Paypal as sole payment processor

[Michael@PT]

Evenin all

Have posted previously to this message regarding payment processor for credit cards and i was highly tempted to go with the Worldpay route until i read a few messages from yourselves.

Has anyone got any experiences, good or bad, with using Paypal as sole credit card processor??? i believe customers dont have to have an account anymore to use the services, which is a definate plus.

Was going to use paypal as a secondary option but am thinking that while business is picking up( we are a new startup) we may as well save the money and use it for promotion instead of paying Worldpay their vast sum, and move Paypal up to sole processor.

please let me know if anyone uses Paypal onl at the mo and definately let me know if you think it is the stupidest think to ever consider.

I dont wasnt to make a "balls up" before we even get started!

[pinbrook]

My feeling is that a website can loose some credibility by only using Paypal.

This is because everyone who uses it knows that the world and his dog can accept a paypal payment, therefore it doesn't reflect well on the robustness of your business if you are using them as your only CC processor. It tells your customers what you are telling us - you don't have the cash or the business to risk paying a "proper" CC processor.

There is the other side of the arguement that you can use them to pop your toe in the water to see if your website has any mileage. Then of course you get stuck between a rock and a hard place - do you put people off by not appearing professional enough and never grow your business or do you risk money with Worldpay (or such like) and still find out your website isn't going to be a sucess.

I suspect the situation with Paypal is going to improve over the next 12 months where it may become viewed as a professional processor but in the meanwhile it is to tied in with the image of Ebay and hobby businesses in spare bedrooms.

[Legends]

hi

We have a merchant account and use this as our main cc processor via protx which is very good and very cheap to use. We also offer paypal, typicaly only about 5% of our orders come via paypal and I suspect that is true for most online merchants who offer it as an option.

We also find that paypals fees are about twice what we pay via our standard merchant account, and take out the set up fee for world pay and I bet Paypal is around the same costs. World pay will give you much more credibility.

You should also approach your bank and see if it is feasable to get a merchant account, normally less than worldpay to set up and once you have it you will find that the costs are much lower, payments quicker than both Worldpay and Paypal. Plus you look like a profesional online merchant.

Paypal is great as a catchall for people who want to pay by card types we do not accept (Amex, Diners etc).

Hope this helps

Cheers

[alan@onlybowls.]

We started up earlier this year using Paypal only. I agree with what another post said about the image - Paypal is currently not regarded as a professional solution. However, more importantly, it didn't work very well. It was fine if the customer placed the order and used their Paypal account. After that, it wasn't fine. We had a lot of problems when people wanted to use a card but did not have a Paypal account - it just flat rejected the card with no reason and would not let them proceed with that card.

The really annoying one was when they rang us with an order. Taking their card details it turns out that they have a card tied to a Paypal account. You then have a catch 22 (or at least you did when we used it 4 or 5 months ago). You can't use the card because it is tied to a Paypal account. You can't use the account unless you break all security rules and ask the customer for their Paypal username and password. So you cannot take payment from the customer unless they have a card which is not tied to Paypal.

Play with paypal by all means, but do not rely on it.

We now have a merchant id with Lloyds TSB (not our bankers) and we use Velocity Pay. Paypal is about 1.5% more expensive for us.

Good luck,

Alan

[jk1]

The problem is with paypal that you will usually need an account and then even if you have an account you may need to verify it before sending a large payment (what customers going to wait a week to buy some goods off a website?) This could easily lose you a lot of customer as the paypal process can be just so longwinded, with a merchant provider like Protx the payment can be made instantly without any account needing to be set up and the money can be there in your account the next day Also, Paypal is often associated with ebay... which i dont think is an entirely good thing as ebay is getting itself a reputation as a place where you might not always get what you payfor