When I moved to the Netherlands, I was at first irritated that my credit cards weren't accepted anywhere. But as the debit (maestro) card transactions are often free [1], paying 3%+ to a card service does seem exorbitant.<p>For online payments, the Dutch use the IDEAL system, which is even easier than online credit cards. This also prevents vendor lock-in, like Amazon. And, the banking apps make it super easy to send money to friends.<p>Looking back, I have to imagine that this 3%+ tax on all American transactions must put a weight on the system.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.ing.nl/media/ING-rates_for_business_transaction_services_uk_tcm162-135848.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.ing.nl/media/ING-rates_for_business_transaction_...</a>
I have seen absolutely zero coverage about this change so I wanted to make sure people knew about it. The change seems to have happened on August 2nd according to archive.org [1]. I checked my PayPal records to verify this was true and sure enough I've been paying the higher rate in fees starting after July.<p>[1] <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210727095034/https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20210727095034/https://www.paypa...</a>
This was actually announced in a easy to miss email with the subject "Upcoming change to your account" sent on June 30 2021. It did get a little press that day but on the fee increase day I saw little reporting.<p>These changes went into effect on August 2nd 2021. Here is a PDF that has a breakdown showing all the changes that happened that day [1]<p>To PayPal's credit, this was their first rate increase in a very long time if not forever. That said this is a huge new fee for merchants while not providing any new services, at least at this time, to justify it.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.paypalobjects.com/marketing/ua/pdf/US/en/feepages-080221.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.paypalobjects.com/marketing/ua/pdf/US/en/feepage...</a>
PayPal is awful for small transactions, I regularily get donations for my projects that are literally 0 USD, because all of it is eaten away by PayPal fees, and even for a 5 USD donation you end up losing around 15% of the transaction amount.<p>Do you know of any other service that is suitable for microtransactions, besides cryptocurrencies?
I run a SMB with $1.2M in transactions per year through various online storefronts. Paypal/Stripe are the most common forms of payment, but to my surprise the split is 70%(Paypal), 30%(Stripe including Apple/GPay/Alipay). We see a consistent behavior that perhaps incidates Paypal is far easier to use than Stripe. I feel like the slightest friction in the choice between payment options and it will win. Paypal offers the <i>easiest</i> way to pay, perhaps even easier than Apple Pay. It is one click on the popup window. With Apple Pay, you gotta double click this awkward button on the side, then Face ID that doesn't work with the mask, followed by entering the PIN - the whole thing takes too long. It also doesn't work on most browsers and desktop computers (perhaps Apple Pay works on macOS with Safari). I thought about this a lot and tried to go through the details of the friction that leads to better conversion. Stripe has a better developer experience but it doesn't help the customer.<p>Stripe desparately needs a customer-facing account that can manage cards and payment methods. If it were my guess, Stripe is already working on this.
Paypal's API is one of the biggest nightmare I have to deal with lately(1). As much as Paypal has sucked, at least it was super simple to integrate before: just set amount, freq, period, return url and ipn url and that was pretty much it and that's why even noobs loved PP and integrated it everywhere.<p>The new API otoh, no it has to render button dynamically using Javascript, with some very confusing REST api, API keys and tokens and a sandbox mode and endpoints URLs which change frequently for no reason. Even the page down button does not work on the API age, just to give you an idea how bad this whole thing is.<p>It's like the team who made the API and the sellers (the end-user) have never spoken once to each other.<p>(1) <a href="https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/overview/" rel="nofollow">https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/overview/</a>
PayPal is awful and I am not talking about the fee. The developer experience is so disgusting. Their developer portal is completely useless, it does not show any data. They have 5 different documentation pages about one thing, each one is more outdated than the other. If you want to onboard merchants on your platform you will have no way of seeing the connected accounts. Their button that you can integrate on your website is super heavy, it wastes so much data just to show the div, do not try to click on it if you do not want to lose a few megs of data.
It amazes me that despite not really modifying the core PayPal service for 10+ years, they are still a market leader.<p>Parts of their business don't have much network effect, and competitors could totally rebuild the tech and eat away at the market share... Yet somehow that hasn't happened.
Paypal is a pretty scammy service also on the consumer side.<p>When paying in foreign currency, they try to trick users into using their "conversion" service, which helpfully charges a bit more money to your credit card than you would have paid without their "assistance".
Paypal is a classic rent seeker. Nearly two years into pandemic, they still refuse to hire people for live customer service. Despite record profit.<p>If anyone is looking for a startup idea: an online payment platform that charges on outbound bank transfers only. Heck charge 5% fee. And let all transactions be completely free.
I'm avoiding Paypal as much as possible.<p>At this point it's basically the same as some other shitty wallet like skrill and loaded with fees for anything.<p>21 July 2021
Amount received
110,00 USD<p>Fee 6,24 USD
Total 103,76 USD
PayPal is going cPanel route. It should be replaced and never look back. Those, who can't control their greed are doomed to see the void of ignorance.
Brazil implemented a neutral QR with direct payments which been there are basically no fees if you use this system: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28757537" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28757537</a><p>It is incredible how, very few times, developed countries can directly build a new infrastructure that beat the infrastructure of most developed countries.
Has anyone ran a recent A/B test for Stripe direct CC-based checkout + paypal vs Stripe only in the context of B2C subscriptions? Last time I've checked circa 2014-2015, there was consumer trust in Paypal (for cancellation/etc), and so having that option added ~+10% conversion rate (or so), but would appreciate more recent data, thank you!
I have worked for an acquirer side of the business where I implemented the credit card application but also took part in complete certification process and day to day business.<p>For a normal credit card transaction, most of the fee goes to the bank issuer of the card. This is banks' major source of income nowadays (aside people who don't pay off their credit card on time).<p>This means that most acquiring business -- the companies like Visa, Mastercard and actual acquirers that maintain the infrastructure -- get very small part of that pie but it is still very worth their time.<p>I don't know what kind of deal PayPal has but 3% suggests their cut is order of magnitude more than any traditional acquirer, but without hassle of maintaining EPOS terminal infrastructure.<p>And that half a dollar is damaging to micro transactions. Technology was supposed to make it easier to pay for small things, individually. Half a dollar cannot be explained even if each transaction was processed manually.
And they charge a 5% currency conversion fee for moving money from your account. Even moving USD to another USD account they charge 3% ”fee” for doing nothing.
It's even more fun if you operate cross border because on top of all the usual fees there's a cross border fee (of 2% if the buyer was in the US) and then a markup on currency conversion of 3.75%. We used to put a lot through PayPal's merchant system but are now almost entirely on Stripe due to this non-stop nickel and diming.
I still use PayPal because it has the best global coverage and least friction for consumers. Their new checkout form also seamlessly accepts credit/debit cards and does subscriptions.<p>Many of my customers are in countries that aren’t supported by Stripe, so it’s not much of a choice from a business perspective.
I presume the US banking industry pays lots to lobby and makes big campaign donations, gives senators offspring jobs, etc. In the old days we got great at check processing and lowered the cost to pennies. Processing a transaction should be close to free (especially in a debit scenario.) I just paid 1.4% on Coinbase to transfer USD to ALGO. (They probably make something on the spread also.) But 3%+ on a card? One thing I did hear from some retailers is that the cards that provide lots of benefits and cash back charge more to cover the benefits. That money has to come from somewhere.
Tried to send some money using a long dormant account, after logging in and updating my password some automated process kicked in and froze my account. Never bothered to do anything about it because there are now more dependable and hassle free options. I was relieved to not have anything in my account. I'm even more relieved I'll never have to use their product again.
I despise Paypal. But you don't have a way to sell except for Paypal. I prefer moneygram with Visa Direct but it takes ages for the transaction to complete and often times you have to call the customer service for that. I am trying to switch to wise but it is difficult to convince clients moneygram and wise is worth the hassle.
This is insane; the fee is too much, especially for domestic transactions. Also, the conversion rate is too much, especially if the money is coming from the foreign market.