posted on December 4, 2004 09:45:15 PM
I've noticed that some sellers stipulate no credit cards with PayPal payments. If you are one of them, I'd like to know how that works for you. I'm so tired of paying the higher PP fees on small-end items. Do you have to set that up with PP? If a buyer uses a credit card, what can you do? Refuse payment? Any idea how many buyers have money in their PP accounts to pay for items, vs. how many want to use credit cards?
posted on December 5, 2004 05:42:22 AM
I do not accept credit or debit cards with PayPal. I deny payment with the odd payment sent that way and the buyer goes out and buys a money order.In order to avoid the PayPal fees change your account to a personal account.
greenopal
[ edited by greenopal on Dec 5, 2004 05:43 AM ]
posted on December 5, 2004 06:00:13 AM
the limit on how much merchandise related payments you can receive with a paypal personal account has been reduced from 1000 to 500 dollars.
you can find out more on paypal website.
you may want to consider setting up two ebay accounts,one for high ticket items accepting paypal and one for low end items for money order or check only.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
[ edited by stopwhining on Dec 5, 2004 06:02 AM ]
1) DOWNGRADE to a "PERSONAL" account ~ this is allowed once...
2) You can set yer PP preferences to reject CC payments after you do that...
3) REMEMBER: as a PERSONAL account, ye be limited to monthly amount, PLUS
4) You are NOT covered under PP's Seller UnProtection Plan, or the $1000 Buyer "CONFIDENCE" Blah-Blah...
5) You gonna end up playing email tag with yer bidders, discussing how you DO accept PayPal, but NOT credit cards, etc, etc...
6) Ask yerself: WHY DO BIDDERS USE PAYPAL??
I think it is much easier to either:
A) DUMP PAYPAL 100% /or/
B) Make use of the PAYPAL PREFERRED option, & dramatically LOWER yer PayPal fees, while still being able to offer the convenience of CREDIT CARD purchasing...
posted on December 5, 2004 06:37:39 AM
or go shopping with your paypal debit card and get some rebate back.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on December 5, 2004 09:00:22 AM
Tom: I'm not aware of PayPal preferred. Fees are lower that way? How much lower? Do I sign up for that through PP or Ebay? Or is it a preference in Vendio?
You all are making my head swim. If ONLY we could charge more when buyers use PP, as they're allowed in other countries!
posted on December 5, 2004 11:52:47 AM
Roadsmith,
if you become a paypal preferred member,you will have to advertise on your ebay page that you prefer paypal as a payment method,you can also accept cc or money order etc,you just cant advertise it on the same page,such as allowing bidpay to insert a logo.
But this also mean you cannot downgrade to personal account and have to accept credit card payments thru paypal.
The way to offset the expenses of accepting credit card is to use your paypal debit card-
the fund you have accumulated in your paypal account is yours to spend,if you take the paypal debit card and go to a store and use it as a credit card,paypal gets paid say 2 1/2% from the merchant,it then pass 1 1/2% to you as a rebate.see paypal does not have to pony up any fund,the purchase amount come right out of your paypal account.so paypal is willing to split the $$ with you.
You can look upon this 1 1/2% rebate as a means of offseting the fee you paid paypal when someone send you money.
If you ever have a lot to buy or big ticket item to buy,you can download fund from your bank account to your paypal account and go shopping with the paypal debit card and get yourself a 1 1/2% rebate.
I have done that with airline ticket and buying stuff for my house,that 1 1/2 % can come to 50 to a few hundred dollars.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on December 5, 2004 11:59:22 AM
I have a Visa and Discover card that give me 1% on ANY purchase.
A personal account is fine if you don't do volume, but you can't take out enough. If you do enough volume, you can also get reduced PayPal fees (I think ours is down to 2.2%).
I like having a BidPay link in my auctions, especially for international purchasers (where I don't accept PayPal).
posted on December 5, 2004 11:59:58 AM
I appreciate all the advice here! I've always gotten rid of the bulk of the money in my PP account, leaving about $70 for purchasing something on Ebay occasionally. I'm going to think hard about this information from Tom and Stopwhining. And I may bite the bullet and get that debit card.
Does anyone know offhand what percentage PP takes from the payment to me, when someone uses a CC to pay me through PP?
posted on December 5, 2004 01:32:02 PM
roady,
you can log onto your paypal account and it would tell you unless you do more than 1000 a month with a business or preferred account,your rate is 2.2 else your rate is 2.9 %
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on December 5, 2004 01:44:41 PM
It is 2.2% plus 39 cents. On small ticket items this can be quite high. I have a preferred acct & wouldn't change it. I us P/P for gas eic. & use it as a credit card which gives me another 1 % on top of the 1+% I get on my money market. This makes my surcharge negligble. I really don't care what method the buyer uses, as long as I get paid.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
[ edited by sanmar on Dec 5, 2004 01:46 PM ]
posted on December 5, 2004 05:20:25 PM
I did it too, My auctions are too small to absoeb the high Paypal fees. It has only been a problem a few times, but you will play email tag and you can't accept Credit Cards without upgrading. Once you do you are done. Good Luck
___________________________________
If you build it they will come........
posted on December 5, 2004 05:25:55 PM
Sanmar,
you must give over 1k or more business to Paypal to get 2.2%.
most small sellers get 2.9%
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on December 5, 2004 05:28:07 PM
I always said,include the paypal fee in shipping and handling.
i charge 3.00 shipping a small item in a small box,the box costs me 65 cents,stamp is 1.00 and rest is paypal and ebay fee.
I seldom use DC and most bidders do not complain.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on December 5, 2004 06:11:24 PM
I currently only use paypal "no credit or debit card" only.
I know it must affect bids, but when I went "feet wet" with them, I found the number of people doing non-CC transactions and the fees associated with them were not offsetting my fees or the bids.
If my usage was higher, I'd go with the full meal deal, I should just get rid of them, and probably will, but when I didn't take them, I had people asking me if I took paypal.
!
+++++
It's easier to watch a camel get stuffed
through the eye of a needle, than watch
a man use heaven to get all his friends rich
posted on December 5, 2004 09:22:48 PM
I had a PayPal "premiere" account that took credit cards, and the fees were just too much with low-ticket items.
So I queried them and they said I was allowed to have one business account and one personal account.
What I found is that about half of my buyers still used PayPal with a cash transfer - no problem. The other half send checks and money orders.
So, finally, six months later, I closed the business account. Very few of my buyers were using the credit card option anyway. With our stuff, at least, it was always true that most people sent direct transfers anyway.
I think not taking credit cards had a slight effect on some of the higher ticket items - over $50 or over $100. But we've had just a few of those.
I'm just going back into auction mode after a couple of months - didn't know PayPal had reduced the monthly limit on a personal account to $500. Thanks for that info - I will check it out.
posted on December 5, 2004 11:10:32 PM
The only time I took CC with PayPal was way back when they first started & everything was free.
I would like to take CC, but what I sell is almost always under 5.00 & 10.00 dollars & I just can't afford to do it.
I haven't been selling much lately, but when I was, not taking CC wasn't a problem. I even encouraged buyers to pay with a personal check, save the cost of a MO by telling them in my EOA email that I don't hold checks until cleared. Not really a big deal because the checks were small, I wouldn't do that if I were selling more expensive items. I sold over 90% of my listings & kept my postage low with just enough extra to cover my .35 listing fee. I sell mostly rubber stamps & did a lot better when the buyer just bid on one auction. When they won several auctions I would have to give them a break on the postage so couldn't recover my listing fees. On small $ items fees can be a killer so I had to take the only option open to make money & that was not to accept CC payments.
If your selling something different & there are not a lot of sellers selling the same then not taking CC payments probably will not hurt your sales, it didn't hurt mine.
I only received two bad checks & both made good on them, one also paid the 10.00 bank bad check fee, one did not.
posted on December 6, 2004 01:04:19 AM
If a seller doesn't take CC they don't get my bid. I would love to see PP do away with the personal accounts altogether.
If you can't hang with the big dogs get out on the porch.
posted on December 6, 2004 05:15:24 AM
You need to build those fees into your starting bid or you won't survive taking PP and credit cards. Even with merchant accounts there are fees (and they ARE higher than PP's) so it's not just a PP thing. Before we started taking CCs at work, we worked out what the approximate fee would be with each therapy and increased the cost accordingly. It only averaged a couple of dollars and by taking CCs, we actually increased our business. On a personal note, I don't like paying for an auction with a check or a money order. Both cost me money and are an inconvenience. I also don't like using PP to pay through my checking account and more often than not, I pass by auctions not accepting CCs.
Cheryl
"Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders."
-Sloan Wilson
posted on December 6, 2004 07:16:11 AM
Certainly a mix of opinions here.
I think it makes a big difference whether you're in collectibles or merchandise; low ticket or high.
When I took credit cards, I found that the great majority of my buyers using PayPal didn't use credit cards. They sent bank transfers. Most collectors are also sellers, at least on occasion. It was clear they were looking to spare me the extra fees. But most of those bank transfers were getting nicked for the same level of fees - as if they had used credit cards - because the buyers didn't know they had to get doubly verified for the transfer to go through to the seller on a no-fee basis. I found out because two or three of the cash payments came through without fees, and I investigated why, when every PayPal user has to be verified through the bank deposit bit, some payers are listed as "verified" and others aren't.
I also buy a lot of low-ticket items, mostly popular fiction. I wouldn't think of using a credit card on a $5 or $10 or $20 purchase on eBay. I'm doubly verified, and I send cash.
Other side of the coin - I have a relative who buys a form of artwork every once in a blue moon on eBay. She doesn't have a PayPal account, and won't bid if someone doesn't take checks and money orders.
She absolutely wouldn't give a bank account or credit card number to PayPal.
I think "no personal checks" is a bigger deterrent to getting bids.
posted on December 6, 2004 09:51:58 AM
That's good to hear.
Although, ironically, in all my eoa blurbs I happily take all kinds of checks and MO's.
Esp good for CU members who can get them for free.
BUT, I do get a lot of postal mo's, weird!
J
+++++
It's easier to watch a camel get stuffed
through the eye of a needle, than watch
a man use heaven to get all his friends rich
My bank is now requiring that all money orders be deposited and are subject to the same clearing requirements as checks. The reason: They've been burnt by phony money orders. It's easy to make realistic-looking fakes with the latest generation of laser jet printers.
I think a lot of other banks are now doing the same - at least here, in NYC, where there are a lot of immigrants and international transactions.
The one exception - money orders from the US Postal Service. Those are cleared immediately.
So, if someone is hip to that, it does make sense to get a USPS money order - cash on the spot for the seller and immediate shipping.
Also, USPS money orders are considerably
cheaper than bank money orders. I bought something on eBay from someone who took MO's only. My bank teller said: You don't want to buy a money order here. It'll cost you $5. Go to the PO - 90 cents.
The third reason to use a USPS money order and not a personal check is that some people are skeptical about a stranger from cyberspace having their bank account number.
Those seem to be the same people who don't want to give bank account and CC info to PayPal. So, early on, they adopted USPS MO's as their form of payment, and they seem quite accustomed to going to the PO and getting MO's for their eBay purchases.
So, maybe it's not that weird.
I think there's a segment that just prefers USPS MO's. Most sellers on eBay will take them - simplifies things.
posted on December 6, 2004 11:37:17 AM
i would not want to buy MO from post office as the line is usually long especially xmas time,but local supermarket will sell you a mo for less than 90 cents.
But why bother,you have to put it in an envelope and put a stamp on it??
It is better to give your cc to Paypal once than to give it to many individual sellers.
I have sold 125 items on Overstock.com and most of them paid me using paypal,those who said they will send checks,well,i am still waiting!!!!!
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
I think that's different in different parts of the country. Supermarkets in NYC don't sell MO's.
I've received some Walmart MO's from buyers in other parts of the country. Some of my guys will have their wives pick up an MO at Walmart when they go shopping.
I think what you say about frequent buyers is true.
But what about infrequent buyers, like my relative? I was explaining over dinner how easy it is to open up a PayPal account - just give them a credit card number - and she immediately said: "No way." The reason: She might not shop eBay again for another 6 months or a year and isn't in a position where she would be monitoring a PayPal account on a regular basis.
PS, they just had an episode where one of their credit card companies called about some unusual charges - large amounts where someone was attempting to get shipping to a third-party address. Yep, someone got their number. And, it was a card that was in use by a number of family members, including a daughter who's doing a college semester abroad. So cancelling that card and substituting a new one was a major headache.
posted on December 6, 2004 12:05:36 PM
I can imagine that many sellers of antiques, etc, can get away without PayPal --
But if ya offer NEW consumer goods like ME-&-RALPHIE, most folks want the convenience of CC payments & PayPal has been a real boost to our little feeBay hobby...
At least 90% of our buyers use PayPal -- often they pay before I can even send out the EOA email. I dread the other 10%, because 50% of those usually are DEADBEATS!
YES, the FEES are a killer, but we've minimized them as much as possible with PAYPAL PREFERRED...
The whole goal is to make the Tom-&-Ralph buying experience as easy & pleasant as possible, &, I think offering many payment options is an important part of that...
PLUS, I really try to avoid "email-tag" with our buyers -- all my listings state the exact SHIPPING METHOD & FLAT-RATE FEE. Haven't had any shipping debates in over two years (although don't get me started on international illiterates )
AND...I expect that PayPal will be tightening-up on that "PERSONAL ACCOUNT" bull-bush in the near future: the $500 limit was only the first salvo...
posted on December 8, 2004 07:40:34 AM
How about a comprimise:
Get TWO paypal accounts (if you can't figure out how to do that forget about it)
Offer a FREE gift to customers that pay to the no-charge account. Somthing like an eBook or somthing you can email to them that may create value. Perhaps a link to an ebook on a website would do.
I have two bank accounts that I can shift money between, and each has a PayPal account (one in my wifes name, one in mine). So I can take payments to the free paypal account, shift it to the bank then back to my seller paypal account, then I use my PayPal debit card to get the 1.5% cash back. I pay most of my bills with my PayPal card, except ones that only take checking account payments.
posted on December 8, 2004 10:02:14 AM
$1.00 of my shipping cost is to cover my fees,I don't sweat it. My customers are happy. My total shipping fees per item range from $2.50 to $3.50 Priority I charge exact.
**********************************
Two men sit behind bars,one sees mud the other sees stars.
