4 ms·

I wonder if anyone will use this. Seems like paypal is no longer the defacto standard for payment as it once was.

Hovertruck 12y ago
Still quite useful internationally I believe, for countries where credit/debit cards aren't commonly used.
pling 12y ago
I'll use it. I take a lot of payments from eBay via PayPal so I might as well just zap it from there rather than wait for it to clear into my bank.
jcampbell1 12y ago
I accept paypal for my SaaS site, and I absolutely hate their system. The IPN system is painful. I spent months playing whack-a-mole trying to figure out how to correctly handle the 20 or so different transaction types. I use paypal often as a user, and I love it. For recurring billing, I can cancel the service at PayPal and I don't have to worry about some site losing my credit card information to hackers. I also don't have to freak out when my credit card expires and worry that I am going to lose all my data at github if I miss the email.
- zhengyi13 12y ago
  I used to work at PayPal (6+ years ago), specifically in Merchant Technical Support. Speaking strictly for myself, I hated IPNs too, and having come from another payment gateway with a similarly unreliable out-of-band notification system, I was always mystified as to why folks would build whole fulfillment systems around them. I mean, I know the API-based product is more expensive, but this is your business, right? If you have any kind of significant volume, I would think the reliability of straight API calls would make the additional cost well worth it.
TimFogarty 12y ago
Perhaps... but they've made some seriously good acquisitions with Braintree and Venmo that will mean they'll stay relevant.
tokenizerrr 12y ago
It's better than credit cards outside America. Still awful, though.
ROFISH 12y ago
Personally, I trust paying a person via Paypal vs. a generic credit card form. Or anything really that doesn't let me trust you with my 16+3 digits that grants full access to drain my credit.
- taylorwc 12y ago
  Agree, but reluctantly. Given Paypal's horrendous history of freezing funds and poor customer support, I use it only when I have serious doubts about a site's generic form.
  - Afforess 12y ago
    Paypal has great customer support if you are a consumer, it is only sellers that have issues. And usually it is because someone thinks it is a good idea to use Paypal as a donation processor (which it is NOT meant for) and are surprised when they get into trouble.
- zengr 12y ago
  Agree, I my credit card recently got expired and I had to update it in every single website - github, comcast etc. I just connected PayPal with Github and I will just need to update it in one place now.
cleverjake 12y ago
fwiw - I have worked at a number of sites, and all that implemented paypal saw a non trivial conversion bump, some into the double digits, percentage wise. Audience wasn't developers ever, though.
yen223 12y ago
Paypal is currently supported in far far more countries than most of their competitors[0][1][2]. Paypal is here to stay for a while. [0] https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide [1] https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-stripe-support https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-str... [2] https://www.braintreepayments.com/faq#international https://www.braintreepayments.com/faq#international
jhonovich 12y ago
We recently added PayPal as an additional option beyond credit cards and, in the first month, ~15% of all signups used PayPal.
bbwharris 12y ago
Its truly to best international option out there. And a lot of people only trust paypal.
justinpaulson 12y ago
I see people using paypal more and more. It is a lot easier to remember your paypal information than a credit card number. Especially when that number is likely to change with the amount of fraud that goes on in that realm.

Still quite useful internationally I believe, for countries where credit/debit cards aren't commonly used.

pling 12y ago

I'll use it. I take a lot of payments from eBay via PayPal so I might as well just zap it from there rather than wait for it to clear into my bank.

jcampbell1 12y ago

I accept paypal for my SaaS site, and I absolutely hate their system. The IPN system is painful. I spent months playing whack-a-mole trying to figure out how to correctly handle the 20 or so different transaction types. I use paypal often as a user, and I love it. For recurring billing, I can cancel the service at PayPal and I don't have to worry about some site losing my credit card information to hackers. I also don't have to freak out when my credit card expires and worry that I am going to lose all my data at github if I miss the email.

zhengyi13 12y ago
I used to work at PayPal (6+ years ago), specifically in Merchant Technical Support. Speaking strictly for myself, I hated IPNs too, and having come from another payment gateway with a similarly unreliable out-of-band notification system, I was always mystified as to why folks would build whole fulfillment systems around them. I mean, I know the API-based product is more expensive, but this is your business, right? If you have any kind of significant volume, I would think the reliability of straight API calls would make the additional cost well worth it.

TimFogarty 12y ago

Perhaps... but they've made some seriously good acquisitions with Braintree and Venmo that will mean they'll stay relevant.

tokenizerrr 12y ago

It's better than credit cards outside America. Still awful, though.

ROFISH 12y ago

Personally, I trust paying a person via Paypal vs. a generic credit card form. Or anything really that doesn't let me trust you with my 16+3 digits that grants full access to drain my credit.

taylorwc 12y ago
Agree, but reluctantly. Given Paypal's horrendous history of freezing funds and poor customer support, I use it only when I have serious doubts about a site's generic form.
- Afforess 12y ago
  Paypal has great customer support if you are a consumer, it is only sellers that have issues. And usually it is because someone thinks it is a good idea to use Paypal as a donation processor (which it is NOT meant for) and are surprised when they get into trouble.
zengr 12y ago
Agree, I my credit card recently got expired and I had to update it in every single website - github, comcast etc. I just connected PayPal with Github and I will just need to update it in one place now.

cleverjake 12y ago

fwiw - I have worked at a number of sites, and all that implemented paypal saw a non trivial conversion bump, some into the double digits, percentage wise. Audience wasn't developers ever, though.

yen223 12y ago

Paypal is currently supported in far far more countries than most of their competitors[0][1][2]. Paypal is here to stay for a while. [0] https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide [1] https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-stripe-support https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-str... [2] https://www.braintreepayments.com/faq#international https://www.braintreepayments.com/faq#international

jhonovich 12y ago

We recently added PayPal as an additional option beyond credit cards and, in the first month, ~15% of all signups used PayPal.

bbwharris 12y ago

Its truly to best international option out there. And a lot of people only trust paypal.

justinpaulson 12y ago

I see people using paypal more and more. It is a lot easier to remember your paypal information than a credit card number. Especially when that number is likely to change with the amount of fraud that goes on in that realm.