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Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#11

Post by daliusd »

ramit wrote: post #3

I accept a fairly high volume of payments and intentionally don't accept Paypal. Here's why: 1. 99.9% of my paying customers have a credit card 2. I've only had ~3 customers ever complain about my lack of Paypal. I made a special arrangement for 1. She ended up canceling. 3. Paypal doesn't allow the custom flows (upsells, cross-sells) that I can do with my shopping cart 4. Paypal doesn't integrate as nicely with my b…

Question here:

2. You say that 3 customers complained. Is your product/service so specific that users that can't pay using PayPal complain? Are you sure that they just don't go away? What if you lost 297 customers?

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#12

Post by ramit »

egmike wrote: post #9
ramit wrote: post #3

I accept a fairly high volume of payments and intentionally don't accept Paypal. Here's why: 1. 99.9% of my paying customers have a credit card 2. I've only had ~3 customers ever complain about my lack of Paypal. I made a special arrangement for 1. She ended up canceling. 3. Paypal doesn't allow the custom flows (upsells, cross-sells) that I can do with my shopping cart 4. Paypal doesn't integrate as nicely with my b…

It certainly does help, thank you Ramit. Have you done any split testing to see if your conversions increase with PayPal though? Any thoughts/data on having PayPal as a secondary payment option, for those who prefer it?

Great question.

No, we haven't split-tested the addition of Paypal. We're constantly running tests, but this is a low-priority one for us based on extensive customer research.

Since we can't test it all, we pick the biggest potential wins (e.g., headlines and offers) and run them as rigorously as possible.

I do know that IMVU offers an insane number of payment options, but I think this may have more to do with their particular userbase.

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#13

Post by ramit »

daliusd wrote: post #11
ramit wrote: post #3

I accept a fairly high volume of payments and intentionally don't accept Paypal. Here's why: 1. 99.9% of my paying customers have a credit card 2. I've only had ~3 customers ever complain about my lack of Paypal. I made a special arrangement for 1. She ended up canceling. 3. Paypal doesn't allow the custom flows (upsells, cross-sells) that I can do with my shopping cart 4. Paypal doesn't integrate as nicely with my b…

Question here: 2. You say that 3 customers complained. Is your product/service so specific that users that can't pay using PayPal complain? Are you sure that they just don't go away? What if you lost 297 customers?

Doubtful. In order to find out why people don't buy, we do heavy, ongoing customer research/surveys/phone calls with people who are on our prospect list but haven't purchased after the expected purchase time frame.

Hardly anyone, ever, has said "I haven't bought your course because you don't support Paypal."

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#14

Post by hellweaver666 »

noodle wrote: post #2

probably because of the fact that paypal is an unreliable source on which to build a business once it becomes big enough. there are too many horror stories.

This was a constant worry in my previous business (in the retail sector), but we did over £140,000 (GBP) of sales through PayPal over the two years we were active and never had a problem.

I'm considering using them with my new startup just for the first few months while I get up and running, purely because the setup cost is free. If I can prove the business idea works then I'll upgrade to a "proper" payment gateway.

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#15

Post by hellweaver666 »

I frequently look for a PayPal button / logo because I'm lazy. My card details are saved with PayPal and it's easier to enter my email address and password, then click confirm than to get my card out of my wallet and type the details in manually.

As a consumer, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to the end cost (most of the time, unless the merchant charges a PayPal Premium) and saves me time.

It's the same reason I buy most of my music from iTunes and pretty much everything else from Amazon.

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#16

Post by nRike »

Well, i think 37Signals, YardEngine and GitHub uses BrainTree instead of Paypal, and IMO BrainTree is the best solution. I was helping the guys of http://rega.la to build the online payment part and i noted that for Credit Card payment is so cool. Other way you can use is BOKU(http://www.boku.com/) which uses mobile carriers to make the money transaction in 3 simple steps.

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#18

Post by camelback »

ramit wrote: post #3

I accept a fairly high volume of payments and intentionally don't accept Paypal. Here's why: 1. 99.9% of my paying customers have a credit card 2. I've only had ~3 customers ever complain about my lack of Paypal. I made a special arrangement for 1. She ended up canceling. 3. Paypal doesn't allow the custom flows (upsells, cross-sells) that I can do with my shopping cart 4. Paypal doesn't integrate as nicely with my b…

Hey Ramit, for reason #1, I thought paypal also does credit card processing aswell?

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#19

Post by JacobAldridge »

camelback wrote: post #18
ramit wrote: post #3

I accept a fairly high volume of payments and intentionally don't accept Paypal. Here's why: 1. 99.9% of my paying customers have a credit card 2. I've only had ~3 customers ever complain about my lack of Paypal. I made a special arrangement for 1. She ended up canceling. 3. Paypal doesn't allow the custom flows (upsells, cross-sells) that I can do with my shopping cart 4. Paypal doesn't integrate as nicely with my b…

Hey Ramit, for reason #1, I thought paypal also does credit card processing aswell?

Sure, but if you already have credit card facilities then that PayPal feature is redundant.

Re: Ask HN: Why do 37signals and others not accept PayPal?

#20

Post by philwelch »

desigooner wrote: post #8
mansilla wrote: post #7

I recently stated this in another comment regarding payment systems.. I wouldn't rely on just one. A merchant account through a bank CAN get suspended or put on hold if you trip any risk ratios (e.g. inquiries, chargebacks, refunds). So, indeed, PayPal does have its share of stories of accounts being suspended without explicit reason; however, merchant banks have the same power and believe me when I say that they can…

>>Some users swear by it because they don't have to share any sensitive credit card information (including CVV coddes) with the merchant. I tend to be one of those .. Dispute resolution with Paypal is a much better experience as compared to dealing with, say Bank of America ... I was lucky to have had my paypal account on itunes when I had some fraudulent purchases .. No long claims process as with a bank .. The inve…

Bank of America is a particularly crappy bank. US Bank is marginally better in my experience, and ING Direct is by far the best. Particularly in terms of dispute resolution, US Bank was very easy to work with, and settled the matter within I think less than a week. (My ING Direct debit card number has yet to be stolen, and when a whole bunch of debit card numbers were leaked by a third party, they preemptively mailed me a brand new card along with a friendly letter explaining the situation.)

But the real solution for dispute resolution is to use an ordinary credit card and put through chargebacks on any and all fraudulent purchases. Lacking the stomach to keep a credit card I don't do this myself, but I hear chargebacks are very easy by design.

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