I'm also surprised that users would ask for PayPal support. I've read too many PayPal horror stories to trust them, but apparently users like it.
Also, PayPal services a niche of users who have bank accounts and/or PayPal credit, but no access to a widely accepted debit or credit card (such as Visa or MasterCard). Those users are often unable to use most other payment providers.
Stripe doesn't cut it because it's on the merchant's site, so I have no way to tell if it's actually stripe or if they're pretending to be stripe.
A lot of small tech-related web shops do take Bitcoin though- so if I think I can trust them (and if Bitcoin is an option) I will use that instead.
It's just better off not to make the type of comments you made, tying to weave your personal preferences into some else's statement of preference by interjecting some form of relativity of "evilness".
So you will replace a payment method that has a method for recourse when you get fucked with one that is completely irreversible? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Even if Paypal or your CC isn't perfect, at least you have some form of recourse. With bitcoin, when you get fucked over, you are completely shit out of luck.
2. Tie it to whatever payment method you like.
3. Generate one-time use or vendor-locked virtual credit cards, each with their own restrictions for how much can be charged, cancelled at any time, etc....
4. Sleep easy.
[0]https://ecommercenews.eu/ecommerce-per-country/ecommerce-the... [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/434121/online-shops-popu...
Most of the time it's 2-3 clicks when I want to buy something off of a random website, worst case is I have to login again.
Compare that to reaching out for your credit card and putting in your info. Plus you'd have to trust them now with your CC data.
This is a failure of the CC provider, not that the customer cares. If you use something like 3D secure, you don't have to worry about the merchant misusing your data.
It also made purchases with the company CC annoying - couldn't buy anything when the boss was in a meeting.
Many other parts of the signup flow changed at the same time, so it's hard to measure the impact, but from my side it's much better having an email - I can find out what account someone has when they email me for support, and I can send them account notifications and marketing emails.
In one case I had a company email me, as they had forgot how to access their account. The user who emailed didn't have an account in the system, so I had to ask them to forward an email they were receiving from the application, and eventually found they had signed up with an old GitHub account for the company, that was no longer used (after this I added the account name to all emails I sent).
I'm also currently evaluating the best way to add PayPal as a lot of my traffic is from countries where credit cards aren't so popular. I currently use Stripe, but am trying to find a service to outsource all billing, to avoid having multiple payment provider implementations. I can see how customers could feel uneasy giving their credit card details to a random website, where as with PayPal you don't have that risk.
Good takeaway: If you're using $randomThirdPartyAuthentication, then you should make it clear to the user how he's actually authenticated with you (in emails, but also the website, if sessions are long-lived).
A few years ago I accumulated a few stackexchange accounts because it wasn't quite clear what SSO was used, so I ended up with one account for each...
The very first site which I encountered with Stripe, about 3-4 years ago, dint get my money. It just looked odd design for a gateway, I was expecting a "seal" etc on the page with a proclamation about 128-bit encryption and what not. I emailed the website owner to include a "traditional" gateway or PayPal.
Since then I have paid with Stripe on some sites but I can also see why people feel uncomfortable with it.
BUT yes, I would rather prefer to have the Paypal option (again not relevant here) as it is faster/easier than having to input the credit card data and - as I see it - more secure than providing those numbers to a "stranger on the internet".
The credit card I have on Paypal is anyway a "rechargeable one" and has more or less at the most US$ 200 credit at any time.
And this - conversely - makes any kind of subscription or recurring payment a no-no for me.
If I want something, and it is reasonably priced, I buy it, and that's it, everything similar to Saas with monthly fees or similar I try to avoid.
I thought I was the exception, being older and grumpier than the average, but from the article it seems like I am not alone.
I also don't like linking sites to either my google or facebook accounts. If they don't offer email sign-up I'm almost certainly going to go elsewhere unless I really want to use that particular website.
How often do u transfer the money out of the PP ?
Aren't the PayPal horror stories from the vendors not the customers?
One other problem with offering PayPal as an option for a technical product/service isn’t as obvious, but is just as important. In my experience, the kind of skeptical user that insists on using PayPal because they don’t trust a given site with their credit card information tends to be more trouble than they are worth. They tend to require far higher levels of customer support than average, and will often eventually request a refund anyway because they have unrealistic expectations of either the product or its support. Also, many PayPal users abuse the deference that company pays to consumers when the consumer initiates even the most absurd dispute, and use the service with an eye toward disputing the charge from the outset.
In short, for a technical product/service, those that would insist on PayPal are the PIA (pain in the ass) type customers you should avoid at all costs anyway. If someone emails you asking why you don’t accept PayPal, remind them that all major credit/debit card issuers offer generous $0 fraud liability programs and move on with your life. Don’t go down the PayPal rabbit hole, as you will be sure to regret it in one way or another.
Here in germany for example, much more people have PayPal, than a credit card.
So what should those people do, if they want to use your service? Getting a CC, just for you? Then your service must be really good. I am also only now finally getting one, but because of flights, otherwise I never needed one.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/07/16/germans...
Only 32% of Germans even own a credit card. The average German uses on only 39 times a year (I use mine that many times a month or more).
The left one is a Maestro, the right one is a Visa Plus.
Neither of these cards has a number that works for online payment. The left one only has my IBAN on it, the right one only the BLZ and Kontonummer.
My bank requires me to pay 60€/year just to get a debit or credit card that works with online payment. There is only one bank offering these for free for students, and only 2 banks offering these for free for normal people.
Everyone else has to pay extra just to get a debit card that works with your online payment.
So either you've got very unusual customers, you're missing a major part of the German market, or you're counting wrong.
1) They only suspend withdrawals, which means payments continue to go in and all of that money is also held unless and until PayPal releases it.
Or
2) They suspend both incoming payments and withdrawals. In this case, you’re back at square one, plus you’ve wasted the PayPal implementation time, plus they are withholding whatever funds you had when they arbitrarily decided to suspend the account. If your customers have recurring payments setup when this happens (as is the case with most SaaS companies), you’ve lost all of those customers, likely for good, because you have to contact them, explain that your PayPal account was shutdown, and then try to get them to give you a credit card directly.
Further, until you realize that they have suspended incoming payments and disable PayPal on your site, customers trying to pay you receive an error message from PayPal, and you’ve likely lost each and every one of those customers for good as well - regardless of the payment methods you offer.
So again, PayPal and many of its customers are nightmares.
I believe they are regulated as a bank in the EU. That said, their EU head office is in Luxembourg, which along with Ireland is one of the most pro-corporate locations they could have chosen and one of the least likely to take a pro-consumer stance where EU law allows them discretion.
Most of my business is billed through online invoices: PayPal makes it trivial for me to email an invoice to someone and have it paid by their credit card. So trivial in fact, that every time I've looked into switching, I've found no reason to.
Also, I'm finding that more and more customers are in locations where PayPal is more accessible than credit cards.
YMMV but in the 10 years or so that I've been taking PayPal, I can't think of a single bad thing to say about it.