A little about PayPal Express Checkout

ISDEF has just drawn to an end and unfortunately, I couldn’t be there with my team this time :(

I heard the there was a new “hot” topic discussed and its not another Pamela Anderson video, it’s “PayPal Express Checkout” eh!?

Well here are a few reasons how I convinced a friend from PayPal that this is not a good solution If you use an ecommerce provider, I think they are worth sharing:

1.     Fraud Detection/Chargebacks

When a fraudster fills the order page information and then gets redirected to PayPal to pay, we compare the information. Someone who stole a paypal account usually doesn’t know all the victim’s personal info and doesn’t bother to check it, this is VERY important in protecting vendors from fraud and eventual chargeback disputes.

2.     Conversion

If you send a customer to PayPal before you collect any information from him, you will NOT be able to generate a lead if the order fail or if he didn’t return to your website. That means you can not use automated lead management system that we offer and for 100% you lose money and conversion here!

3.     Conversion

Only about 20% of the customers are using PayPal, I am guessing that only half of them actually have a paypal account before choosing the option. That means that the customers will actually have to fill more fields and do more things before they can pay you than just filling in an order page. This is also means that you lose more money on lower conversion.

4.     Technical side

This is probably just temporary bug, but when I had a look on how one of my competitors are doing this (god knows why) I received PayPal registration form in Polish, while my starting point was an order page in English ))))

5.     Conversion AGAIN!!!

-By default, when the customer gets redirected, an option to create a new account is shown, instead of logging into an existing one, and that’s actually more fields than on a standard order page.

6.     ­Conversion/wanted to kill myself

ITS SLOWWW!!!! This solution redirect is slower than an old lady on wheels with no gasoline. So what’s the benefit? Because you probably guess there must be one…. there is, its for PayPal, they get many more accounts, some ecommerce provider saves money on processing with lower rates from paypal…so there are enough people to gain from it, just not the vendors!

I have been providing e-commerce since 2001, first at Plimus and later with PayPro, attending ISDEF since 2004, and I have seen some good ideas and some bad ideas, learned much from vendors and other e-commerce providers, though trust me on this one, it’s a horrible idea!

Have a productive week after ISDEF!

See you in October in Moscow!