Paypal or Credit Card?

[PaulieWalnuts]

If you're buying something online do you prefer to use the Paypal checkout or or traditional credit card method?

If a site only had one or the other would that deter you from buying?

[Ron]

PayPal by a mile. I skip websites when I can if there is no PayPal. Its the convenience, ease of use, and safety of PayPal I like. I can choose to pay with CC, Debit, Bank or PP balance when making a purchase and I only have to login to my PP acc to pay instead of jumping through hoops with a CC.

Credit Card payment:
Full Name
16 digit CC number
Expiry Date
CCV code
Password

PayPal payment:
Password

[luissantos84]

Paypal but I don't lose my sleep when I use credit card

[Beppe Grillo]

PayPal by a mile. I skip websites when I can if there is no PayPal. Its the convenience, ease of use, and safety of PayPal I like. I can choose to pay with CC, Debit, Bank or PP balance when making a purchase and I only have to login to my PP acc to pay instead of jumping through hoops with a CC.

Credit Card payment:
Full Name
16 digit CC number
Expiry Date
CCV code
Password

PayPal payment:
Password

The first time that I have used PayPal I had a problem with my password manager, Dashlane (a very good one for sure).
It was not the fault of Dashlane but my (very stupid) error saving the password.
So I was totally unable to login to PayPal.

At this point I asked to PayPal what to do.
They asked me my name and the email address that I used to sign up to PayPal.
I sent them this data by email and in return I get a new password.
So simple� too much simple�

PayPal, only password� seriously?

PayPal is really very easy to use, but I don't think that I will use it for transactions over 100�.

[Pixart]

As a Canadian who is paid in American via PayPal in American I prefer to use Paypal for the most part so I don't lose conversion fees.  I deal with only one Canadian company that takes Paypal but quite a few American companies so I love it when I can use PP.

[Ron]

Beppe, if it wasnt safe it wouldnt be used. The biggest companies in the world, Facebook, Skype, Nike, Air France/KLM, Starbucks, name them all,  use PayPal. PayPal has 110 million users. You dont get that far as a company if it wasnt safe.

I would buy a car using PayPal.

PayPal is regulated as a bank in Europe, if there were any security issues, that wouldnt be possible. PayPal is PCI compliant as well, and Visa and Mastercard approved PayPal as a payment processor.

PayPal is safe.

[cthoman]

Credit card, although either is fine.

[Pilens]

Beppe, if it wasnt safe it wouldnt be used. The biggest companies in the world, Facebook, Skype, Nike, Air France/KLM, Starbucks, name them all,  use PayPal. PayPal has 110 million users. You dont get that far as a company if it wasnt safe.

I would buy a car using PayPal.

PayPal is regulated as a bank in Europe, if there were any security issues, that wouldnt be possible. PayPal is PCI compliant as well, and Visa and Mastercard approved PayPal as a payment processor.

PayPal is safe.

Yes, it is.

I used PayPal a lot for more than 10 years and never ever had a problem. It saved me a lot of time (by not having to enter all those CC numbers), a small fortune in currency conversion fees (I am Canadian but shop online in US$ and EUR a lot), and probably some major headache as well because my CC info is present in much less databases world wide to exploit.

[Mantis]

Depends. My credit card automatically gives me additional warranty coverage on stuff and I get flight miles. I'm actually burning two tickets to Fiji with those miles.

[PaulieWalnuts]

What if a site only offered credit card payment and not Paypal? Would that stop you from buying there?

[Mantis]

Not me. I use paypal a lot and also my visa. I am comfortable with both mostly due to fraud protection.

[Jo Ann Snover]

With sites I know and have used a lot - like amazon.com - I do use a credit card, but otherwise it's always PayPal. The big win for me is that the site has no access to my financial information, so I don't have to worry about whether their systems are secure or not.

[elvinstar]

I like knowing that PayPal's team is handling the security programming rather than someone's nephew that built the site for them because they didn't want to pay an "expensive" developer. 

[gemmy12]

I would use paypal. Though as per Indian govt regulation we cant store money in pp and as soon as money comes to pp, it automatically withdrawn to associated bank account. More over cant pay using debit card or bank a/c through pp, just credit card works but i believe using credit cards through pp is safer because of two safety levels (of pp & credit cards itself). But never use any prepaid or virtual cards with pp else it will be limited by pp.

[Ron]

What if a site only offered credit card payment and not Paypal? Would that stop you from buying there?

It wouldnt stop me, if I really needed to buy from that site. But if I can find another site with the same product with PayPal I would buy there.

[Beppe Grillo]

Beppe, if it wasnt safe it wouldnt be used. The biggest companies in the world, Facebook, Skype, Nike, Air France/KLM, Starbucks, name them all,  use PayPal. PayPal has 110 million users. You dont get that far as a company if it wasnt safe.

I would buy a car using PayPal.

PayPal is regulated as a bank in Europe, if there were any security issues, that wouldnt be possible. PayPal is PCI compliant as well, and Visa and Mastercard approved PayPal as a payment processor.

PayPal is safe.

Yes it is safe till it stops to be�
It is not because you or other people you know have never had problems that it is safe.

_________
Apparently credit or debit cards are a lot safer than Paypal (and you should consider that the Paypal percentage is given by Paypal itself, so it is surely an advantageous figure for Paypal)

"The only fraud statistics available from PayPal are those numbers given to The Sheet back in April. Then PayPal said 0.3 per cent of all transactions are classified as fraudulent.

That compares badly with APCA�s latest statistics, which show that the number of fraudulent transactions using credit and charge cards rose slightly during 2007 to 0.0186 per cent of total transactions, less than one tenth of the PayPal number. The number of fraudulent transactions using a debt card was 0.0023 per cent, or less than one hundredth of the PayPal number."
http://www.bankingday.com/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2&stream=1&selkey=6750&hlc=2&hlw=

[Ron]

And now I go and find an article that backs up my claims  its fine, I am not going to let myself get sucked into this discussion.

[Beppe Grillo]

^^^
 

[alberto]

No problem basically either are good, but CC are more safer.
There is another option that in future will be interesting. Those services that allow payment in example using the credit of the smartphone. For small amount combines security and easy of use, but it is still premature.

[ShadySue]

Should't there be a poll option for 'Either'?
Like I've said before, now that PP have switched their way of reporting, I only buy things that are tax claimable with PP now.
Woot! No need to get tempted by other things on eBay now - I don't even look there nowadays. Plus there have been a few bad reports about the way PP does business with some people on Watchdog, so I'm not wildly disposed towards them. But then, colour me Ms Cynic.

[asmai]

What if a site only offered credit card payment and not Paypal? Would that stop you from buying there?

If you are wondering for your own site, i would say this is not the right forum to ask. Most of us here are contributors who have a Paypal account and get paid through Paypal so we dont have a problem paying with it. I pay with PP only for small amount and only when i have some balance available from my payments from agencies (not that often because i withdraw my money almost right away normally). I know my friends and family and many people who dont have a Paypal account and they would run away in a heartbeat seeing the Paypal  logo. The problem with Paypal is that they really want to make it hard for people who dont have an account to  pay by credit cards with them, the option of paying with a CC is hidden so well on their page, at some point they even want you to open a guest account with them to be able to pay with CC. Also, if you have a PP account (they know  through your email address) and dont want to pay with it (because you dont have enough balance for example)  it would be problem sometimes as they want to force you to pay with it and dont give you the CC option. 
FYI, from the sales on my site during the last 6 months with Paypal setup: 100% of payment over 30$ are paid with CC, below 30$ about 60% paid with PP, 40% with CC and i just switched to Stripe a week ago after one test purchase where i see PP requires you to open a guest account and show you no option of CC before you do that (they removed it now but i have no trust they wouldnt do it again).

[Ron]

What a shocker, PayPal wants you to use PayPal !!!

That problem is related to the seller not PayPal. The seller is not offering a CC payment, so you can pay with your CC card using PayPal, yet you blame PayPal for making it difficult, and not the seller for not offering it.

You are blaming PayPal for offering a service. And you blame PayPal for logging you into your PayPal account because you are using their payment processor.

All of those issues are because the seller doesnt offer a credit card payment. They dont because you need to be PCI compliant and that can cost a lot of money. So they let PayPal handle the credit card payments.

World upside down.

[PaulieWalnuts]

What if a site only offered credit card payment and not Paypal? Would that stop you from buying there?

If you are wondering for your own site, i would say this is not the right forum to ask. Most of us here are contributors who have a Paypal account and get paid through Paypal so we dont have a problem paying with it. I pay with PP only for small amount and only when i have some balance available from my payments from agencies (not that often because i withdraw my money almost right away normally). I know my friends and family and many people who dont have a Paypal account and they would run away in a heartbeat seeing the Paypal  logo. The problem with Paypal is that they really want to make it hard for people who dont have an account to  pay by credit cards with them, the option of paying with a CC is hidden so well on their page, at some point they even want you to open a guest account with them to be able to pay with CC. Also, if you have a PP account (they know  through your email address) and dont want to pay with it (because you dont have enough balance for example)  it would be problem sometimes as they want to force you to pay with it and dont give you the CC option. 
FYI, from the sales on my site during the last 6 months with Paypal setup: 100% of payment over 30$ are paid with CC, below 30$ about 60% paid with PP, 40% with CC and i just switched to Stripe a week ago after one test purchase where i see PP requires you to open a guest account and show you no option of CC before you do that (they removed it now but i have no trust they wouldnt do it again).

Yes, exactly. Good info thanks. I have Paypal on my site now and am considering switching to Stripe.

My stats show a lot of abandoned carts. I'm sure some of it is people messing around but some of it seems legit. I did a test purchase and I can see how the Paypal process could be confusing.

I tested Stripe and it's user friendly, simple and almost foolproof for buyers.

I guess the question I'm trying to answer is would I end up gaining or losing buyers if I went credit card only with Stripe.

How'd you get your stats? Is there a way to tell what percentage of Paypal transactions were from credit cards?

[PaulieWalnuts]

Interesting discussion. Never knew a lot of the differences in how Paypal and credit cards are handled across other countries.

[Ron]

I dont think its smart to abandon PayPal. Its extremely popular in the USA and you can get a lot of overseas buyers if you use PayPal, I know for example in Germany PayPal is popular because Germans do not like to use credit cards, they want to make bank payments, which is easy with PayPal.

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ent-online-attract-shoppers