The Legendary Zoltan Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I recently reread the following article from Zircon's site because I plan to sell my own CDs on my website in the very near future. http://zirconmusic.com/tutorials/text/how-to-distribute-and-sell-a-cd/ Zircon makes it sound quite easy and of course the PayPal website does as well. But there are a LOT of links in all kinds of locations on the paypal site, SEVERAL of which refer to the fees involved. The "Websites Payment Standard" service which I believe is the most basic and common one takes like 3.6% + 40 cents per transaction which is only like 76 cents for a $10 transaction. Not bad right? But if you click on some other links you'll see all these places where it says "other fees apply". And then if you click on that it says something like, "PayPal charges the following fees" and it's a huge list and I don't completely understand when such fees apply. Does anyone here who has experience with a PayPal merchant account have any advice, cautions, or calming wisdom for me? Thank you very much. I appreciate the help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I've been using PayPal for years and there aren't really any other relevant fees for this kind of thing. I'm sure there are fees for services that you and I aren't interested in So yeah, the 2.9 to 3.6% + 40 cents per transaction is basically all you need to worry about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahamut Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 I went to a presentation recently that compared several payment services and their fees/rates, and Paypal's is ok, but mainly great if you're selling in high dollar amounts, and that requires approval from Paypal's side. The best that I saw is a library called Stripe.js, but that requires some more technical know how in order to get it working. You can definitely go a lot worse than Paypal though. It isn't the simplest of things to set up a payment service in general though - the credit card industry regulates the transactions tightly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Legendary Zoltan Posted November 19, 2012 Author Share Posted November 19, 2012 Thank you Mr. Zircon. Thank you Mr. Bahamut. It sounds like I should go for it, then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kupernikus Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 just understand that for the first 90 days paypals sucks dirty sweaty balls dredged in poop. Seriously, you'll end up waiting massive amounts of time for payments to be made instead of sitting in pending and you'll come to realize that their customer service sucks. Once you're through that period though, it's pretty nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Strader Posted November 20, 2012 Share Posted November 20, 2012 I signed up with a merchant account way back in.. I think 2005.. I never put much thought into making an "online store" website because I did not and probably still do not have the skills necessary to make such a thing. It'd be awesome to have, though. I think. It'd be better than bandcamp, they take a lot more fees than Paypal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Legendary Zoltan Posted November 20, 2012 Author Share Posted November 20, 2012 Hmm. Thanks, Kupernikus. I'll try and tough it out. Brandon, I don't think it takes any particular skill to put that stuff on a website. I haven't done it yet, but once I do, I'll let you know how. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sole Signal Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 I built and maintain a site for a colleague that uses Paypal extensively for all online sales. At the time, it was absolutely the best free option, and probably still is, since his transactions are mostly high dollar items. However, we're now looking at options for other carts, since it's very difficult (i.e. impossible with my coding knowledge) to calculate accurate shipping costs with complex combinations of items. In the eye of the consumer, there also might be some professionalism lost when the only option is to check out with Paypal default buttons "Add to Cart," "Buy Now," etc. If you get to the point where you'll want to worry about that, just wrap Paypal in some other cart system or custom buttons and you'll be fine. For you now, though, Paypal as the base for your online sales will be more than fine. I've used it for several years now. Right now my bandcamp points to Paypal, so I'm losing more in fees. Keeping it to Paypal only ensures more money for you. One thing I did do is open up a new bank account for my Paypal account, since my other bank had a cap on how many online transactions I could transfer in a month before I started also accruing bank fees. Hopefully that helps some. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 www.e-junkie.com has an excellent cart system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Legendary Zoltan Posted November 21, 2012 Author Share Posted November 21, 2012 That helps a lot Sole Signal. Thank you. I'll be sure to find out about the number of online transactions my bank account allows. I've never heard anything about that so it may be limitless, if I'm lucky. Ejunkie looks like a very useful site for people who sell online. I'll read it up a bit. Thank you, Zircon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion303 Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 Be aware that if someone accidentally hits "pay" twice and asks you to refund one of the payments, PP will refund the customer's full amount but keep the 30-cent flat fee out of your funds. 30 cents isn't much, but it's pretty shady for them to charge you for something you had no control over, regardless of the amount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sole Signal Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 That helps a lot Sole Signal. Thank you. I'll be sure to find out about the number of online transactions my bank account allows. I've never heard anything about that so it may be limitless, if I'm lucky. Granted, I never exceeded the initial limit allowed, but it's just something to be aware of. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederic Petitpas Posted November 21, 2012 Share Posted November 21, 2012 I signed up with a merchant account way back in.. I think 2005.. I never put much thought into making an "online store" website because I did not and probably still do not have the skills necessary to make such a thing. It'd be awesome to have, though. I think. It'd be better than bandcamp, they take a lot more fees than Paypal. Yeah, got a merchant account too and I dunno if that changes anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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