Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

paypal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 249 posts

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#51

Post by robryan »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #19
shoto_io wrote: post #9

This is straight out of Peter Thiel's handbook. Create a monopoly and then take the profits.

PayPal doesn’t seem like a monopoly. Merchants can offer multiple payment processors, and customers can use a different one for each purchase without any lock-in. PayPal has strong competitors like Stripe and even Apple. They also lost their flagship client, eBay.

In some ways they are for consumer products. There is some percentage of people that won’t buy at all without the option. Then a much bigger percent that will still buy but prefer to use PayPal if you give the option.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#52

Post by kevingadd »

bradwood wrote: post #43

Time to put all this on crypto rails and disrupt these bastards out of existence.

Will that work particularly well since PayPal also adopted crypto? They have the money and resources to out-maneuver any weaker attempts at using crypto to displace them.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#56

Post by saurik »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #49
Semaphor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that actually mentioned anywhere, publically? We use it and as it’s account-wide, we always calculate which account we have to use to minimize fees.

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees#statemen... https://www.paypal.com/gf/smarthelp/article/how-can-i-update... The first page says it's 5% + 0.09 now, though. Edit: Oh, fixed the first link, the page was using javascript to break anchor links for some reason. Also that second page only exists on some versions of the site.

I am not 100% sure I am doing the math correctly, but I think--with the other changes today to the normal pricing--that means the boundary at which you should use this pricing tier has moved from ~$12 to ~$29?!

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#57

Post by exporectomy »

sdrinf wrote: post #36

Has anyone ran a recent A/B test for Stripe direct CC-based checkout + paypal vs Stripe only in the context of B2C subscriptions? Last time I've checked circa 2014-2015, there was consumer trust in Paypal (for cancellation/etc), and so having that option added ~+10% conversion rate (or so), but would appreciate more recent data, thank you!

No but I bet some people are turned away because of Paypal. I use it and customers occasionally inquire "Do you accept credit cards because we don't have a Paypal account?". It's aggravating that they make the credit card option hard to find compared to the shitty Paypal account login.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#58

Post by exporectomy »

bserge wrote: post #5

Still the easiest way to start selling online, at least in Europe... They've got the low volume starter business niche by the balls.

Yep. I investigated Stripe once but you had to use an API. Paypal is just copy and paste code into your HTML page.

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#59

Post by dr_dshiv »

When I moved to the Netherlands, I was at first irritated that my credit cards weren't accepted anywhere. But as the debit (maestro) card transactions are often free [1], paying 3%+ to a card service does seem exorbitant.

For online payments, the Dutch use the IDEAL system, which is even easier than online credit cards. This also prevents vendor lock-in, like Amazon. And, the banking apps make it super easy to send money to friends.

Looking back, I have to imagine that this 3%+ tax on all American transactions must put a weight on the system.

[1] https://www.ing.nl/media/ING-rates_for_business_transaction_...

Re: PayPal raises fees for most domestic transaction types to 3.49% + $0.49

#60

Post by makeitdouble »

londons_explore wrote: post #6

It amazes me that despite not really modifying the core PayPal service for 10+ years, they are still a market leader. Parts of their business don't have much network effect, and competitors could totally rebuild the tech and eat away at the market share... Yet somehow that hasn't happened.

I don't know if we'd call that a "network effect", but there is a (vicious?) cycle cementing PayPal's position.

More often than not sites will get different prices based on the transaction volume, so having a number of small minor payment options is of little benefit, except for very specific cases like Alipay.

Then if volume is transaction an important consideration, going with the market leader is the most reasonable choice.

I'd assume that's the logic Nintendo applied for its online store for instance, making PayPal the only alternative option to standard payment systems.

Post reply on HN