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

[DexSinister]

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:

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:

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!

[fuch]

AGREE! PAYPAL HAS CHANGED & NOT FOR THE BEST. EBAY OWNS IT NOW. BOTH **bleep** WITH HELPING THE HONEST, HARD WORKING, AMERICAN.

[Brewzkey]

I too agree and can see why they don't want to change it.  They are in the business of making money on top of people making money.  The more users they have, the more ubiquitous they become.  For biz owners like us, they are offering a convenience at a price....annoying as it may be.  They're not stupid, they know what they're doing by making it confusing and focusing the eye on the PayPal sign-up. 

Now what really burns me is not this fact of bait and switch.  Rather, the problem I continue to face when clients want to make payments to invoices of $2k or more.  I've had clients try several times to make payments and get errors.  I've had clients try to make  a payment and get the message that they must verify their bank account info and the process takes 3 or more days.  This is not convenience.  This is a small business occurance everyday.  I've spoken to support (when you can get a response in a timely manner) about this and they say that's just the way it is.

So, the point of this comment is not to complain necessarily, as I've accepted they fall short of really providing a solution for my needs, but just a warning to those businesses looking for a solution where customer service and ease of accepting payments for amounts larger than $2k are common.  If this is your business, go find another merchant solution.  I now use QuickBooks Payment Solutions for 1 of my businesses and has not given me any issues at all for the last 2 years.

[DexSinister]

I'd agree with you - if it was a page that permitted a signup. It's actually not - it only has the option to sign into PP or click continue, not to set up a new account (as exampled in the picture on the first page).

Sadly, of course, since it is cookie-related, it mostly catches people who have already been confused by PP in some fashion previously

---

@Brewzkey wrote:

I too agree and can see why they don't want to change it.  They are in the business of making money on top of people making money.  The more users they have, the more ubiquitous they become.

[DexSinister]

<img src="http://images.shrtl.com/Paypal_survey_4-23-2010.jpg" alt="survey popup 4-23-210" width="533" height="429" />

Interesting - Suddenly they are checking for useability: See pic of survey here

[Shack]

I'm told that this problem is fixed with Website Payment Pro.  Is this correct?  I've had two complaints this week. 

[DexSinister]

The problem is not "fixed" with Payments Pro - it simply doesn't exist with Payments Pro.

Standard Payments transfers the customer off your website to the Paypal website payment page. Payments Pro does all the processing of the checkout on your own checkout webpage, without transferring the customer anywhere.

But you'll want to pay attention to your increased legally-required responsibility to safeguard the customer's data, which now resides with you (with Payments Plus), rather than with Paypal.

With Standard Payments, you have no access to customer's credit card info - with Payments Plus, you not only have it, but you're legally required to guard it securely. You need to be aware of that, in order to guage the potential costs involved.

[the-gourmet]

Yes, but does the PayPal logo appear on my website checkout page?  That was the problem I had when I was using the Pro option.  The mere sight of that yellow logo seemed to confuse the customers, leading them to think they were  now using PayPal even if they weren't.

After the 6th time this happened I gave up!

[opinedigital]

I cant agree more. Paypal often makes things way more confusing than they need to be. this is a prime example of poor business managment and too many programmers working on the same tasks. Truthfully the whole paypal site totally **bleep** compared to say google checkout. I know im not the only person waiting for a realistic option, it would be one of the happiest days in my life if i could totally stop using paypal. Google checkout is great but you cant use it on ebay and it is still not as popular as crappy paypal.

But yes, that page should be different! Remember though as im sure most of us have already found out about paypal......they could care less about thier customers! They dont care about what we want or need, just so they can put some money on hold to earn their interest. Remember paypal makes stupid money everytime funds are placed one hold.....disputes are what makes paypal cash!

[SAMSASSON]

WOW! AND HERE I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE HAVING THIS PROBLEM. THERE WERE DAYS WHEN I HAD MORE IN ABANDON CARTS THEN I HAD SALES AND MY ITEMS ARE IN THE 100 TO 400 DOLLAR RANGE SO WHEN I LOSE A SALE IT HURTS. HOW CAN THIS BE RESOLVED? DOES ANYONE HAVE AN ANSWER? PLEASE LET ME KNOW. WAITING TO HEAR FROM SOMEONE.

[SAMSASSON]

I THOUGHT OF GOOGLE BUT THE CUSTOMER HAS TO JOIN GOOGLE . THAT'S ANOTHER DETERRENT. I HAD THAT AT THE BEGINNING ON MY WEB SITE AND FOUND OUT THAT CUSTOMERS DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE ALL THAT INFORMATION ON A SITE. THEY JUST WANT TO CHECK OUT ANONYMOUSLY. I GOT RID OF THAT AND FOUND MY SALES INCREASED. THE ONLY REASON I STICK WITH PAYPAL IS IT IS THE MOST SECURE AND THEY CAUTION YOU NOT TO SHIP WHEN THERE IS THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF A PROBLEM UNTIL IT IS RESOLVED. I GUESS THAT'S WORTH SOMETHING. MAYBE IF ENOUGH MERCHANTS SCREAM LOUD ENOUGH THEY MIGHT HEAR US  AND GIVE US A BREAK.