posted on September 14, 2000 06:10:09 AM new
OK, if it's now apparent that sellers must pay to use PayPal, does that change anyone's mind about whether to use PayPal or ebay's Billpoint?
I never signed up for Billpoint for 2 reasons: they charged, and no buyers asked to use it.
I currently run about 50% PayPal customers, and since using PP will be free FOR THEM, I assume they will want to stay with that service, not sign up for a new one.
posted on September 14, 2000 06:15:05 AM new
I started using PayDirect on a trial-basis a few weeks ago, and I've been VERY pleastly surprised by the response from my customers. I would suggest that you give it a try. It is everything that PayPal USED to be an more. Not to mention the fact that it's backed by one of the most popular and financially stable companies on the net. And by the way, PayDirect is processed through a real-life bank.
posted on September 14, 2000 06:40:32 PM new
Hi all:
I'm back from making rounds on other boards. There are clearly a lot of concerns and questions about PayPal's recent reminder message. I can’t answer all of them in one post, but I want to address some of your most important concerns.
We have always said that PayPal would be free for person-to-person payments. When people started using it for e-commerce, we evolved as a company, expanded our features, and in June created Business Accounts (for companies) and Premier Accounts (for individual entrepreneurs). We told our users that we wouldn't force people to upgrade, but that didn't mean it was OK for business users to violate our terms of use and conduct their commerce with a PayPal Personal Account. That's why we sent out an email in July that reminded business users of our policy.
While 250,000 of our users did understand what our terms of use required and decided to upgrade to or open a Premier or Business Account, a number of users either honestly weren't aware of our policy or else chose to ignore it. Since we assume that most people like to play by the rules and hence wouldn't expect PayPal to continue to subsidize their auctions with free credit card processing, customer service, and fraud protection, we sent the login page as a reminder to our active users. That's all it was, just a reminder of a policy that we've publicized before -- not a new one. It wasn’t meant for someone who occasionally sells personal items online; it was meant for those who are part-time or full-time sellers. We're sorry if the page seemed abrupt or ominous to some of you. It certainly wasn't intended to be. We were just trying to make sure that you all knew about our existing "business use" policy.
We also wanted to be straightforward and notify you that we're considering a new policy to enforce our terms of use. We hope we won’t have to, but if we do, we’ll strive to be fair and we'll be sure to announce the new policy through emails and content on our website at least two weeks before we implement it. Contrary to what has been reported on some threads, no policy has yet been determined; we have not decided on a specific transaction limit, or even whether this would be the best approach. We can say this: We don't intend to surprise anyone by automatically upgrading their account or shutting them down. We may have to limit costly functionality on Personal Accounts (like the ability to accept unlimited credit card payments), but everyone will have a choice, and as we’ve said all along, no one will be forced to upgrade.
Please understand that PayPal can’t subsidize large volumes of credit card transactions -- especially since we'll be giving a big part of the float back to our users starting next month in the form of income on funds left in your PayPal account. So, if you're selling goods to make a profit, we're asking you to play by the rules and upgrade to the account that is most applicable to you (either Premier or Business). We want to make online payments safe and easy for everyone, but we need your help to do this.
If you have thoughts or concerns on what our policy should be, please email us your suggestions (mailto:[email protected]). Since I can't possibly respond to every specific comment or question on the boards, please also use this email for any questions you may have. I will make sure that the whole team (including management) sees your comments, and we will try to answer every question as soon as possible.
Thanks again for your comments, and for caring about PayPal. We appreciate your feedback.
