Bye bye PayPal

[Konrad]

But it's about who pays. As it is now financial institutions are making far too much and offer little or nothing in return. Those of us that don't use these "financial tools" should not be forced to subsidize those that do.

For example we have to pay for PayPal not reimbursing the seller for charges associated with returned merchandize. We the consumer pay for this in the way of higher prices or lost vendors who couldn't make a reasonable profit.

Those that don't use these "financial tools" should see a break in the price of merchandise as we don't cost as much to make a sale. Or a more honest approach is charge those that do use these high cost financial tools for the use of these tools!

This is a big deal as 28% of the USA GDP comes from the financial sector. That is guys moving one pile* of money from one place to another. Nothing really is being produced by this sector of the economy.

Yes, there are legitimate costs (risk) to finance, but PayPal isn't one! Dump the use of PayPal! We would all be better off for it.

*In the 21st century they don't actually move anything!

 

[u2builder]

Thanks Wayne, it's great to have Paypal back. I don't like to use multiple accounts, plus, when I sell things money goes into my Paypal account and I can use it to purchase hobby things without going to the household CEO for approval. Now I need to sell something.

 

[Wayne]

Trust me, I understand. LOL

 

[JEngel]

Trust me, I understand. LOL

sorry Wayne, I understand how you must feel. when these companies get a large user base
they can start adding more and more fees. So when sellers complain they can tell you "hey if
you don`t like it drop us" which you did or well you tried.
I give you all the credit in the world for trying ! but i guessing enough customers complained about
it that you had to bring them back if you want the business. I for one am behind you 100% on passing the nonrefunded
charges back to the customer. If someone feels the need to use paypal then they accept the chances of possible
fees for a return.
I use paypal when its available ( I like the idea of one place having my card number)
not everyplace I make a purchase.)
I also know there are fees attached to all the cards you accept. So when I hear " why should we pay higher prices when we don`t use paypal"
or "you should have lower prices for people who don`t use paypal" I have to laugh ! I`m pretty sure
you are paying a fee of some kind no matter what card they are using.
I think I should just stop ! Wayne I know you were not complaining about purchase fees but non refunded return fees so
I get it, I`m fine with it.
I don`t know if you have a brick and mortar but if you do give those customers the cheaper prices ! !
If they pay in cash they truly cost you nothing in fees.

 

[u2builder]

Sadly, the world has changed vastly in the last month. We have a stay at home except for essential work or needs like medical or food. My wife and I, both old and retired are not leaving the property. We are scrounging for groceries on lone. In our world there are no longer stores or cash. I expect it will be like this for months, if not years. There will be long term cultural changes. We are finally going to on line checking. Credit cards, Paypal, and on-line shopping are the new normal. Aloft has a great on line store, than goodness! I really need to build planes now for my sanity, even though we are not allowed to go out to fly them.

 

[Konrad]

If they pay in cash they truly cost you nothing in fees.

You would think. But the financial institutions do bleed you (have fees)even for processing cash. Again they have you by the short hairs as we really can't see all the fees nor can we really shop for the "best" products. These fees are bleeding us dry, like 24% interest on credit card debt. Really there is no way anybody can survive with these costs.

"Normal" maybe, but there is no reason other than greed for the astronomic charges. Yes, there are costs associated with offering the services but nothing close to warrant the charges they hoist upon us.

The key to my early retirement was that I carried no real debt.

Tell the banks (financial institutions) to shove it!

I salute Wayne for trying.

All the best,
Konrad

 

[Jeff W]

You may have noticed that we no longer accept Paypal. While a lot of our customer's prefered to use Paypal, their new terms simply are not compatible with any sort of a business model.

Paypal will no longer refund seller’s fees when a refund is processed.

When someone sells goods or services, they are charged a flat transaction fee ($.30), plus a percentage-based commission on the sale (2.9% domestically). If a refund was issued, everything except the small transaction fee was returned, but now PayPal has said it will keep seller’s fees too. I have never heard of any other processor keeping this fee. In other words, when we issue a refund, that 2.9% is paid by Aloft, not Paypal. Basically, once Paypal takes in money, they will never release any.

Sadly, refunds are part of business, no way around it. For Paypal to keep these fees is outlandish.

They already charge much more than any other processor. This is downright insane considering the funds are usually already in the clients account, or they are supplied via an ACH transaction that is usually very low costs. Paypal has made more and more profits each year, something over 2 billion dollars last year. Do they really need to stick it to the small guys even harder?

So we are looking at other options. For now we accept Amazon Pay (works very similar to Paypal, so you don't need to type in your address, etc) and we take all the normal credit cards also. We are looking to add google pay, apple pay, perhaps an option for ACH payments too.. Got a favorite, let us know.

Paypal has simply become too greedy and priced themselves out of the market..

PayPal has said that anyone who disagrees with any of their new terms is free to close their account.

Paypal turned sour and got greedy

 

[LazyBee]

Hi, Wayne- I am setting up a website to sell pre-printed T-Shirts & found this thread searching on PayPal.

I was initially planning on accepting the usual CC's (Visa, Mastercard, etc) & PayPal, but reading the 58 page(!) PayPal User Agreement has me alternating between indignation & terror.

I had talked myself out of accepting PayPal until I read this thread.

I have a few questions, if you are willing to share:
1. I've always assumed that sellers are pretty much required to accept PayPal, because you see it on just about every e-commerce website. Would you agree with that, or do think I might get away with NOT accepting PayPal because I am setting up a new business and therefore there is no expectation from my customers?

2. Am I going to lose sales because I DON'T accept PayPal?

3, There are a lot of horror stories about PayPal holding on to sellers' money for up to 6 months. Have you had this happen to you? Or are you able to get to your money right away?

I would really appreciate any advice you (everyone else feel free to chime in, too) are willing to share.

Best,

Chris

 

[Tahoed]

I'm glad Paypal is back. I use Paypal Credit all the time. With anything over $99 you get 6 months to pay. I usually pay this off on the next statement, but every once in a while, I'll let a few hundred bucks linger for a month or two.
As a business, it's a pain to deal with any monetary institution. They are always coming up with something to raise costs of using their product. Like when they started charging annual fees for using the ATM function on my CC machine. We just turned the debit function off and run everything as a credit.

 

[Konrad]

I avoid PayPal like the plague!

My vendors work far too hard to have their profit margins cut by these exorbitant fees. I want my vendor to prosper not the scum that bleeds those actually working.

I'd like to see vendors give a rebate (lower price) to those that don't use PayPal.

All the best,
Konrad

 

[Tahoed]

As a business, it's sort of a rock and a hard spot there Konrad. What's to gain if you give a rebate to the cash buyer, but lose 20 sales because you don't accept anything else. As a business, you still pay fees on any CC transaction. Paying fees is annoying, but pretty much unavoidable these days....

 

[Konrad]

I understand, but it is us, the consumer's, tolerance of this crap from the financial institutions that drive's, allows, this. Just say NO to PayPal and Visa. Also tell your policy makers to rein in these institution. I know this means giving them money for their campaigns.

As I recall per that 12 page document, the vendor isn't allowed to offer a discount to the customer to not use PayPal.

It is up to us the consumer to flex our power. We just don't know how to wean ourselves from the financial tit.
It starts by supporting these two vendors that want to stand up to PayPal. And us as consumers not using PayPal.

 

[Tahoed]

I don't like Paypal's way of doing business either, but I use it for ease of payment and occasionally for their interest free loans. Can you imagine the issues of some guy in Austraila sending a check to the U.S.
Like them or not, I know of 2 times that I wanted to buy from Aloft but ended up making my purchase elsewhere during the time Wayne dropped Paypal. The fact it's back should tell you something...I much prefer walking into a store and paying cash, but it's just not possible all the time.

 

[Konrad]

So we are the problem. Wayne still took a CC.

If folks want to use these "services" they should pay for them. They should see the cost with each transaction. Have a sir charge added to the bill to cover the PayPal or any other financial institutions charges. (That would bring the financial sector of the market to a crash. To large to fail my A$$). More to the point if I as a customer don't force the vendor to absorb these costs I should be given a discount.

Now I actually placed an order with Wayne in that time period to support his actions.

 

[Tahoed]

News for Konrad....We all (vendor and consumer) pay for those services in one way or another. When you use a credit card or Amazon Pay Aloft has to pay for that too.
I supported the return of Paypal.

 

[Konrad]

That is true, but not right or just to those of us that don't use those services. Charge the customer for the cost of the service provided.
I salute Wayne for trying. But as you mention the realities are vastly different than what should be.

It is up to us and vendors like Aloft to push back against exorbitant financial charges (usury).

All the best,
Konrad

 

[Wayne]

Hi, Wayne- I am setting up a website to sell pre-printed T-Shirts & found this thread searching on PayPal.

I was initially planning on accepting the usual CC's (Visa, Mastercard, etc) & PayPal, but reading the 58 page(!) PayPal User Agreement has me alternating between indignation & terror.

I had talked myself out of accepting PayPal until I read this thread.

I have a few questions, if you are willing to share:
1. I've always assumed that sellers are pretty much required to accept PayPal, because you see it on just about every e-commerce website. Would you agree with that, or do think I might get away with NOT accepting PayPal because I am setting up a new business and therefore there is no expectation from my customers?

2. Am I going to lose sales because I DON'T accept PayPal?

3, There are a lot of horror stories about PayPal holding on to sellers' money for up to 6 months. Have you had this happen to you? Or are you able to get to your money right away?

I would really appreciate any advice you (everyone else feel free to chime in, too) are willing to share.

Best,

Chris

@LazyBee
No problem, happy to help out where I can.

You are not required to accept paypal, and some VERY large places do not. For example Amazon. Ebay has stated that they will drop Paypal once their contractual obligation to offer paypal expires. (Paypal used to own Ebay, but sold it a while back.) With this said, if you offer paypal, you will enjoy more sales. Probably in the realm of 20% or so.

Like TahoEd says above, some people just will not buy from a small web site if they do not offer paypal. Even though I do not love paypal, when I am buying from a small web site, I will always use paypal if it is offered. It is safe and fast. A lot less trouble then entering CC info, shipping addresses, etc. I do not know what level of security the web site may have to protect my CC info. I hate it when I have to get a new CC do to fraud. Many hours are lost every time. For example at Aloft we never store a credit card number. We have no access to see the number or other details, thus no one can break into our site and steal that data. But other companies may not take security as a priority. I think a lot of people have this same concern.

Yes, you will loose sales if you do not offer Paypal. Rough guess, but for us it was around 20%.

No, I have had pretty good luck with Paypal. We try and run a tight ship here and take care of customers. This is key. If paypal thinks you are a problem they can and may hold your funds, but you really would have to have a lot of complaints against you, or something odd going on. If you are brand new with Paypal, they will hold your money for a week or so as I recall. But soon enough they learn to trust you and you can have your money the next day for no additional fees. We do what is called a "sweep" automatically each day, all funds are sent to our bank. I do not trust Paypal to hold funds, they are not a bank, do not use them as one.

Regardless of what payment method you use online, someone will have their hand out for a percentage of it. Many e-commerce sites charge a percentage and include credit card payment collection as a package deal. If you sell on Amazon, Ebay or a similar marketplace you can expect LARGE % marketing fee on anything you sell there.

For use we offer Paypal, Credit Cards (not through Paypal), Amazon Pay, and a few customers like to send us a check or money order. The majority of our customers will use paypal, then comes the credit cards, then Amazon Pay (works similar to paypal) and then just a few mail in payment. I thought Amazon Pay would be more popular than it is. We get just a few orders a day with them. (We also sell a few items direct on Amazon and on Ebay and will probably sell more in the future, but will be very selective of the items offered there.) It is cheaper to buy those items direct from us, and we actually sell more via our site than via those market places, but those sites do bring in new customers.)

I wish you good luck. Feel free to check in anytime. I love chatting with other business owners.
p.s. Get a good accounting system up and running from the start!

 

[Kilrah]

If folks want to use these "services" they should pay for them. They should see the cost with each transaction. Have a sir charge added to the bill to cover the PayPal or any other financial institutions charges. (That would bring the financial sector of the market to a crash. To large to fail my A$$). More to the point if I as a customer don't force the vendor to absorb these costs I should be given a discount.

When all available payment options incur a surchage then it makes no sense pointing it out as a surcharge anymore, and it's pretty much how it is. Those that don't incur a surcharge from a payment processor usually incur extra work for the merchant, so it's not exactly like there are savings that the customer should get.
Paypal, CC processors etc all integrate nicely with your website and automatically update payment status in real time... Bank transfers may be free but then the seller has to spend half an hour going to look at the statement, matching and updating orders manually and that has a cost too, which is actually probably higher.
Not to mention that international bank transfers incur way higher fees than anything else.

 

[Konrad]

Again true. But it is the fee rate. We should be able to see the fee structure up front and choose the one that best fits our needs.
With banks charging 24% usury rate for credit card balances it is time we the consumer push back. Often time the poor vendor doesn't make as much as the financial institution on the sale. The vendor is taking on a lot more risk & doing a lot more work than the financial institution. He, the vendor should be benefitting from the sale not the financial institution.

It is high time we roll back these fees. (yes there is a risk and cost to credit, but really...)

 

[Wayne]

You are both right... IMHO.

If it was easy for me to charge a different processing fee based on my processing fees I would. But it would require a bunch of special coding.

The reality is that Paypal when paid via ACH payment should be very low costs for Paypal, and it is, yet they charge me a lot for it. More than if it was a credit card. As I recall paypal used to charge far less for ACH payments. They had a competitor doing just that, what did Paypal do? They bought them and raised the rates.

I am rather excited as it looks like Paypal may have a major competitor in the near future coming from Europe. They are expensing their low cost services to include e-commerce. If they do, I will add them ASAP. Their fee structure is very low.

When it comes to credit cards - what a mess! Why do retailers get stuck holding the bill for the Credit Card companies failed "security". Lets face it, there is no security on these cards. It is a SAD joke. I pay a bit less in fees for credit cards than Paypal, but then I have to pass the transaction to another company that will research the transaction and tell me if it is safe for me to ship or not. That comes with a high price. Guess what, they still make mistakes and it costs me a lot of time and trouble. What a mess!

I really don't understand why no one cares if someone is trying to rob me on the internet. Cops, FBI, etc no one cares. We have caught people in the on going act of credit fraud and no agency cares at all. In the end I get stuck with the bill and the credit card companies actually get richer off of the fraud! Class action lawsuit anyone?