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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    770

    Post Paypal as an alternative online payment mechanism

    As many of you may know from my prior posts, I am Canadian. As many of you may also know, Canada is not particularly well set up as a nation (particularly bank merchant services provider attitudes) to deal with online payment processing.

    I have recently become aware that PayPal can be used to develop shopping cart solutions and provides what appears to be a very favourable merchant rate (especially when compared to that of the banks here) as well as what I would consider to be very nominal fees. (Especially when the US dollar factor is taken into account).

    I do have three questions, however:

    1) Has anyone used their shopping cart services, and if so are they effective and reliable (or do they make out like the banks and side automatically with the merchant and force said merchant to go through hoops to prove a transaction?)

    2) I can't determine from the documentation if there is a method that would allow customers to pay offline, should they prefer not to provide credit card information online (this is extremely important to me since the majority of Canadians tend to look upon online transactions with some degree of trepidation.) Has anyone figured out a way to set up the PayPal services to handle both online and offline transactions?

    3) Are there any international (as in not exclusively US) counterparts to PayPal?

    Thanks everyone for your help.
    Is Canada the best? Noo Doot Aboot It!
    "And on the eighth...day...God...created...Mankind. WHY WAS HE HAVING SUCH A BAD DAY?" -- Mick Foley

  2. #2
    Hmm... It seems as though Paypal needs to advertise to the rest of the world. But, I don't want to interfere with this thread, so input your thoughts, guys!

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Posts
    264
    Hi,

    "2) I can't determine from the documentation if there is a method that would allow customers to pay offline, should they prefer not to provide credit card information online (this is extremely important to me since the majority of Canadians tend to look upon online transactions with some degree of trepidation.) Has anyone figured out a way to set up the PayPal services to handle both online and offline transactions? "

    No, there is no way for PayPal to process credit cards offline. It is actually more secure for a user to register their card with us than sending credit card details via email to some other party.
    Damon
    PayPal Consumer Relations

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    770
    I don't think I worded that quite the way I intended to. I'll try to explain that using the example:

    Customer A goes and picks out 3 products from a website and is ready to checkout. Now the way I set up an e-commerce site normally is to provide Customer A with the choice of paying online or offline, in order to provide as many options as possible and thus retain as many customers as possible. The offline payment would be processed either by phone, fax or in some cases email.

    If Customer A feels uncomfortable providing credit card information online, or wishes to pay via cheque or money order, or there are other extraordinary purchase stipulations, that order would be processed offline. PayPal really wouldn't have anything to do with an offline transaction, as a result.

    However, if Customer A wants to pay online, that's where I'd want to use PayPal (if possible) or some other alternative as a payment processor. I don't necessarily need the whole shopping cart per se; I merely need to be able to send summary data for an order to PayPal (Price, taxes, S&H, etc.) and PayPal would process the credit card order.

    The way the PayPal documentation reads is that I would have to use the shopping cart from start to finish (customer selects items and pays online); I'm looking for something that will do the following:

    1) Customer A selects products, and as he/she does so, this information is stored on my clients' databases.
    2) When Customer A is finished selecting products, he/she goes to a product review page to make sure the order is complete and that everything he/she wants is there.
    3) Customer A selects either to pay offline (my clients would take care of the details through whatever method they choose) or online (through PayPal or something similar).

    I am aware of the security risks associated with sending credit card numbers through email and I make my clients aware of them as well; however, they often have customers who for some bizarre reason believe that it's safer to email credit card information directly to my clients rather than go through a trusted third party, no matter what the circumstance.

    I'd like to thank you for taking the time to answer my question, Damon. I was rather surprised to say the least that someone from PayPal would take the time to do so. (Usually larger companies don't bother with stuff like that.) Very impressive.
    Is Canada the best? Noo Doot Aboot It!
    "And on the eighth...day...God...created...Mankind. WHY WAS HE HAVING SUCH A BAD DAY?" -- Mick Foley

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Posts
    264
    Hi TheGame1264,

    Let me see what I can find out for you. I will see if we have a solution (tech integration is not my strongest point).
    Damon
    PayPal Consumer Relations

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Posts
    264
    Hi,

    I can get some assistance on this if you would like, but here is the response.

    yep, they can just use single item purchase call to send the txn
    in step #3. they don't need to use cart for processing if they don't
    want to, just an option.

    note: they will have to pass line item details as one piece of data
    Damon
    PayPal Consumer Relations

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Posts
    1,060
    Originally posted by paypaldamon
    Hi,

    I can get some assistance on this if you would like, but here is the response.

    yep, they can just use single item purchase call to send the txn
    in step #3. they don't need to use cart for processing if they don't
    want to, just an option.

    note: they will have to pass line item details as one piece of data
    I'm from Romania and I am very surprised that PayPal works only for certain countries. I was trying to signup but my country was not in the list. I have to say that I pay monthly about $1000 with my card to different US companies. I just can't pay through paypal, just because i'm from Romania...

    Any reason?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Posts
    264
    Hi zoli,

    Sadly, Romania has a fair rate of credit card fraud, which is why PayPal does not offer service there. Please don't take that as a negative indicator of you personally, but we do not allow the service to be used in countries with high fraud rates.
    Damon
    PayPal Consumer Relations

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Posts
    1,060
    Originally posted by paypaldamon
    Hi zoli,

    Sadly, Romania has a fair rate of credit card fraud, which is why PayPal does not offer service there. Please don't take that as a negative indicator of you personally, but we do not allow the service to be used in countries with high fraud rates.
    Yes, I completely understand this... but why would honest people suffer because of a few jurks (jerks???)? Isn't there any better method of fraud protection?
    Anyway, you probably won't charge your rules just because of me, but you are certainly loosing market. Because I can't send or receive PayPal, I have to use 2checkout....

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    770
    Originally posted by paypaldamon
    Hi,

    I can get some assistance on this if you would like, but here is the response.

    yep, they can just use single item purchase call to send the txn
    in step #3. they don't need to use cart for processing if they don't
    want to, just an option.

    note: they will have to pass line item details as one piece of data
    So just to be sure I understand this correctly, the shopping cart customers can pass the summary information as a single line of data to PayPal, and as far as PayPal is concerned it's a purchase of one item. Correct?

    And a very dumb question...what's txn short for?
    Is Canada the best? Noo Doot Aboot It!
    "And on the eighth...day...God...created...Mankind. WHY WAS HE HAVING SUCH A BAD DAY?" -- Mick Foley

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