Is PayPal Good Enough?

Did having both payment services significantly increase your sales numbers?

Do you find that customers consistently prefer one payment service over the other?

After using both payment services which service would you use if you were to use only one service?

What I'm trying to find out is if there is any consumer preference or resistence to either service.

Also, non PayPal registered buyers can use it to buy your ebooks. I think that more people know of PayPal than of ClickBank, so they may choose that option.

But why limit yourself? It's just as easy to create secure payment links with PayPal, that work in exactly the same way as ClickBank so that you can direct your buyers straight to your download page.

1) Paypal: Paypal is a service that many are framiliar with but when a merchant uses paypal as their credit card processor it gives the site an "amature" feel. Genrally speakign only small business use paypal to accept payments.

2) Clickbank: another reliable site but the interface is not very convenient from a shopping or site integration standpoint. For example, when a customer clicks on "buy" they are taken to a page that looks very different from the one they were just on. This can cause confusion and make people hesitant to buy.

From experience I have fourndwww.2checkout.comto be the best. They integrate nicely into your site layout. It's very low cost (only $45 bucks to start no monthly fees etc). Anyways check them out for yourself.

Thanks for the feedback. Your summation from the user's pov sounds right. It seems about time to start 2CO.

Has anyone else used the service. Can you provide some feedback from your experience? Pro/Con?

I use both PayPal and 2Checkout. I'm happy with both. My PayPal is integrated with Payloadz for eBook delivery. Should anyone use 2CO to buy, I just go into Payloadz, send myself the download page of the eBook they ordered and forward it to them. They have 48 hours to download their purchase and I don't have to worry about anyone stealing anything.

I've seen PayPal offered on sites you wouldn't think you'd find it on. Truth is, people like it and they use. I do. If I have a choice, I pay through my PayPal account for whatever it is I want.

Just be sure once you get up and running on either, that you haven't left your account on demo mode. Lost a sale making that mistake!

I'm beginning to think method of payment is, in part, a generational thing.  The younger the consumer the more likely they are to use PayPal, while the older the customer the more likely they are to use a service like 2CheckOut.  

Part of the reason is that I find older consumers are less likely to have a PayPal account.  I've talked with Baby Boomers who make online purchases, but have never bothered to check out PayPal. In fact, almost all of the Baby Boomers who do have a PayPal account also sell/buy on eBay.

This To Use PayPal or Not To Use PayPal issue seems to rage in every quarter of any business every day. The general thought is, offer it with another option. Actually, I had opened the 2CO account with the idea of not using PayPal, but since I like it myself, I decided to just go ahead and use it. I already had the account, so what the hey?

I tried to get an account going with Clickbank, but they never came to look the site over and tell me if I was accepted. That's when I went to 2CO.  

2CO seems to be the way to go.

I, too, am a Baby Boomer.  Do you share the same experience that most of our fellow BBs have no idea what is going on with the Internet?  

Recently I was talking with a friend who is a professor at an university. He mentioned that the difference between people in their early thirities and BBs is the same difference between kids just entering college and those in their early thrities.

When the subject comes up I find that most BBs think in terms of computer applications, but what I've observed with 20 something is that it goes far beyond just software; it is about culture.

A manager of a popular youth market clothing store told me last Christmas that over half of the chains sales were through the Internet. He also said that teenage girls will come in and look at the racks, but order online. Friends with teenage girls tell me that they have seen a major shift in the way their kids buy.

Personally, I don't think the real shift has even begun. Without going into boring details WalMart has 'told' their venders either you will have RFID tags or we will not buy. If you aren't familiar with RFID tags once they are in a product it can be read remotely (meaning it doesn't need line of sight), which is going to be a major change in the check out line. Expect to be able to push your grocery cart through a bay where everything in the cart (and on your person--shop lifters look out!) and an itemized list will appear.

Taking it a step further my thinking is that it won't be too long before bookstores are little more than warehouses. They'll look pretty much the same, but with RFID tags the store can maintain an up to the minute inventory of their stock, which means you'll be able to buy it online and then go to pick it up at the bookstore.

I realize this is way off topic from the original thread, but it does have some bearing on the issue in that what works for one age group doesn't necessarily mean it will work well for another.  One fellow BB told me that he found a book he wanted on Amazon for $35, but he bought it elsewhere for $65 because the more expensive place had someone that he could talk to on the phone. I just don't hear about personal contact driving sales in a youth market.