Is Paypal Bad for business?

[safff]

So I've been expanding my e-commerce stores over the last few months which has involved some amateur mistakes and frustrations. Most of which a) Paypal integration with my ecommerce solution causing timeouts and numerous dropped carts (to the tune of $1500).

People who have disputed purchases - quickly resolved and only due to them not reading the instructions. I provided support and resolved each time but paypal locks the accounts down and it causes me nothing but headaches.

The long and short is that I integrated on-website stripe combined with an SSL cert, and instantly saw 5 purchases.

I found out that after running and not recieiving any sales for 3 months, a website I had created was not allowing the completion of sales due to an error with shipping costs. it picked up an instant sale with $500 profit.

So far since switching it seems that

a) people are happier not using paypal
b) I've had less issues with people not using paypal
c) people are much more receptive to great service when it's on the back of them emailing you, rather than in response to a paypal dispute
d) I no longer have money randomly held in a knee-jerk reaction

I was surprised that it didn't slow customer trust - and since enabling stripe I've seen no dropped carts or tailing off. I've today dropped paypal altogether, the shocking customer service coupled with the sheer inconvenience means that it's more hassle than it's worth for me so far.

My question is - am I missing out of any obvious advantages of paypal? Does it scream 'security' or 'sham' more loudly?

It appears to have deterred more customers than attracted (I never actively actively advertised paypal being the only option so perhaps it took a few people by surprise?)

What successes have you found, with or without paypal - do you offer multiple options? Am I crazy for not offering it?

 

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[MitchC]

Ok you might be able to help me here!

So I have a Shopify store in Australia.

80% of sales are paypal, rest are Shopify.

I have a currency converter app for USA sales, it converts the currency on the product and cart page.

Shopify payments and I think Paypal too are only in AUD, and it doesn't even explain that it just shows the higher price to USA customers at checkout, its ridiculous that I even get orders with it like this, anyway I'm losing heaps because of it.

I guess I should start by asking do you use Shopify? If not which? And how do you find stripe? Can I set it to change the currency? Or will I need USA bank account?

Anyway, on topic, I have every single $ I've made frozen in Paypal because I haven't sent the right company documents. Ive sent birth certificate, licence, like 3 letters from banks etc, and about 5 documents from the government about my company formation, and they still won't verify me, they want a specific letter from my company that I never even got or have heard of, and they rejected a form I signed because it had no letterhead when I'm the sole director and don't even have a letterhead. What a rant god to get that out of my system. I want to turn paypal off but like I said, 80% of my customers use it, maybe they would use the other method if it wasn't there? Oh and I got a chargeback on paypal too, and I don't send stuff tracked.

Ok thats enough of a rant and useless questions I could Google. Carry on people..

 

[Vigilante]

Paypal users love Paypal. Offer multiple checkout choices on your site. If a Paypal fan wants to use it they can. Let them choose from a variety of payment options, and you can cover all bases. Paypal is exceptionally secure.

 

[JordanS]

From my experience I get a slight higher conversion rate with paypal enabled, but I do not think it is worth using. I have been limited/had funds held too many times. At this point it feels like I am in an abusive relationship that I keep going back to even though I get hurt.

 

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[Random_0]

I've just signed up for Stripe, I take card payments in person/PayPal invoice usually.

Am I correct in thinking the 'Payment' feature means I can take payments over the phone?

 

[sWALK90]

paypal is holding a large amount of my funds now just because increase in volume ;(

 

[AllenCrawley]

Those with issues, do you have a business account or personal?

Spoiler

It's crazy reading some the Paypal stories here. Paypal is one of many forms of payment we accept. About 40% of our customers use Paypal. We've never had monies held with our ecommerce store. Never had anything happen that makes me wish we didn't use paypal. I've had the same paypal account since 1999. (We've had people hack our account twice but not since we went with two factor authentication)

 

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[sWALK90]

business

 

[The-J]

Some of you might have read my Paypal story.

They reached out to me today, actually. They asked for more information and they wanted to see if there was any way they could help.

Even though the Paypal situation was my fault (having weak computer security, passwords, no 2 factor, etc) they still wanted to see if they could help, since I swore up and down it wasn't me.

@AllenCrawley you're right that it is secure. It's got 2 factor option which is more than most banks can say. They look out for strange MAC and IP addresses logging into your Paypal account.

Just wanted to chime in and provide some closure I guess

 

[safff]

Those with issues, do you have a business account or personal?

Both - and I get similar issues with both which is frustrating given the hoops I had to jump through for the business account

Spoiler

It's crazy reading some the Paypal stories here. Paypal is one of many forms of payment we accept. About 40% of our customers use Paypal. We've never had monies held with our ecommerce store. Never had anything happen that makes me wish we didn't use paypal. I've had the same paypal account since 1999. (We've had people hack our account twice but not since we went with two factor authentication)

Good to hear some positive feedback too - I've been using paypal since around the same time but the problems only seem to be since it really 'blew up' and moreso in the last 3 years personally

I've just signed up for Stripe, I take card payments in person/PayPal invoice usually.

Am I correct in thinking the 'Payment' feature means I can take payments over the phone?

I believe so, yes

Paypal users love Paypal. Offer multiple checkout choices on your site. If a Paypal fan wants to use it they can. Let them choose from a variety of payment options, and you can cover all bases. Paypal is exceptionally secure.

That's the middle ground I suppose - worth pointing out that I took steps to mitigate getting complaints in the first place - and making the instructions sent with my products more prominent but it's that same security that paypal promotes that hurts me. It makes people lazy. Paypal promotes a 'any problems, WE will deal with them' type approach which means people don't even ask a question, they just hit dispute. Which is all well and good but even if the dispute is resolved in 10 seconds flat, too often the buyer thinks 'cool but I cant be bothered to log in and click the resolved button' meaning I'm waiting weeks for money.

I don't like the maddening lack of control that paypal gives.but I guess like you say, if the alternative is potentially not getting the sale at all from a paypal lover, I suppose it's something I need to suck up.. I guess the real question is - will a paypal lover buy a product if there's no paypal option if the product is good enough?

From my experience I get a slight higher conversion rate with paypal enabled, but I do not think it is worth using. I have been limited/had funds held too many times. At this point it feels like I am in an abusive relationship that I keep going back to even though I get hurt.

Exactly how I feel. The last few issues:

Couldn't verify a personal address because I had just moved - wasn't sure why it became an issue but it took 6 weeks to resolve. Paypal wouldn't accept the bill of sale of my house as proof nor correspondance for setting up utility accounts which obviously had no bill yet. I was on hold for an hour without speaking to someone.

Ebay sale money (and web sales) held for a month for absolutely no reason, had to wait a month for a few k.

Payment held due to dispute - customer was using the wrong password. didn't mark the dispute as closed, money held for a month or so
Payment held due to dispute - customer's popup blocker was stopping the download - didn't mark the dispute as closed, as above
Payment held due to dispute - customer selected the wrong product supposedly but had downloaded twice. Gave correct product as good will, didnt mark the dispute as closed etc..

 

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