No PayPal Option At Checkout? No Business From Me!

Author: Jim Kukral Category: Online Commerce, Online Marketing, PayPal

Sunday
Jul 29, 2007

I don’t get why every online store doesn’t have a PayPal option? I mean, if you’re going to accept credit cards, and even checks, why not have a PayPal option?

Don't Piss Off The Blogger T-shirt

Case in point, I was going to send a Don’t Piss Off The Blogger t-shirt to Shoemoney for his Friday t-shirt concept. So I went to dontpissofftheblogger.com, a store that I created in Spreadshirt, and thought I’ll buy one and send it over to him.

But… guess what, I can’t pay via PayPal on Spreadshirt. Why the heck not?

I’ve been trying to think of a reason to not have a PayPal, or heck, even Google checkout, option in ANYONE’S shopping cart. Yet, for the life of me, I cannot figure it out.

Here’s why I don’t get it. I use PayPal as kind of my “fun money” account. In other words, the money in there isn’t “real” to me. I use it to buy impulse purchases and fun things I want that I would normally never pull out a credit card for.

Awesome Million is built solely on PayPal as the only transaction method, specifically because I didn’t believe that most people would drop $5 on their credit card for something so trivial and fun and impulse-ish (I know that’s not a word).

Scratchback will also function solely on PayPal too. You’ll see why soon enough.

So Jeremy, no t-shirt for you. Time to find another store where I can create a new t-shirt. Anyone know of one that accepts PayPal?

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Comments

Steven Hodson

July 29th, 2007 at 11:41 am

I am glad that I am not the only one who feels this way about sites that don’t have a PayPal options - it has been a long standing beef on mine.

Lea

July 29th, 2007 at 4:21 pm

Some people have been burnt by paypal, and won’t touch it anymore.
Some people have been really badly burnt by paypal and can’t access their account, so even if they want to, they can’t offer it
Some people think paypal looks like a poor man’s option and don’t want to appear that way - I think they are mistaken, but its their decision.

Lotro

July 30th, 2007 at 12:46 am

Sometimes I feel that way too, instead of taking out my credit card all the time.

SEO Optimization

July 30th, 2007 at 4:07 am

More or less Jim, some big companies like to keep their sales income accumulated and concentrated only in one merchant (unless they receive a high request from their clients to implement and add another payment feature). PayPal indeed is very common to be used by many today, but yet there is a huge number of people that do not use PayPal. I run a web hosting company and i have 90% of my clients paying with credit card, and only 5% by paypal, the rest is by wire money transfer. I could of course force the clients to use PayPal since paypal gives users the option to pay with credit card even tho they don’t have a PayPal account, but that would be a hassle for me.

PayPal is good when people pay with paypal funds and you see the money right away in your account, while with paying with other funds it will take a while. Creditcard merchant processors will take only a day or two (some times even less than a day) to verify the card and fund the money in your account.

But i agree with you, for webmasters paypal payment option is just great, flexible and easy to use.

Danny

July 30th, 2007 at 12:47 pm

1. exclusive paypal is appropriate for tech targetted audiences because they have more experience with more trust in the system now. And they are more likely to have an account, making it a fast option.

2. Exclusive paypal to some target audiences has a diminishing brand affect. The users might be less likely to trust or have an account at paypal.

3. Most traditional DM merchants either have bad past experience with paypal or unchanged negative brand perception, or do not yet know the potential advantages of adding paypal payment as an option to customers.

4. Merchant concerns over sharing stats and customer information (google checkout more a concern)

5. New Marketing vs. Traditional Accounting (internal issues)

Side Note on google checkout is the affiliate sentiment. Some affiliates may not promote a merchant due to concerns of leaks and tracking overwrites. Not that this is a big concern to merchants unless affliate’s are a majority of their traffic source.

Todd Harrison - LA Headshot photography

July 31st, 2007 at 12:03 am

I have to agree if your pro you have pay pal if not I’m not buying. Get on the boat or just get off!

deusdiabolus

January 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 am

I believe there should be more services like PayPal that allow you to pay with money you actually have, as opposed to encouraging people to increase credit debt. The fact that the United States is trillions of dollars in debt that we will probably never repay should be more than enough example to the average consumer as to why it’s better to only spend what you can afford.

robin hunter

July 20th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

Hey Folks.

I know it is a hasstle to re-enter cc information, but I would rather be in control of that and I don’t want a third party having that information stored. I do not store any important information on my computer, either.

I have to tell you, I just went through a 4 week horrific pain in the ass exchange with Paypal. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. I simply wanted a business account, and I faxed in everything but my blood type (maybe THAT was the problem) while they sat on my money collecting interest.

PayPal does not protect the BUYER. READ the contract. To test it, while I was going through this hastle, I told one of my friends to go ahead and request their money back, cuz heck, my friend might as well earn the interest, not Paypal. Well, guess what, the answer was contact the seller…and the seller (me) could not refund the money because the the account was limited (frozen, while they checked my corp papers -4 weeks? they read slow, huh?)

So THAT is why some people do not use Paypal on their sites, and recently I spoke with a finance director of a college (one of those folks that actually read contracts) and she would not even use it as a buyer because she saw that there really is not protection.

Unfortunately, we are a society of “oh well, whatever” - we don’t read contracts cuz we are in such a hurry for the impulse buys. And if nothing goes wrong, I guess that is fine, but when it is bad, it is very, very BAD.