hi guys,

just curious here.... anybody here using paypal for their payment solution and if you do .. how you guys intergrate it with your web page and what you think about them.

There are quite a few people who use PayPal as a payment processor, but usually it's not used as the main processor as it's not that reliable. If you do one little thing wrong, you may lose all your money... that's the story I've heard, but personally... I haven't had a problem with them. It's quick and easy is all I can say about them.

PayPal have instructions on their website on how to use their system with what you need to do with it. Usually data is just passed on to PayPal and then once the payment has been made, the details are sent back to a script on your server allowing you to process the order. You'll need to know a programming language to implement PayPal with your system, ot you could always hire someone to do it... it shouldn't cost much as it's very simple to do.

Alan

What about record keeping ? .. Does paypal keep all those recurring billing information, etc ?

Originally posted by drhonk
What about record keeping ? .. Does paypal keep all those recurring billing information, etc ? I've not actually had a recurring payment on my account yet as I don't provide PayPal as a payment solution yet... but I assume that every payment is automatically added to the records as money going into the account needs a new 'record' to show where the money came from, so yes. But I would advise you to keep your own records too from the details sent to you via the scripts.

Alan

Paypal has something called "Subscription", but I wouldn't reccomend relying on them. It's not too much of a bother just to bill them monthly.

Is the "Subscription" service not reliable?

I guess it's not hard to just bill them on a monthly basis with PayPal, but it's different if it's a credit card as the customer would have to enter their credit card details every month if you were to send them an invoice.

This could be a new thread... but I'm wondering if any host actually does send an invoice to the customer each month with a URL to go to, to enter their credit card details to pay for example $10 every month?

Alan

i would look at http://paypalwarning.com and http://www.aboutpaypal.org , then ask yourself if you still really want to use paypal . I know spending lots of money on cc processing isnt an option for everyone , but maybe someone on this board would be will to help you out with a better alternative .

Originally posted by case
i would look at http://paypalwarning.com and http://www.aboutpaypal.org , then ask yourself if you still really want to use paypal . I know spending lots of money on cc processing isnt an option for everyone , but maybe someone on this board would be will to help you out with a better alternative .

Good post. Didn't know about those.

Don't use paypal. Seriously.

I had someone complain that a service was never given, when it was, and my account was frozen for over two months. As a reseller, you cannot afford that kind of down time while paypal sits around spinning on their thumbs. I use click bank. pretty much the same thing as paypal. Better TOS, chargeback protection, and oh yeah... security. Anyway, for a million horror stories like mine, check out http://paypalsucks.com

One other item, as a non-USA customer, you have to pay to buy something from a PayPal site (this is in VERY fine print), and it takes about a week to get setup.

scenario:
1. You are charged $1.95US by PayPal to set up an individual account
2. then you need to check your on-line credit card statement, to get the 4 digit code
3. then you need to "complete" the account setup
4. then when you are all done that, you can go back and see if you can find the www site that you originally wanted to buy from.

Do you want any of your customers to go through that! I actually did the above, so I know that is exactly how it works. When I e-mailed them asking if this is how it would work, they never e-mailed me back.

cheers, Jeff :)

Originally posted by j_rumba
One other item, as a non-USA customer, you have to pay to buy something from a PayPal site (this is in VERY fine print), and it takes about a week to get setup.

scenario:
1. You are charged $1.95US by PayPal to set up an individual account
2. then you need to check your on-line credit card statement, to get the 4 digit code
3. then you need to "complete" the account setup
4. then when you are all done that, you can go back and see if you can find the www site that you originally wanted to buy from.

Do you want any of your customers to go through that! I actually did the above, so I know that is exactly how it works. When I e-mailed them asking if this is how it would work, they never e-mailed me back.

cheers, Jeff :) Even though it sounds like a long process, it isn't that hard, but still... I wouldn't want my customers having to do that. The advantage here is that they already have over 16 million people registered, so for the customer, it's as simple as entering their e-mail address, password, then click a few times and it's all paid. So there are good things about using PayPal, but you shouldn't use it as your main payment processor, it should just be an alternative, or a choice for the customer.

Alan