Suggestion: make Paypal payments different from other (local) payments

Leftoverbricks

Small orders that are paid with PayPal cost me around €0.45 minimum. When paid with IBAN my cost is €0.00.
- I understand in many countries it is illegal to ask extra money for orders paid with PayPal
- A way to tackle this is increasing my shipping cost to cover for PP cost, but this way the buyers who pay with IBAN are paying too much

I'm making a loss on small orders from buyers in my own country who pay with PayPal.
Can this be solved in an intelligent way? Or should I take my loss on every small PP order?

I expect some of you will say: raise your prices for the parts to cover this. "Usual business practices etc.".
I consider this as nonsense:
When I raise my prices for ALL parts, the buyers who pay with PayPal are OK, but the buyers who pay with IBAN will pay too much. Now that is discrimination!

Mrs Swoop

How do you want to solve it?
You can already set a minimum order value for payment types so you could not accept PayPal on small orders.

White Horse Bricks

I take it you don't have a Paypal microtransaction account set up. That would be worth doing if so. I'm not sure of the Euro charges but it is £0.05 +5% here, so the savings quickly add up for small orders.

patpendlego

Instead of charging extra cost when paying with PayPal, which is indeed illegal in some countries, you might give a discount when paying otherwise. First increase shipping cost as if paying with PayPal then give discount if paying with IBAN (and do not give discount if paying with PayPal). Afaik that is not illegal.

Vosblokjes

According to the PayPal TOS it's not allowed (in some countries, not NL) to charge more for PP than other payment options
However there is no option on BO to add costs or give discounts to certain payment options. In that regard no way to differentiate cost between payment options.
And from BO's point of view I get it, buyers should see what they will have to pay while shopping, not when already in checkout, although a discount is always nice to get when you don't expect it.

What you could do is take a look at your average PP vs IBAN costs and increase your shipping prices with that average. That way some PP buyers will pay less than the cost and IBAN buyers will pay more, but not full PP cost.
You could also charge a base PP cost and give IBAN buyers a coupon for a next buy for the extra they had to pay.

And an IBAN payment also costs money per transaction (if you have a business account).

And the micropayment account mentioned above is also a very good option. I have looked at it myself, looks good, but haven't had time to get in touch with PP yet to set it up.

Hoddie

@patpendlego - what you suggest is illegal in some countries (referred to as a mirror charge I believe), and even where it's not it does go against PayPal's terms and conditions.

I will throw a party the day PayPal crashes and burns.

What @Mrs Swoop says is the best available option - set a higher minimum buy for your PayPal option. @White Horse Bricks suggests a good alternative if that's available where you are.

patpendlego

@Hoddie thx for the info, this option is in use by sellers I know but it might raise an issue for them someday...

Essentially IBAN payments are not free of charge too, but the costs are not charged per transaction but monthly. To avoid any problems it might be easiest to incorporate the cost in item prices all together

tons_of_bricks

There are a couple ways of doing this:

Set a minimum buy so you no longer get micro orders. However, since your store page says you specialize in small orders, that's probably not the best way for you to go.

That leaves you to raise prices, either on the pieces or on shipping. It's not discrimination, it's making sure your business can survive. A simple small handling fee incorporated into your shipping should cover it.

patpendlego

€0.45 on small orders is a lot of money. Raise prices on pieces or shipping too. Not using PayPal at all might be cheaper, but might result in less orders? Expanding the business in order to get larger orders might be a solution?

Leftoverbricks

@Mrs Swoop Where can I find this option?

White Horse Bricks

My Store > Options > Payment, then select payment method, scroll to bottom and set 'Minimum order total'.

e.g. I have Paypal microtransactions set from £0.00 to £9.00 and Paypal standard set from £9.01 upwards.

Mrs Swoop

@Leftoverbricks Where @White Horse Bricks said

https://www.brickowl.com/mystore/settings/payment_methods

Leftoverbricks

Setting a minimum order total for PP does not do the thing. When the total order value increases (and this is shipping included!), the variable PP fee does as well. What I want is a solution for my €0.35 standard fee. The variable 3.4% I can take into account, but this also includes shipping cost.
Technically I want:

if payment_method = "PayPal"
__add 0.35 to variable order_value_without_shipping
end if

In effect:
order without shipping is 0.45.
shipping is 1.46, total order value = 1.91
Wished for situation =
order without shipping = 0.45 + 0.35 (my PP cost) = 0.80, total order with shipping = 0.80+1.46 = 2.26.

Hoddie

And how would you account for that in the listings pages? This would send us down the BL route where listings bear no resemblance to the final price paid by the consumer.

The third point of the NL PayPal agreement may be of interest:

You must treat PayPal as a payment method or mark at least on par with any other payment methods offered at your points of sale, including your websites or mobile applications. This includes at least equal or substantially similar:

- logo placement,
- position within any point of sale,
- treatment in terms of payment flow, terms, conditions, restrictions, or fees, in each case as compared to other marks and payment methods at your points of sale.

Calibrick

Micropayments strikes me as the easy win-win if you don't wish to aggregate this cost-of-doing-business into your total sell prices?

Leftoverbricks

@BasKrie I searched my PayPal account but cannot find where to get micropayments. Can you help?

Jay37

@Leftoverbricks You have to phone them up (at least that's what I had to do here in the UK last year) and ask them to activate this. I was told at the time though that it was an 'either or' situation; if I had micropayments I couldn't then have 'normal' as well. If memory serves it may have been @White Horse Bricks who told me that you can have two PayPal accounts, one for micropayments up to whatever the limit is, then a normal one for orders above that amount. I haven't investigated the two account option yet, but assume this is straightforward to set up...?

Dimi_DBB

You need 2 PayPal accounts. Use one for normal payments and the other for micropayments.
To get your account setup for micropayment, you need to make it a business account and then contact paypal.
You can't do it yourself.

Vosblokjes

@Leftoverbricks
Indeed, you need a second account, otherwise you will be paying way to much for larger orders.
PayPal states that it is usefull for payments under € 5.00, but you have to see that for yourself.
More info on https://www.paypal.com/nl/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees ,look for "Microbetalingen"