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I don't really consider Stripe a replacement for PayPal. You don't accept PayPal because it can process credit cards, you accept PayPal because millions of peop

by james33 15y ago

I don't really consider Stripe a replacement for PayPal. You don't accept PayPal because it can process credit cards, you accept PayPal because millions of people want to pay with it. Don't get me wrong, I hate PayPal just as much as the next guy, but unfortunately it isn't a viable option to stop using it in favor of simply accepting credit cards right now (though Stripe is an awesome product!).

jinushaun 15y ago
From the consumer's perspective: I don't want to give some random website my credit card info, but I'm OK with them going through PayPal for the checkout step.
garyrichardson 15y ago
Very true. Here's another example: My wife sells knitting related things (patterns, books, yarn) on ravelry.com. They collect the payment for her and transfer the money to her paypal account. I suspect it will be a while before stripe can do such a thing.
- latchkey 15y ago
  If ravelry.com used WePay, each time someone bought one of her amazing works of art, the money would be deposited directly into a FDIC insured account that your wife controls. From there, your wife could transfer the money directly into her own regular bank account. If ravelry.com goes out of business before they transfer the money to her paypal account, there is no chance that they can take any of her money with them. (While highly illegal, I've seen this happen elsewhere with a similar setup.)
  - slashclee 15y ago
    *ravelry, not raverly
    - latchkey 15y ago
      Fixed. Thanks. Must be my old school raver roots. Heh.
      - holdenk 15y ago
        raver you say? Do you know of any good bay area raves?
gtaylor 15y ago
I definitely understand the privacy concerns, and myself use PayPal for a lot of things. However, I think the need for it depends a lot on your audience, and the nature and reputation of your site. We are fortunate enough (being new and in closed beta) in that our audience knows who we are and that we're not a random sketch site. Down the road, we probably will have to support PayPal again (though very differently), but for now our current state (closed beta) and our business model allow Stripe and traditional payment gateway-only checkout. With that said, I will put a huge "YMMV" here! This is obviously not OK for every site, and the privacy concerns are very valid.
angryasian 15y ago
agree, I'd like to know conversion numbers after the switch.
- gtaylor 15y ago
  It's still really early going, but we've seen some new patterns. For example, we had a customer enroll in four different courses (we help schools offer online courses) in under five minutes. This -never- happened when we only offered PayPal. Our current enrollment process is so fast and simple with Stripe that we're curious to see if our conversion rate is -better-, for our current audience (older, non-technical users at this point). While a $30-$90 course isn't an impulse buy, lowering the barrier to enrolling in more than one may leave us better off. But we'll be able to discuss that better after we have more data.
pbreit 15y ago
This is a good point. PayPal has moved beyond being a mere payment processor. There are a lot of shoppers (10s of millions at least) who actively prefer paying with PayPal.

by james33 15y ago

jinushaun 15y ago

From the consumer's perspective: I don't want to give some random website my credit card info, but I'm OK with them going through PayPal for the checkout step.

garyrichardson 15y ago

Very true. Here's another example: My wife sells knitting related things (patterns, books, yarn) on ravelry.com. They collect the payment for her and transfer the money to her paypal account. I suspect it will be a while before stripe can do such a thing.

latchkey 15y ago
If ravelry.com used WePay, each time someone bought one of her amazing works of art, the money would be deposited directly into a FDIC insured account that your wife controls. From there, your wife could transfer the money directly into her own regular bank account. If ravelry.com goes out of business before they transfer the money to her paypal account, there is no chance that they can take any of her money with them. (While highly illegal, I've seen this happen elsewhere with a similar setup.)
- slashclee 15y ago
  *ravelry, not raverly
  - latchkey 15y ago
    Fixed. Thanks. Must be my old school raver roots. Heh.
    - holdenk 15y ago
      raver you say? Do you know of any good bay area raves?

gtaylor 15y ago

I definitely understand the privacy concerns, and myself use PayPal for a lot of things. However, I think the need for it depends a lot on your audience, and the nature and reputation of your site. We are fortunate enough (being new and in closed beta) in that our audience knows who we are and that we're not a random sketch site. Down the road, we probably will have to support PayPal again (though very differently), but for now our current state (closed beta) and our business model allow Stripe and traditional payment gateway-only checkout. With that said, I will put a huge "YMMV" here! This is obviously not OK for every site, and the privacy concerns are very valid.

angryasian 15y ago

agree, I'd like to know conversion numbers after the switch.

gtaylor 15y ago
It's still really early going, but we've seen some new patterns. For example, we had a customer enroll in four different courses (we help schools offer online courses) in under five minutes. This -never- happened when we only offered PayPal. Our current enrollment process is so fast and simple with Stripe that we're curious to see if our conversion rate is -better-, for our current audience (older, non-technical users at this point). While a $30-$90 course isn't an impulse buy, lowering the barrier to enrolling in more than one may leave us better off. But we'll be able to discuss that better after we have more data.

pbreit 15y ago

This is a good point. PayPal has moved beyond being a mere payment processor. There are a lot of shoppers (10s of millions at least) who actively prefer paying with PayPal.