Paypal really does make the process easy and safe, but its not for everyone. The only problem that I have with Paypal is that they force you to adopt their return policy. Depending on the products you sell and the methods you ship, this can be a problem.

If a customer ships an item back to you, opens a paypal case and provides a tracking # showing delivery of the item, Paypal will always refund the full price paid and the original shipping cost regardless of the circumstances and your return policies.

If you have a liberal return policy, and you dont ship overnight or 2 day its probably OK.

As a customer, there is no doubt it the best way to pay. Especially if you use your credit card to fund the payment. As a seller, it creates a potential liability that is unacceptable for some business models.

I hope that we will have the option of offering Paypal and or another payment option.

The trouble is that PayPal and all other payment processors have to abide by international consumer laws, They also have to abide by the financial regulations that apply in various countries. It is up to trading law as to whether an item can be returned and that is beyond the remit of most site owners that also have to adhere to the trading regulations that apply within their own country and internationally.

Consumer protection can be a 'two edged sword' for traders, but it also gives buyers the opportunity to buy items, knowing they have some element of protection with what they are purchasing.

I agree both ways really, but I have to agree more right now with Madsur that PayPal definitely takes on decisions for your business that are none of their business at all. Yes they should be there to protect the customer, but they are definitely not there to protect their sellers using their service like they used to be. Right now a buyer can not only get their money back, but can do so without even having to return the property. PayPal will refund people without you even having much to say about it.

This business is supposed to be "our" business not an extension of PayPal who makes all the decisions for us on the monetary handling and totally disregards any return policies we may have or need. They overstep their boundries by quite a bit as far as I'm concerned.

Other than that, yes, as a consumer they are the best way to go, and contrary to many people's comments here, PayPal is no longer considered "amateur" for websites anymore. If you still beleieve that then I suggest you start surfing some of the big name sites out there and see how many offer PayPal as a means for doing their purchases. I think you'll be quite surprised. It's the accepted and most preferred payment system by many sellers and buyers of many big name businesses on the web.

I know for me, I prefer it over any other way of paying for things when I'm shopping online. There are times when I will choose the site that offers PayPal as a payment gate over another that might be a dollar or 2 cheaper, just because I know that's one less place my credit card number is shared out to.

PayPal is a double edged sword to say the least lol.

Very interesting discussion on PayPal. The shopping carts that I'm putting up now aren't for the mass public as they only serve sports organizations as a way to order/pay for spirit wear items. With these, I'm pretty much able to dictate any paying policies. But in the future, we are contemplating putting our Pro Shop online which would attract a much larger and wider audience. I will keep all these comments in the back of my head. Paypal's charges are much higher than our currently negotiated merchant services account that we have for our business. Even though I had to open up a seperate account for online transactions, the two are married together with regards to rate structure. I would hate to lose business if Paypal were the requested payment processor but then again, I don't want to pay more and have less control over chargebacks and returns. Certainly something to weigh in the future. Thanks for bringing this to light.
Lynn

I don't think the PayPal chargeback policy is any different then any major credit card issuer. The buyer always has the advantage. This applies to PayPal as well. I had a boss who filed a dispute and PayPal sided with the seller who clearly misrepresented the computers for sale. She just had her Bank perform a chargeback on the PayPal payment and was refunded the money. PayPal was upset and canceled her account, of course. LOL. But you get the drift.

PayPal is targeted for people who don't sell enough each month to warrant the fees associated with merchant accounts and payment gateways. So even though their rates are a little higher percentage wise, you still save money. High volume or high dollar sales will benefit from a merchant account and payment gateway service.

I use Paypal whenever I can , and always funded with a cc. (separate accounts for buying and selling) Its the best protection online. I source components for repairs on a daily basis, and I only purchase using Paypal.

There is a difference in the chargeback procees when a customer returns the item prior to starting the process (opening a dispute). If they have proof of returning the item (tracking#) when they do open the dispute, the refund is granted every time. If they havent returned it first, then the process is pretty much the same as other cc companies. If you are accepting Paypal, you just need to know and accept this possibility. If its not acceptable, you need to setup a merchant account where you have a little more control.

In consideration of this loophole, I dont accept Paypal on a site that has large or complicated transactions, or when I ship LTL or overnight.

Because of its massive base and popularity, I still use Paypal for some sites. I just cant for every business model. When I can offer Paypal, I hope that SCCpro will give me the option to allow my customers to choose between CC processing or Paypal.

I doubt the software will ever allow you to just use any merchant account. Coding something like that would be difficult at best. We need to be able to connect to some sort of API to allow our software to connect through to it. Because of that, we will be picky on which merchants we want to spend resources on figuring out how to interface our software with them.

Card Service International? maybe:/

I never heard of them, so I would probably say no.

JoAnn, I said sites that only use PayPal, not sites that give PayPal as one of many options, are considered amateur. That is still true in my area of collecting and selling. It's how you separate the kitchen table ops from the businesses.

I plan on offering PayPal as an option along with credit cards via authorize.net and check/money orders for my old school customers.

PayPal is also suffering a slight backlash in the collector community from people who are sick and tired and fed up with eBay. They don't want to feed the machine. At least once a week I get an email saying "I've cancelled my PayPal account, do you take credit cards directly." So, more options to my customers is better than fewer.

Personally, I use my PayPal debit card all the time for online purchases. It is easy to keep a small float of cash in the account rather than wait for it to clear to my bank. It gives a tiny cashback reward and I'm not coughing up my bank account info for online purchases in case I run into an evil-doer.

Terri