recently they mentioned a future change to the reports...

A good thing for Paypal, payments received can be transferred immediately to your bank (payments received by card via Sellerdeck payments are about 2-3 days)

However, again, we have to do this manually - you have to login to Paypal to transfer money out.
- we normally have to leave a bit in Paypal as we had a problem where we made a refund on a Paypal when there wasn't any funds in Paypal, so when that happens, Paypal takes the money from your bank account - so x days later, there was a refund transaction on our bank statement which had to be investigated... we did not know, again time taken to resolve.

So, card payments are good in the way that it is automated and shows daily figures on your bank statement (which we monitor daily anyway) - Paypal you have to do it manually, and to quickly see daily figures, you probably have to do a report...

I also notice we get a lot more people making chargebacks on Paypal vs card...
- so you may have to deal with extra complaints for orders paid by Paypal.

I can't remember rightly... Paypal implementing TLS 1.2 ?
- forced you to check your host is compliant and also forced Sellerdeck to release an update to it's software... if it doesn't comply, Paypal won't work...
- it was going to be done in 2017, but it's delayed to 2018

Another Paypal plus point: no need to do the PCI-DSS compliance - questionaire etc...

[guccij]

A good thing for Paypal, payments received can be transferred immediately to your bank (payments received by card via Sellerdeck payments are about 2-3 days)
However, again, we have to do this manually - you have to login to Paypal to transfer money out.

We don't do this manually. Today's sales will be in our bank account tomorrow, automatically.
If a refund is made and there aren't enough funds in the account, the money comes out of the linked company bank account instead.

[zgap111]

We don't do this manually. Today's sales will be in our bank account tomorrow, automatically.

I can't see anywhere on our Paypal a/c on how this is setup...

- I've always thought it's their way of keeping the money as long as possible
- just like for payments (Paypal's way to minimise % charges from the card/banks), they prioritise 1st taking money from the any balance, then by bank, then debit card, then VISA/Mastercard, then AMEX - there's no way to setup to default paying from AMEX first...

[guccij]

You can email business-support@paypal.co.uk and ask them to set this up for you. It's so long since I did it I can't remember where the setting is.

[chris ashdown]

I was always under the impression that PayPal users tended to consider money in their PayPal account sort of less value to them than cash in their pocket. so were more inclined to impulse buy using PayPal rather than say use a debit or credit card