Paypal

[Ratty]

I know people are having a lot of trouble with Paypal.
I don't accept it at all because
1) Its inherently problematic in itself
2) The actinic link up is problematic
3) If someone doesn't get their goods with Paypal its always your fault and Paypal refunds them if you havent sent parts with a trackable courier (and usually if you have)
4) Its very expensive compared with a standard merchant account
5) If you have a problem Paypal are very very unhelpful (I know the above 2 reasons from personal experience)

If you're going to make a go of it then set up a merchant account - I did and |I've never looked back. It takes about an hour to fill the paperwork and you need to be credit checked.
It costs £20 monthly for terminal rental plus 1 - 2 % of sale price depending what deal you can negotiate yourself
If you have a problem you ring and speak to a real live competent person 1st time every time - at least I do with Barclays
It makes your business look more pro if people can pay with debit/credit cards (not to mention more accessible)

Hope I don't get flamed, or told to MYOB, I just want to help people where I have learned from bitter experience

cheers

[pinbrook]

Hope I don't get flamed

I cetainly hope you don't get flamed either, there's no reason why you should be.

Paypal is often discussed, many people want to use it because they consider it a cheap way to get set up. Most of us would agree with you, it is probably going to hinder growth long term as a "proper" payment method will generate mre credibility for your site and business.

I still think business in a garage when I see a site using paypal only as payment method.

Alot of us do agree it is useful to have as an extra payment method, to mop up with ie when people don't have CC on them or for people who have money in a PP acct and see it as "pretend" money, ie they've sold some items and have the crdit lying in the PP acct

[Jan]

We have paypal as one of our payment options and have noticed that over the last year paypal payments have increased to around about 25% of our orders. We are B2B on the whole though, so that might explain.

Another little benefit, we had an order from Denmark today and protx would not accept it (due to card type), we put it through using the credit card payment option in paypal instead and it was fine.

It is expensive to use though, more expensvie that worldpay was when we used that. I put off getting my merchant account for a couple of years after starting my business, I was surprised at how easy it was when I eventually did do it.

Regards,

[pinbrook]

I put off getting my merchant account for a couple of years after starting my business

thats probably the key, after a couple of years you had a trading record. It is more difficult for a start up to get a mechant acct, but not impossible.

[Mark Evenden]

We had our Streamline terminal long before a web site. Initally I only accepted debit and credit cards - but then a couple of years ago added the PayPal option - I was horrified at the number of sales that came through with PayPal payments - we must of missed out on many sales through failure to adapt - I always assumed every one had a plastic card.

Anyway we are members of a trade organisation for no other reason than through them we pay 1.25% on credit cards and 18p on deibit cards, on a small turnover (£65K), terminal rental is £15 plus vat, credits are next working day and free from bank fees so long as you bank with Nat West. The phone call is also paid by Streamline, so all in all not a bad deal.

For our cash transactions in the shop we use Alliance and Leicester, they recently cold called to sell a card terminal...5% credit cards, 40p debit cards, £20 monthly rental and 4.2p plus vat each transaction to cover the call!

So if possible join a trade association even "fed of small business" and take advantage of their buying power........finally use thermo till rolls in the card terminal instead of the three time the price rolls Stream Line sell you..:rolleyes:

[RuralWeb]

I know people are having a lot of trouble with Paypal I would disagree with all your points. The paypal link with Actinic is the easiest of all to set-up and several sites I have put paypal on this year have had a huge increase in sales this christmas because of paypal. Paypal have always been very helpful in sorting out the few problem payments people have had - far better than some PSPs.

And the big one is that looking at the search stats on google I can see that people are actively searching out websites that use paypal - why ignore the biggest payment provider in the world?? .

[RuralWeb]

While on the subject I have noticed a big increase in the purchase of paypal gift vouchers this year as well.

[Mark Evenden]

The trade association we belong to is actually quite small with 500 members, I understand Actinic has several thousand users (15,000?) - just a thought but that is serious buying power, any chance of Actinic talking to a cc/ debit card serices provider to negotiate a deal for license holders...I undrstand you get a commision:)

[completerookie]

...I undrstand you get a commision
I'm willing to talk to cc companies - not sure if I have enough clout though.

[Paul Bulpit]

http://www.fsb.org.uk/data/default.asp?id=14&loc=FSBbenefits

Membership Fee (£70 p.a.) gives legal protection insurance, the only reason I have been a member for 30 years - many other services as well.

[Tony Moore]

I've just dumped pay pal as a customer claimed he was charged more than the purchase price and even though I proved that it was nothing to do with me I still took a hit. I found pay pal arrogant and unhelpful to deal with, they even charged my credit card without my consent at one point. I guess you only find out about a company when things go wrong.