Paypal Cart? Pros and Cons?

[Mamt]

I currently own a services company but would like to expand my ability to sell my products online. My current website host has a tool built in to add the PayPal Cart feature to my site, allowing me the ability to sell using my website. Does any one have experience with Paypal Cart?

Would I have more success with a separate webstore dedicated to my online sales? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Mamt

[roban]

It all depends on the perception of the buyer and your ability to put forth a professional appearance. There is nothing wrong with Pay Pal although I use it as a convenience for my customers who might not want to use a credit card. In the years that I have had an ecommerce site, only a small handful of clients have ever opted for the Pay Pal option so I might conclude that professional on line buyers want a professional on line payment solution and that would be credit cards.

[interspirepro]

It would depend on your customers and in a lot of cases, paypal should at least be an option.

[marc77]

I would avoid using PayPal, at least you should read their terms quite carefully and then decide whether or not they are suited for your business.

[blondejon]

I started out with Paypal Standard (copy and paste buttons). I later upgraded to Paypal's Website Payments Pro, allowing me to accept credit cards with Paypal working behind the scenes. The customer had no clue Paypal was even involved with the transaction. I was selling large ticket items. My business picked up big time when I used Paypal as and option and then processed cards via Payments Pro. Most of my users preffered to pay via credit cart and not through a Paypal account.

In some cases you could use just Paypal Standard, but in many cases you want something that will make you look more professional like Websites Payment Pro through Paypal.

Like others have said, t is really all about who your customers are.

[Mamt]

Thanks everyone who replied. I haven't decided which way to go yet but appreciate the input.

[Monalisa]

PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It sometimes also charges a transaction fee for receiving money (a percentage of the amount sent plus an additional fixed amount). The fees charged depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type.

Currently, PayPal operates in 190 markets, and it manages over 175 million accounts (70 million active accounts). PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 19 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Chinese renminbi yuan (only available for some Chinese accounts, see below), euro, pound sterling, Japanese yen, Czech koruna, Danish krone, Hong Kong dollar, Hungarian forint, Israeli new sheqel, Mexican peso, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Polish zloty, Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, Swiss franc and U.S. dollar. PayPal operates locally in 13 countries.

Residents in 190 markets can use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. These new markets include Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines, Croatia, Fiji, Vietnam and Jordan. A complete list can be viewed at PayPal's website.

The PayPal Buyer Protection Policy states that customers may file a buyer complaint within 45 days if they did not receive an item or if the item they purchased was significantly not as described. If the buyer used a credit card, they might get a refund via chargeback from their credit card company.

According to PayPal, it protects sellers in a limited fashion via the Seller Protection Policy. In general the Seller Protection Policy is intended to protect the seller from certain kinds of chargebacks or complaints if seller meets certain conditions including proof of delivery to the buyer. PayPal states the Seller Protection Policy is "designed to protect sellers against claims by buyers of unauthorized payments and against claims of non-receipt of any merchandise".

[The Old Sarge]

Monalisa,

Do you have any first-hand experience with PayPal?

[Fakingit]

Paypal cart is for entry level sales where the seller does not have an online merchant account. At best paypal will only account for about 15% of an online store's sales. People who are not registered are likely not going to register just to buy your products. If you have no sales functionality, its a start. But you can also add google checkout and amazon checkout in the same way.

If you really want to sell you have to be able to process credit cards, and at least start by taking orders by phone. Best solution is a shopping cart integrated with as many payment options as possible, as it's very competitive out there - every option will produce sales.