If it was just as easy to accept credit cards as it was to use PayPal, wouldn’t you want to let you customers pay you with their credit cards? Even better, why not accept credit card payments and PayPal at the same time? Offering both payment options will increase sales. With Cart66 it is as easy to accept credit cards as it is to use PayPal. People often shy away from accepting credit cards, because it seems complicated to setup and scary to deal with credit card information. Cart66 handles all the security for you so it is just as easy to accept credit card payments as it is to use PayPal.
Benefits of PayPal
If you are launching a new online business, you might want to do something quick and easy so you can get started as fast as possible. Getting set up to accept credit cards might seem like a lot of work, so maybe you just start out accepting PayPal payments. After all, there are some benefits to using PayPal.
Easy To Get Started
The biggest benefit of using PayPal to collect payments on your website is that you don’t have to worry with setting up a secure ecommerce website. PayPal has a bunch of different ways to collect payments, but the most common and most simple is PayPal Payments Standard. This is what most people think of when they think about PayPal. You just put a PayPal button on your website. When someone clicks it, they are directed to the PayPal website where they log in with their PayPal account to pay you. You don’t have to worry about security, vulnerability scans, or PCI compliance because PayPal is handling all of the payment processing for you.
No Monthly Fee, Low Cost
Another benefit to using PayPal Website Payments Standard is that there is no monthly fee to use the service. You just pay a small transaction fee (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction) each time someone buys something from you. When you’re first getting started with your online business, you need some time to get things going. It’s very nice not to have the burden of a monthly fee when you aren’t processing many payments.
Convenience
For people who already have PayPal accounts, they will appreciate the convenience of being able to pay for your products or services with through PayPal. When a customer uses their PayPal account to send you money, they don’t have to pull out their credit card and type in a bunch of numbers. They can just sign in to their PayPal account and agree to send you money – quick and easy.
The Drawbacks of PayPal
PayPal may be an easy way to get started, but it is not the ideal way to collect payments. Your business doesn’t seem as professional if PayPal is the only way you accept payments. Also, it can be confusing for people who are unfamiliar with PayPal and don’t already have a PayPal account. Lastly, bopping back and forth between your website and PayPal is a jarring experience for your customer.
Lack of Professionalism
If PayPal is the only form of payment you accept, your customers may wonder how serious you are about your business. While it’s generally a good idea to include PayPal as a payment option, if it is the only payment option you offer you give the appearance of not being very professional. Your business will be more professional and trustworthy if you accept credit card payments.
Checkout Confusion
What will your customers think if they don’t have a PayPal account?
- Do I have to have a PayPal account to pay with PayPal?
- Am I supposed to setup a PayPal account to buy this product?
- I don’t want to deal with having another account.
It is too much to ask a customer to create and configure a PayPal account just so they can pay you. You will lose these customers.
Jarring Checkout Experience
Bopping back and forth between your website and the PayPal website is a jarring, multi-step process. When a customer leaves your site to pay with PayPal, you are introducing a huge speed bump in your checkout experience. The one place you want to have a smooth, fast, easy experience is your checkout flow. You want the checkout process to keep your design and branding. You also want it to be fast and easy with as few clicks as possible. PayPal breaks all of these rules.
Why You Should Accept Credit Cards
All things being equal, wouldn’t you like to accept credit card payments – perhaps, in addition to accepting PayPal payments. Far more people have credit cards than have PayPal accounts. Most people prefer to pay with their credit cards too. If you were only going to offer one payment method, it should be credit card payments.
Credit Card Payments Are Faster and Easier
The more steps you have in your checkout process, the lower the conversion rate will be. In other words, the harder it is for your customers to pay you, the fewer sales you’ll get. Conversely, the easier it is to pay, the more sales you will get.
Paying with PayPal involves a lot more work – especially if you don’t already have a PayPal account – than simply entering your credit card number and paying.
Credit Card Conversion Rates Are Higher
In this study, MoovWeb provides some insight into why PayPal conversions rates are so much lower than simply paying with a credit card. Here are some highlights from the report.
- PayPal adds another step to the checkout process: Shoppers must leave your site, load the PayPal site, then return to back to your site. These additional steps can be more time-consuming than entering credit card information.
- PayPal requires a login: Anyone who is not automatically logged in to PayPal is at risk of forgetting their password or mistyping login information. This creates new exit opportunities and a greater chance of checkout abandonment.
- Order submission is unclear: Often, the user does not know if continuing from PayPal will submit the order or bring them back to the site for order review. Users may be hesitant to continue on PayPal without reviewing their order.
- Only 1 in 5 people choose to checkout with PayPal. Given the option between checking out with PayPal or simply paying with a credit card, about 80% of people choose to pay with their credit card.
Keep Your Design and Branding
When you accept credit cards you have much more control over the way things look. Your customers feel like you are taking care of them through the entire process. You are providing a unified, seamless experience. The easier it is to complete the checkout process, the more people will do it.
Credit Cards Win – PayPal Good 2nd Option
The lesson learned is that definitely want to accept credit cards. Then consider offering PayPal as an alternative, additional payment method. But, if you have to pick just one way to accept payments, the clear winner is to accept credit cards.
A Note About Pricing and Monthly Fees
When you are just getting started out, one of the best ways to keep costs down is to find a way to accept online payments without having to pay a monthly service fee. When you begin to look into the various payment gateways, you will find that there is an inverse relationship between transaction fees and monthly service fees. The more you are willing to pay in monthly services fees, the lower your per transaction costs will be.
For payment services that have no monthly fees, the industry standard transaction rate is 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. If you are willing to pay a monthly fee you can usually find lower costs per transaction. So, if you are just getting started you may want a service to accept credit cards with no monthly fee. Once your business grows, you will probably be able to save money by switching to a different payment provider where you pay a small monthly fee in exchange for a lower cost per transaction. When you start processing over $5,000 / month in revenue, you might want to start looking for lower transaction fees.
Payment Gateways With No Monthly Fees
Most people who are just getting started with their online business immediately assume that accepting credit cards payments is expensive. The truth is, accepting credit card payments is no more expensive than using PayPal. Here are a few payment gateways with no monthly fees and are the same or less expensive than PayPal.
Security and PCI Compliance
Perhaps the biggest reason people shy away from accepting credit card payments is the security needed to process the payments. The good news is, Cart66 handles all the security for you – just like PayPal would do for you. All of the credit card processing happens on your own PCI compliant, secure hosted payment page that works with over 100 different payment gateways including all of the ones listed above that do not have monthly fees.
If you want to know more about PCI compliance, what it is, and why it is important, we’ve got some great articles that will quickly get you up to speed.
- Ecommerce Security – It’s not about SSL certificates
- WordPress and PCI Compliance
- What is PCI Compiance Scope?
While it is good to know what’s involved with PCI compliance and security, the main thing to know is that Cart66 handles the security for you. You don’t even need your own SSL certificate.
By using Cart66, you can get all of the benefits of accepting credit cards without any of the problems. Accepting credit cards is just as easy as using PayPal.
The Best Of Both Worlds
PayPal is great for your customers who already have PayPal accounts. It’s also easy to add PayPal to your website. On the other hand, accepting credit cards means you make it easier for people to buy from your website. You also present your business in a more professional light by showing your customers that you are serious enough to go beyond just offering PayPal. With Cart66 you can accept credit cards just as easily as you can accept PayPal.
Accept Credit Cards + Offer PayPal
It’s great to be able to offer PayPal as a payment option for customers who want to pay with their PayPal account. Adding PayPal in addition to accepting credit cards has been shown to increase sales. With Cart66 you can accept credit card payments (using any of over 100 different payment gateways) AND offer PayPal as an option at the same time. With Cart66 you can accept credit cards and accept PayPal at the same time.
The Big Picture
Cart66 is different from all other WordPress ecommerce plugins because it includes a PCI compliant hosted payment page so you don’t have to worry about ecommerce security. Cart66 only hosts one page, the page where you customers enter their payment information. Cart66 does NOT host your WordPress site. You can host your entire WordPress site anywhere you want.
The customer experience flows like this:
- Your customer shops on your WordPress site – that you host
- When your customer clicks “Checkout” they go to your secure payment page hosted on the Cart66 PCI compliant cloud servers. The checkout page looks exactly like your WordPress site because it is skinned with your WordPress theme.
- After a successful payment, your customer is automatically sent back to your WordPress site to view the receipt.
Ecommerce Is As Easy As Any Other WordPress Site
With Cart66 you can build ecommerce sites and accept credit card payments just as easily as you can build any other type of WordPress site. Host your site anywhere you want. Don’t worry about SSL certificates – Cart66 handles the security for you. Use any theme you want. Use any additional plugins you want – like for SEO, image galleries, etc. Cart66 lets you snap on the ability to accept credit cards just as easily as you can snap on PayPal.
With Cart66, there is nothing holding you back from accepting credit card payments and accepting PayPal at the same time.
Summary
- Accept credit cards just as easily as using PayPal
- You can accept credit cards without a monthly fee
- Your Cart66 hosted payment page takes care of your PCI compliance and security needs
- You do not need an SSL certificate when using Cart66
- Cart66 works with 100+ payment gateways
- All payment gateway integrations are included for free – no add-ons needed
If you have any questions about how to accept credit cards, or if there’s anything we can do to help you get started, just let us know!
