Pros and Cons of PayPal?

[danima]

I found myself in an awkward situation yesterday when a client asked "so, why wouldn't I just use PayPal instead of setting up the E-commerce on my site?". We have just built a shopping cart for him and we were telling him about the costs of the SSL Certificate, monthly fees, blah, blah, blah. And when he asked I realized that I don't know a hec of a lot about PayPal.

Is it a better alternative than having everything set up through a clients site (secure, of course)? Are there limitations to using PayPal. Again, I'll do more Research...but I figured there might be some great opinions here.

Thanks

 

[sleipnir214]

I don't know how they have been behaving since eBay bought them out, but in the past they have had a repution for being (how shall I put it?) not customer-service oriented.

To get a look at the opinions of those who are not of a good opinion about PayPal:

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[danima]

The url says it all....I shall go investigate...thanks for the help.

 

[CoreyBryant]

They are still not customer oriented. Why should they be? They only sold to ebay because it was rumored in that industry that Mastercard was going to shut them down. If you are going to use them & I do recommend them for something quick & easy, open up a new bank account for paypal. And then when you have paypal deposit the money - move it. If something ever happened to your paypal account, that can & will freeze that bank account until it is ironed out. Had one friend that had her bank account frozen for 6 months.

And in case you missed it - the pro was - they are quick & easy

__________________________
Corey

http://www.merchantaccounts4less.com

 

[foxdev]

There's another PayPal-horror-story site:
paypalwarning.com

To me, the shopper/buyer, I think less of the professionalism of a company when I'm taken off-site to paypal, 2checkout, or any of the others for payment. This probably isn't justified, but it certainly is an image-degrader with many shoppers.

OTOH, committing $35 or so a month and $100-$300 in startup fees for a "real" merchant account may be too much for some startups.

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art prints

http://www.artlot.com

 

[danima]

Wow....great insight. Thanks very much. I've forwarded info on to the client and it looks as though he's made up his mind not to go with PayPal.

Much appreciated folks. Have a great evening (unless of course you are reading this in the morning or afternoon...they just substitute)!

 

[mbdw6708]

I have read about 5 posts and each one has been full of great information. I am currently using paypal but have been wanting to switch. this thread convinced me I need to switch.

http://www.azconsignment.com

 

[foxdev]

Since you resurrected this thread, mbdw6708, let me add that recently I have had quite a few users and merchants tell me that they have had technical trouble with the PayPal system, both PayPal accounts and using the PayPal debit card. While all of the gateways have had their hiccups, PayPal's is on top of all of the other issues with them.


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art prints

http://www.artlot.com