My hosting company is relatively new. We obviously take Visa, MasterCard, Discover, but have recently considered using PayPal as well to make things easier for customers. We're not sure if we should go this route and just wondering if anyone has good/bad experiences. Recommendations? Thanks for your help!
-April

1st: this forum sucks for new people.

To answer your question:

I recently went through the same thing. I ended up paying the money for a merchant account:

Check out http://www.webtransact.net/
( same as instamerchants.com )

After much research I found this company.

Also, I chose the plugnpay.com option because you can order it with a very good affiliate program. If you have a webhosting company you need a good affiliate program.

To answer your question: last year I switched from PayPal to a merchant account and my sales went through the roof!!! I could not believe it. I think the majority of people do not like to have to sign up for a paypal account... It is easier just to enter your information.

Also, check out: 2checkout.com . I've not used them, but I heard they were good (from this board).

i would have to agree, we offer a option of both paypal and 2checkout, we also now offer nochex payments for debit cards!:)

Hope this helps

As an *option* PayPal can enhance your business.
There are many consumers that would rather shop using their PayPal account.

I have a PayPal account that I do use to order things. I wouldn't want to use it for monthly billing, I'd prefer to pay either 6 months or a year in advance.

The perception is that PayPal is for eBay users, and if you were serious, you'd have a merchant account.

I don't find that to be true, but others do. That's what you have to worry about. If you have a merchant account AND offcer PayPal, then you have the best of both worlds.

Sue

For a small (non-webhosting) company I own, we accept PayPal in addition to our own merchant account (with Costco, extremely good pricing), just as an option for customers, but I would never rely on PayPal (especially since we pay less to Costco anyways).

Originally posted by jtmat
1st: this forum sucks for new people.

Also, check out: 2checkout.com . I've not used them, but I heard they were good (from this board).

Someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Anyway 2checkout rocks.. 50 bucks and your off on your way.. Paypal is a good way to accept payment from people without credit cards if you want another alternative. Merchant accounts are kinda a waste of money unless you plan on doing ALOT of transfers.. I mean its up to you spend 700 or so and save a couple cents over 2checkout or revecom.. Its up to you.. Just make sure you dont use ONLY PayPal and when you get money in your paypal account take it and run.. Dont leave much in there for long.

Originally posted by jtmat
. . . . this forum sucks for new people. . . . . . . . I have never known this to be true.

Originally posted by OKIHost
[B]

Merchant accounts are kinda a waste of money unless you plan on doing ALOT of transfers.. I mean its up to you spend 700 or so and save a couple cents over 2checkout or revecom..
Not always, for people in the US I highly recommend the Costco provided merchant services, if you get an Executive membership ($100 per year), there's no monthly fee, no setup (only $50 if you want internet processing too, but no cost for the software for processing on your computer), and the fees per transaction is only (for mail order, lower for in store type merchants):
2.01% for mail order or phone order merchants plus 28¢ per VISA and MasterCard transaction
plus five cents if done as an internet transaction, it's pretty hard to beat.

PayPal is great as a *side option*. The merchant account is much more professional, so always offer regular cc processing first, and PayPal parenthetically. About 8% of my clients prefer to use PayPal, so offering it seems to help a lot.

Doesn't PayPal process CC too? Why are you diferentiating (and what). Can some one explain me?

They can, although possibly not Mastercard soon (last I saw), but in order to do it, the user making the purchase needs to have a PayPal account, you can't just bill someone's CC (like you can with an actual merchant account).

I use both Paypal and 2checkout.com.
Paypal accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover,
and American Express. You do not have to
be a member to pay by credit card with Paypal.
If you are a Paypal member you can make payments
in various ways besides a credit card.
I use Paypal as an alternative way of making payments.

You should also check out hostcharge.com. I signed up with them and their support has been excellent to say the least. It's relatively cheap aswell if you can't afford to get a merchant account at the moment.

Not that I've had any bad experience with PayPal but do check out

www.paypalsucks.com and read the forums...

I found that link on forums of FutureQuest hosting having issues with PayPal

A.

I've had to turn down a few customers due to the fact that we do not offer PayPal. You can definately get more customers by offering PayPal for payment, but you might avoid a headache or two by not offering it.

Originally posted by Ltordo
You do not have to be a member to pay by credit card with Paypal.actually, you do.. if you don't already have a paypal account you have to create one to send any kind of payment. thus the "create paypal password" field on the cc form.

i offer paypal as an alternative, and it has been all good so far. but then, only about 10% of my customers pay with it, so i don't have to worry too much about the horror stories. it won't happen to me :stickout

I agree with Avail. I might offer PayPal as an alternative that isn't recommended..

Pay Pal is a good option to use but they always stuff you up with customers that are malicous etc.

a Customer that spammed was banned and wanted all his money back even though our AUP (back then) had no money back for spammers etc...

Anyway they paid via paypal and paypal sent me an email stating to give them a reason why the customer should not get his money back... i stated everything correctly and even supplied them with logs and IP. and a day later ( I dont think any humen at paypal saw the email i wrote) but took the money out from our account and gave it back to the user...

That sucks. :(

Oh well