I'm considering firing Paypal as a payment processor, because of ONE webpage

DexSinister
Contributor
Contributor

I like Paypal. I've been using them as a payment processor on my websites for over a year now.

 

BUT, I've become aware that I'm losing more in sales per month than it would cost me to get a merchant account, because of Paypal's insistence on putting a single confusing webpage in the way of my customer's credit card payments.

 

Usually, I just lose sales - as someone who is confused and scared away by this webpage generally loses interest and momentum in the sale and is no longer interested in the purchase.

 

Because my website gathers sales info before transferring to Paypal, I can tell the sales I lose to Paypal. I get a notice of sale, and then "Payment completed: No". When I contact them and ask, the answer is always exactly the same:

 

"There was no option to pay by credit card, only by Paypal, and I don't have a Paypal account, so I didn't complete the sale."

 

What do customers mean when they say that? They mean that they've gotten to this screen, and been confused by the obvious obfuscation in the design of the page:

 

"Paypal is swell" page

 

 

 

 

Yes, I'm aware that there is tiny text, with an even tinier link that says "Don't have a Paypal account? Use your credit card or bank balance (where available) Continue".

 

But, time, after time, after time, paying customers, who are attempting to buy from me and generate fees for Paypal only see this as a part of the "Paypal is the swellest company in the universe" verbiage, utterly fail to see the tiny 8-character link, and stop the payment process cold because they do not possess a Paypal account.

 

Just this evening, I received an email from a customer - a journalist for a major newspaper - who wrote me:

 

"I tried to order, but PayPal was the only way offered to pay for it. 

 
I'd rather just send a money order, if that would work.  Otherwise I need to use a credit card.  Please let me know if a money order will do."

Frankly, I don't care if Paypal thinks it needs to tell people that they can "use their creditcard without exposing your credit card number to merchants" - because Paypal can't do that if it confuses the customers and fails to collect the card number in the first place.

Since there is no place, as far as I can tell, where someone can sign up for Paypal on that page, if that page confuses customers and scares them away, it is totally useless. And it is costing me upwards of $50-$100 in lost sales each and every month!

What do I want the page where my customers land, intending to enter their credit card information (or to sign into Paypal if they have an account) to look like? That's easy! I want it to look like the exact screen that they actually get to if and only if they get past the one that they obviously don't read and which confuses them.

I want them to land on the screen that results from clicking the "continue" link! This one:
Enter Credit card information or sign into Paypal




Why is this difficult? If the statement "Paypal securely processes Payments for X Corp. You can finish your payment in a few clicks" is important, it would easily fit on that page. That one statement is the only thing that is not accessible on the second page, which is on the first.

Please fix this, and stop chasing away customers who are trying to make payments that earn Paypal its revenue!

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97 REPLIES 97

IPS-Notary
New Community Member

I AGREE WITH YOU!!!

 

Many times people will tell me that they don't have a PayPal account and don't want to sign up for one just to make a one time payment to me. I have to take the time to explain to the customer that they can click the little text that reads "Don't have a PayPal account. . ."   It takes up to much time!

 

Furthermore, I have also lost customers because they get frustrated when trying to make a payment with their credit card. I would email them and ask why they haven't made the payment, and they tell me they can't.

 

Your idea is wonderful! I hope PayPal listens and they create the page like you suggested.

 

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DexSinister
Contributor
Contributor


IPS-Notary wrote:

I AGREE WITH YOU!!!

 

Many times people will tell me that they don't have a PayPal account and don't want to sign up for one just to make a one time payment to me. I have to take the time to explain to the customer that they can click the little text that reads "Don't have a PayPal account. . ."   It takes up too much time!

 

Furthermore, I have also lost customers because they get frustrated when trying to make a payment with their credit card. I would email them and ask why they haven't made the payment, and they tell me they can't.

 

Your idea is wonderful! I hope PayPal listens and they create the page like you suggested.

 


 

 

The sad thing is, that Paypal doesn't even have to take any time or programming skill to do this: it's already there. It's just the next damned page. All they have to do is STOP displaying a defectively-designed page.

 

Transferring to any sort of payment processor is a scary process for many, many customers: If they encounter even the slightest thing that frightens them, they will just close the window and bail out of the transaction - even when they were happy and enthusiastic about it seconds before.

 

The consistency of customer responses -- that they don't have a Paypal account, and therefore couldn't complete payment - strongly indicates that the "Paypal has swellness" page is not being read anyway.


It is quite obvious that people merely look at the "Paypal has swellness" page as a whole, don't see any obvious visual clues as to where to input credit card information, and panic and close the window without reading it.

 

As merchants running web pages and paying for a business service with our fees, should thousands of us have to put "PLEASE look for the 'Don't have a PayPal account...' statement on the LEFT side of the page, then CLICK the 'Continue" link to pay by credit card" on every page of our websites, in order to not lose customers? No, of course not! 

 

But, of course, the real trick is to look at the economics of the situation correctly, which is:

Lost time explaining a stupid page = negative revenue

Lost sales = negative revenue

Confusion in checkout >> Customer ill-will = negative revenue

 

If a "payment processor" intentionally creates negative revenue for a business, who can afford to keep using it?

 

Who else has a story about trying to herd customers past this page before or after a failed sale? Please tell yours!

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ctsmiami
Contributor
Contributor

I AGREE WITH YOU!!!

 

 loosing customer, and the worse is paying for merchant $30 monthly when loosing customers

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raferguson
New Community Member

I am having exactly the same problem. In fact, that is why I got an account on the forum, to ask the same question.

 

I sent somebody an invoice, and they don't want to set up a paypal account. Obviously they could send me a check, but that defeats the purpose.

 

I use paypal relatively little, mostly to buy an occasional item off eBay. I have a personal account, not a business account. I would be willing to upgrade to a business account, if that would help. But apparently people with business accounts have the same problem.

 

I sent myself a test invoice at a different email address, and saw no option at all to pay by credit card without setting up a paypal account.  Apparently the business account invoices have that option, but it is hidden, so not much good.

 

What a hassle. I may just get my own merchant credit card account through Costco, they waive the $5/month minimum fee if you are an "Executive member".

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skier
Advisor
Advisor

Things to know about the Credit Card Option:

First, your Item Button Code require no special coding. It's related to how your Account is setup.

* Account must be either Premier or Business.
* PayPal Account Optional is turned on - this enables non PP Members to pay by Credit Card
* The email address you use to log into your PayPal Account must be verified.
* The "business" variable value in your button code must be a verified email address or your Business ID.
* Bank account registered and verified/tested - so you can transfer funds
* Credit card registered - (not required but a good idea)

To turn on the PayPal Account Optional feature:
Login to your PayPal Account, select "Edit Profile", under "Selling Preferences", select "Website Payment Preferences", scroll down to "PayPal Account Optional".

Next, there are specific reasons the Credit Card Option may not be available.

* You are using Express Checkout. Express Checkout requires a PayPal Account
* You are using the wrong email address, an unverified email address or Business ID for your "business" variable value.
* The country you reside in. Not all countries have all the PayPal features available.
* The country your customers reside in. Not all countries have all PayPal features available.
* The IP address of your hosted site is on a blocked list.

Check out this link, it can tell you what features are available to the individual counties.

 

Last, you have your PayPal Account setup properly but, still don't see the Credit Card Option or only see a small link to the Credit Card Option.

It's all about the cookies. The PayPal Screens are designed to be displayed in a specific way and what you see is based on the cookies and/or your PayPal Account configuration.

PayPal relies on the use of cookies to track what's in your cart and retain other info about you and therefore the screen that is displayed may not be the screen you expect to see. If you are a new customer visiting PayPal for the first time, the Credit Card Option will be clearly displayed.

If this is your second or third visit to PayPal and your previous cookie has not expired, PayPal now views you as a returning customer. You will get a screen with a small link to the Credit Card Option. Although this is not as obvious to the customer, the Credit Card Option is still available. For example, the cookie that holds the cart info will retain that info for up to 21 days. The only way it will change is if you remove the items selected from the cart or delete the cookie.

If you are testing your web pages, creating new code or making changes, etc., simply delete your web browser's cookies, then close your web browser, reopen it and try your web pages again. When you view the PayPal Screens, you will now get the screen with the Credit Card Option because PayPal views you as a new visitor.

Other reasons for deleting cookies. Let's say you changed your business email address or business graphic logo. If you don't delete the cookies before you test, you will still see the old information.

 

As for those of you who waste our time by whining, feel free to find another processor.

 

Regards,

 

skier

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DexSinister
Contributor
Contributor

 


@skier wrote:

 

As for those of you who waste our time by whining, feel free to find another processor.

 


 

You know, Skier, the "No whining: Love it or leave it " mantra is all very nice, but Paypal is not only depriving sellers of revenue by making some pages intentionally confusing, but depriving itself of the revenue that fails to materialize from lost sales.

 

 

Perhaps losing sales because a payment processor deliberately chooses to be confusing doesn't bother your business. But it bothers mine - and taking a straw-poll, I'd say it bothers many people here.

 

Unfortunately, it is not possible to make an intelligent and informed decision about whether one should use a different payment processor, unless one is at least aware that one is losing sales to Paypal's obfuscation. That's because if you don't know that you're losing, say $100 in gross sales a month, you have no idea that an alternative processor might be economical.

 

Personally, as I said, I like Paypal as a payment processor: I sell a lot of stuff on eBay, and using them as a payment processor means I don't have to juggle among several systems when I ship things that I sell on other websites. But I also have to spend time deliberately herding customers past Paypal's obstacles to payment.

 

As I began as a programmer, I'm aware that it's a heck of a lot easier if a company makes a change to something that doesn't work, than if 10,000 venders all simultaneously waste time "patching around" an obvious flaw. Hence, I'd like to find a way to motivate Paypal to make the change.

 

And exactly how is Paypal supposed to know that they are losing business customers to other payment processors because of lost sales, if no one tells them? Things that fail to happen are notoriously difficult to plot on spreadsheets, because they don't tend to show up on reports.

 

You know, I could understand making a confusing webpage if what Paypal was attempting to accomplish was to demand that customers sign up for a Paypal account. I wouldn't like it - but at least it would make a smattering of sense.

 

But if you look at the webpage pictured at the top of the thread (or follow this link) you'll note that there no place to sign up for Paypal is you don't have an account, only to sign IN. Or, if you're clever enough to read the page correctly, you can find the tiny "continue" link and get to the credit card payment page. (Yes, I'm aware that sometimes it is a "gloriously visible "grey-on-white-background button that says continue.)

 

Thanks Skier for the explanation, but I do understand how Paypal works currently. And I also have a Doctorate in Law, and Post-Grad work in Psychology, and several other degrees.

 

What I don't understand is Paypal's slavish devotion to bouncing my customers, and your customers, and everyone else's customers to a page that is incompetently designed, and obviously confuses lots, and lots, and lots, of people with money in their hands who are trying hard to spend it. 

 

  • It doesn't get new Paypal members.
  • It doesn't get completed sales
  • It doesn't inform, because customers don't read it
  • It deprives Paypal of revenue from their % cut of completed sales, and
  • It deprives small businesses who are counting on Paypal as a payment processor of valuable revenue.

Paypal make the claim that they're a viable payment processor who accepts credit card payments. If they truly want to be one, don't you think they'd want to know that a single page is reducing their (and our) revenue?

 

All the best,

 

Dex


P.S. Kinda like you'd think Paypal would want to manage to have "Paypal" included in a spell-checker built into Paypal's community forum on Paypal's site.

.

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ekim
Member
Member

Sellers are really taking it on the chin or around the corner

 

 

EBAY ALWAYS COMPLAINS ABOUT SHIPPING LOOKS HIGH

what about charging us 1.95 for delivery confirmation it is free on the uspa website 

and only 80- cents at the PO

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DexSinister
Contributor
Contributor

Your non-question is completely off topic in this thread, and I have no idea whatsoever what you are talking about. I ship 50+ orders a week and certainly do not pay $1.95 for delivery confirmation [DC] (though I do pay $0.19 for DC when I ship first class mail). That includes when shipping through ebay > PP, or on PP directly.

 

This is a "Paypal, stop frightening customers away with needless confusing payment pages" thread. It is NOT a "random whining, I hate PP" thread.


ekim wrote: EBAY ALWAYS COMPLAINS ABOUT SHIPPING LOOKS HIGH

what about charging us 1.95 for delivery confirmation it is free on the uspa website 

and only 80- cents at the PO


 

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Dumbledore
Member
Member

I'm sorry? I'm confused. I am new to this whole thing. Are you employed by Paypal? I wouldn't think you would want to tell your customers to stop whining. It is their privilage to complain to the company if they are not satisfied with the service. The other thing that bothers me if you work for Paypal is, your antagonizing manner in telling customers to go elsewhere if they don't like it. What? How is that helpful? How is that attitude profitable to the company?

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