Would you still purchase add-ons if PayPal wasn't supported (and Stripe was?)

[Robust]

BEFORE VOTING: Stripe is just a secure way of processing cards. You do *NOT* sign up anywhere. I didn't realise people would vote without knowing what Stripe is (how do you not know...)

Hey,

I'm just looking to poll some data here to possibly change how Apantic deals with payments. Poll results are public, since I'm sure other developers would greatly appreciate this data too.

Would you still purchase add-ons from a certain developer if they stopped accepting PayPal, but still accepted Stripe (arguably less painful/stressful to make a purchase, put in basic CC info and your transaction is done, easy).

Please vote on the poll

Thanks!

 

[Mr Lucky]

I might do, but to be honest I haven't yet even looked into how Stripe works. So does the buyer not need a stripe account?

I do need to look into this as I believe Paypal's policy re: sellers is totally screwed.

For instance I recently sold a digital item (not an addon but the principle is the same). The buyer complained to paypal that they had not received the download (they had been sent the download link via email and could also login to their customer account download area)

Paypal immediately froze the payment, ie removed it from my Paypal balance.

I rang Paypal and mentioned that as a digital download and so a normal return policy can not apply. They agreed with me and restored the amount to my balance, however they said that they would also credit the buyer.

If this is their normal policy, then anyone can get free downloads by just claiming to payapl they never received the link or the download.

 

[Robust]

Yes, you don't need an account on stripe. Enter your card info directly to stripe is the procedure.

Stripe stays out of the Internet policing role. Stripe will not interfere with disputes. If customers want to dispute a payment, they do so with their bank. @Mr Lucky

 

[Mr Lucky]

Yes, you don't need an account on stripe. Enter your card info directly to stripe is the procedure.

Stripe stays out of the Internet policing role. Stripe will not interfere with disputes. If customers want to dispute a payment, they do so with their bank. @Mr Lucky

So there will inevitably be some buyers you may lose, because many know they have more "protection"

A few years back I stopped having paypal for a while on my ecommerce site and just processed cards through Worldpay. It's hard to know whether sales acatually dropped but I think they did, and I got several enquiries "why can't I pay via Paypal?"

Now I have only Paypal, and I do get a few people who either don't realise they don't need a Payapl acount (I've now made it a bit clearer on the site). There are also a few who don't want to use Paypal because they just hate them.

The latter may be the worrying issue for me because maybe there are many more who don't contact asking for an alternative, instead they just go elsewehere.

So I will look into Stripe.

 

[MattW]

Stripe stays out of the Internet policing role. Stripe will not interfere with disputes. If customers want to dispute a payment, they do so with their bank. @Mr Lucky

At which point, you will get a charge back from their bank. Stripe will remove the funds, plus charge you £15 for doing so. Read their Ts and Cs carefully.

 

[Chris D]

PayPal gets a lot of flack from people regarding payment disputes and the like.

If it's the case that someone claims not to have received their item, maybe PayPal makes that a little too simple for the buyer to win, in that case. But you have to bear in mind if you were the buyer and you (claimed you) hadn't received a product, what would you expect to happen?

The process isn't really too dissimilar from Stripe and any other payment provider. Stripe processes credit cards directly, so all a person would have to do in that case is claim to their bank their card has been used fraudulently or even just claim to their bank they didn't receive the item.

Then there's a whole other scenario (which generally I have found to be the most common) whereby a person's credit card (or PayPal account) has indeed been used fraudulently. Regardless of how you look at that, there's no reason for you to win that dispute.

Of course some providers fraud prevention may be better than others. We briefly used Stripe to accept credit card payments for license purchases here, but we reverted back to PayPal only due to increased fraudulent transactions. This was a while ago, things may have been improved since then, or there may be measures that can mitigate the issue. But, proceed with caution if you go ahead

 

[Mr Lucky]

But you have to bear in mind if you were the buyer and you (claimed you) hadn't received a product, what would you expect to happen?

For paypal to investigate a dispute regarding an item not being received, or not as described is OK. For items with a less than modest value it makes sense for sellers to obtain proof of postage and signature on receipt.

The biggest beef sellers have with paypal's policy is that the buyer has up to 180 days to file a non receipt or not as described dispute. 80 days!!!

How can that make any sense?

(NB: in the case I cited above, the buyer claimed they hadn't received a digital download, which i think is absurd, just because the didn't notice a link in an email)

 

[Robust]

At which point, you will get a charge back from their bank. Stripe will remove the funds, plus charge you £15 for doing so. Read their Ts and Cs carefully.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. It's not even jut in the T&Cs, also on their wiki and even on the FAQ on the pricing page.

I said this earlier on another site:

And it's impossible to win bank chargebacks because the customer is their customer. I'm not paying their bank one penny. They're not gonna risk losing their customer for me... So of course they'll go in the customer's favour even if it is attempted fraud, etc.

Then there's a whole other scenario (which generally I have found to be the most common) whereby a person's credit card (or PayPal account) has indeed been used fraudulently. Regardless of how you look at that, there's no reason for you to win that dispute.

We never know if that is the case. In my case, most claims of fraudulent payment is just people knowing they can win a dispute that way. I've had very little if any real fraudulent payment cases.

Of course some providers fraud prevention may be better than others. We briefly used Stripe to accept credit card payments for license purchases here, but we reverted back to PayPal only due to increased fraudulent transactions. This was a while ago, things may have been improved since then, or there may be measures that can mitigate the issue. But, proceed with caution if you go ahead

They have increased protection, and personally (over at Apantic) I plan to use MaxMind as well to do fraud checks in addition to Stripe's in built checks. Since their database is much larger now, they flag users at risk for manual verification, while PayPal doesn't do that for suspicious accounts. But PayPal stops users much better than Stripe does. Especially in the UK. Fraudulent accounts are found and gone when they reach £1900 of payment transferred in one year in Europe since you gotta send in ID that they actually verify. Stripe... It's guest checkout always. No additional login needed while with PayPal... usually people have accounts. There are ups and downs to both I guess.

For paypal to investigate a dispute regarding an item not being received, or not as described is OK. For items with a less than modest value it makes sense for sellers to obtain proof of postage and signature on receipt.

Of course. With digital goods, what can we prove? That they downloaded the good because it's in our database? If you work legitimately and answer honestly, there's no way digital sellers win disputes with PayPal. Bank disputes are more rare (although still common) since some banks hate trouble and don't file disputes (like mine, unless it's really obvious fraud) and they're a 100% loss tbh, at least for digital goods. Maybe a 80% loss for physical goods.

The biggest beef sellers have with paypal's policy is that the buyer has up to 180 days to file a non receipt or not as described dispute. 80 days!!!

Used to be 60 or something. Just became 180 (6 mo) after November or so I think.

 

[Robust]

So... Why do people like PayPal so much? Because for digital goods it's all about the buyer (since with the poll it's 7 yes, 6 no).

 

[Mr Lucky]

It's surprising to see so many nos in the poll.

I would like to see a poll the other way round, ie would Paypal as the only option put you off?

 

[drastic]

I'd like to say MAYBE. Did not ever use Stripe before, so don't really know.

I use Paxum and it's OK....

 

[sbj]

Can I use stripe without a credit card? Cause with Paypal I can.

 

[Arty]

Yes, I would.

However you should consider keeping PayPal as alternative. Until few years ago I couldn't use PayPal because I live in small country that PayPal didn't care about. It hurt my online business big time. Many potential customers didn't want to pay with anything other than PayPal, so I stuck with doing custom work instead of selling designs (customers ordering custom work could always find a way to pay). One of customers even sent cash from Australia via mail.

Using PayPal is unfortunately a must. Its a de-facto industry standard. It could be just one of options, but you should still use it.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Using PayPal is unfortunately a must.

unfortunately and must being the key words here.

However Paypal does have it's advantages. When I used to use Worldpay for credit/debit cards the charge stayed when you did a refund, Paypal reverse the fees . That doesn't quite compensate me for paypal over-riding my own return policy.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Never heard of Stripe.
So No.

 

[Ozzy47]

Never heard of Stripe.
So No.

Vote in the poll.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Never heard of Stripe.
So No.

I don't think it's so relevant to have heard of it.
It is usually taken for granted that ecommerce sites generally offer people the option to pay by credit/debit card or by Paypal. So if you choose credit card, do you actually notice or care whether it goes via Stripe, Sagepay, Worldpay, Barclays or whoever.

No, most people don't bother, they just think "Card or Paypal" and if they happen to have some money in theor PP account they will often choose that, plus it's quicker because no need to enter address and expiry date and all that palava.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I don't think it's so relevant to have heard of it.
It is usually taken for granted that ecommerce sites generally offer people the option to pay by credit/debit card or by Paypal. So if you choose credit card, do you actually notice or care whether it goes via Stripe, Sagepay, Worldpay, Barclays or whoever.

No, most people don't bother, they just think "Card or Paypal" and if they happen to have some money in theor PP account they will often choose that, plus it's quicker because no need to enter address and expiry date and all that palava.

Makes sense.

The the poll should be: are you OK using a credit card instead of Paypal ?

 

[Arty]

However Paypal does have it's advantages. When I used to use Worldpay for credit/debit cards the charge stayed when you did a refund, Paypal reverse the fees . That doesn't quite compensate me for paypal over-riding my own return policy.

That depends on how refund was made. If it was a PayPal refund, they'll reverse fees. If it was card chargeback, they'll also charge seller $20 reversal fee. So I don't think its an advantage.

 

[Divvens]

I say yes just because Stripe supports my card and PayPal just doesn't. Have had to have my co-admin purchase our add-ons and renew XF License is PayPal just doesn't accept to work with me. And due to laws in my country I cannot connect my bank account to PayPal so it can't pull funds out of it directly.