Paypal as your main credit card processor

[DaveW]

We offer every payment choice we can get...all cards through a regualr gateway, Google and PayPal. To clairfy my earlier comment, I just don't like sites that use PayPal regular for their card processing...I do think PayPal as an additional option is good.

DaveW

[artsyguys]

There is no substitute for a real merchant account, and you will see additional sales for every payment option you have. There are online shoppers who buy enough that they want to avoid inputting their credit card information every time they make a purchase. So if they can pay through their paypal account, google checkout, or amazon account, they will do it. It's a much faster transaction. Also, they give you the terms that will qualify for guaranteeing that payment and that there will not be any chargebacks. That is a big plus especially if you want to sell outside the U.S. Paypal is international, and if you accept payment through Paypal and ship to a "confirmed" shipping address they guarantee that payment. It's similar on amazon payments and google checkout. That is a great benefit - also buyers are able to use more means of payment, such as echecks, than they normally would with a simple merchant account.

Paypal is there for buyers who really want to use it. Nobody is going to register at paypal to make a purchase. But it is a far easier checkout. All you have to do is enter your paypal id and password and if it's express checkout, then all the information is there and you just say yes - buy it.

Paypal pro is must a merchant account. It has a virtual terminal which allows you to authorize and charge credit cards you may take in person or on the phone. It's $30 a month but it includes discover and amex, and normally you pay extra directly to those cards on a merchant account. However it does not process echecks. Normal paypal processes echecks for paypal buyers. And it does not have a phone authorization function, whereas most other gateways do have this function such as authorize.net.

I have noticed in ten years of online sales that every payment method will produce additional sales. Not many people use echecks but some still don't have debit or credit cards. They are a lot better than taking physical checks and waiting for them to clear. Amex alone is now about 40% of our sales on one storefront and most people just do not think about Amex but it's the most common business card out there and many people buy with their business credit cards.

Paypal express checkout will definitely increase sales. It's fast for buyers. People who prefer to pay with amazon, google checkout or paypal - will actually shop for stores that offer those methods, and all three providers have lists for them to look over. Google puts google checkout icons on their google adwords ads if that seller provides google checkout.

There are fees for all of these, but amazon, google checkout and paypal have no monthly costs and the big bonus is that they guarantee payment and you don't have to worry about fraud protection.

Many people deride these paypal, google checkout and amazon buy-it-now buttons on an item page, but when a buyer can just click one button and get out of that store and finalize a purchase in ten seconds completely securely, it's a big incentive to buy. The check out process - CREATES CART ABANDONMENTS.

So every time you ask the buyer to do something extra it adds risk that he is going to leave before he finalizes the purchase. So for anyone that has a small number of items, I always recommend to go ahead and create those buy-it-now buttons right on the item pages. But you still need a merchant account and the big four credit cards to maximize your sales.

[Mark]

beware that PayPal is not a "banking" institution and is not subject to rules and regs of a normal banking institution. User beware.

[cekman]

Paypal pro is must a merchant account. It has a virtual terminal which allows you to authorize and charge credit cards you may take in person or on the phone. It's $30 a month but it includes discover and amex, and normally you pay extra directly to those cards on a merchant account. However it does not process echecks. Normal paypal processes echecks for paypal buyers. And it does not have a phone authorization function, whereas most other gateways do have this function such as authorize.net.

PayPal pro is much more than a virtual terminal account. It also allows you to capture credit card transactions online just like any merchant account. The user does NOT have to log onto PayPal - they simply enter their credit card information.

It is an ADDED benefit that I can use it as a virtual terminal to enter transactions I get on the road.

My customers can pay by credit card, from their PayPal account (which allows payment by echeck, their PayPal balance, Bank account, or credit card), or personal check/money order.

But you still need a merchant account and the big four credit cards to maximize your sales.

PayPal Pro allows me to accept online credit cards for Visa, Mastercard, AmerEx and Discover. The credit card payment option is by far the most used option on my site. Most people never realize their card is being processed by PayPal.

I think your information about PayPal Pro isn't quite correct.

[adamarketing]

My two cents:
I use PayPal Pro and have a large enough volume to get comparable discounts to low cost merchant accounts, which is great, and trust me, being able to see every fee for every transaction up front, with no freakin' games (that many merchants will play) is an awesome feature PayPal has. I don't play into the "paypal sucks" crowd, which has some good points but is promoted my traditional merchants who don't like the competition. Sure, paypal has its problems, but so do traditional institutions that load you with extra fees every month. I've used 3 different merchants now and have had questionable fees added by each of them... but back to paypal.

Problem 1: if a customer is having trouble with PayPal, for whatever reason, PayPal is your only source for processing and you are out of the sale. Let's say, a customer tries a card with PayPal standard. It rejects the card due to some type of gateway error. So, they try the card in regular card processor (paypal pro) and it will reject the card. Why? It is the same gateway. They have no way to pay you.

Problem 2:You have no way of knowing why a persons card was rejected. You have to call up PayPal to figure out why a card was rejected, leaving you bound to 10 more minutes wasted. So, you have no access to the back end data to fix the problem, it is all in PayPal's hands. In a nutshell, your customer will have to use another card for most errors, or it will continue to be rejected... chances are you will loose your customer. No big deal if you are into qty sales but if you are selling anything high dollar, it's huge.

Hope this helps.