PayPal Commerce

[CubeCart Bot]

Name: PayPal Commerce
Price: Free
Category: Plugins
Homepage: https://www.cubecart.com/extensions/plugins/paypal-commerce

[steve-t]

With this new extension we seem to have lost the facility to specify the default payment gateway. On the old PayPal extension there was a box called 'Prioriy' where you could choose which payment gateway was the default. The customer I have in mind wants to have their other gateway as the default, so we are back to using the old PayPal for the time being.

[Al Brookbanks]

Hi Steve,

PayPal Commerce combines Express Checkout, Card Payments, Alternative Payments and credit options. Really it covers everything so in most cases it makes sense to use as the only payment system in CubeCart. Saying this you can have PayPal Commerce with other payment options but it still will show as default.

To stop it showing as default you can edit the file modules\plugins\paypal_commerce\hooks\class.cubecart.display_gateways.php and simply change the line below to false.

What is the particular situation here that required a different default payment solution if you don't mind me asking?

'default'   => true

I don't see why we can't add a setting for this to be default or not from the extension settings page to be honest.

[[email protected].]

Al, they probably need PayPal as you can't really run a business without it but so many of the other payment gateways are actually a lot cheaper from a processing fee perspective, particularly bank transfer which for us has no cost to the business at all!

[Al Brookbanks]

OK thanks for the feedback. I suppose the huge barrier with bank transfer is the huge upheaval of the customer actually doing it. Lost sales could make this a false cost saving.

[[email protected].]

We don't use BACs as our main payment gateway but our business clients prefer this method.

Credit card charges are also quite often less than 1.5% so considerably less than PayPal!

Drawbacks to using PayPal

• High chargeback fees.
• Higher fees than a typical merchant (credit card processing) account.
• Account suspension for terms and conditions (T&C) violations that can freeze your funds for months.
• May take 2 business days to get your money.
• Customer service can be hard to reach.

[Al Brookbanks]

What changs in the PP commerce extension would make it work for you? Just default option and position? 

Using commerce will increase conversions as opposed to the old fashioned standard paypal integration. 

[[email protected].]

Thanks very much Al, I think having the option would work - it's just that most traders hate paying PayPal fees but know we have to have it.

[Al Brookbanks]

Are PayPal's fees not competitive these days? I was under the impression they were pretty reasonable looking at the overall market.  

[[email protected].]

Not competitive at all! 3% + 20p

Gross amount £102.75 GBP

PayPal fee -£3.28 GBP

[Al Brookbanks]

Not competitive compared to what?

[[email protected].]

Credit/debit card is 1.5% flat

[Al Brookbanks]

Isn't it 1.2% + 30p per transaction?

[[email protected].]

Not competitive at all! 3% + 20p

Gross amount £102.75 GBP

PayPal fee -£3.28 GBP

If it was only 1.2% the PayPal fee would be £1.44

[Al Brookbanks]

But what are you comparing to? All card processors have fees.

Stripe: 1.4% + 20p
PayPal: 1.2% + 30p
Square: 1.9%
 

[[email protected].]

Barclaycards - value payment gateway which is https://www.utpgroup.co.uk/

[Al Brookbanks]

Just now, [email protected]. said:

Barclaycards - value payment gateway which is https://www.utpgroup.co.uk/

What do they charge and isn't there a monthly fee from your business bank account?

[[email protected].]

Providing you hit minimum sales there is no fee

 

[Al Brookbanks]

No fee for taking card payments for you? So who pays visa etc? Can't be right.

[[email protected].]

Sorry Al I didn't explain myself very well - there is a fee but it is only 1.5% across the board, there are no further costs providing you hit minimum sales. The minimum charge per month is just over £25 but if your sales cover this (approx £1700 per month @1.5%) there are no extras to pay.

Will be away for the rest of today now - but thanks for your help.

 

Dear Steven Bird,

 

Thank you for contacting PayPal Email support regarding fee charged. Let me check what best I can do to help you and try guiding you to the best possible solution. 

 

Steven, the standard fee for goods and services fee will be 2.9%+fixed fee of 30p charges.

 

For future reference, you may also want to check our Help Center for more information about fees. https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees

 

I wish you and your family safety and healthy day ahead. 

 

“Thank you for contacting PayPal. We now provide Message service from Monday to Sunday 9:00AM - 9:00PM. To Message us, please log in to your PayPal account and click 'Contact’ at the bottom of the page” 

 

Yours sincerely,

Nousheen

PayPal

[Al Brookbanks]

It's quite a complex landscape and I'm not quite sure we are comparing apples and pears here and the product and service offering isn't the same. 

[Lastwolf]

Paypal starts off at 2.9% until you hit discount thresholds, though iirc it's fairly easy to hit the first few and it's like 10k per month to hit the "best" rate

If you have a merchant account;

Card funded payment from a user of our Terms for Payments without a PayPal account	1.2% + fixed fee

If you don't have a merchant acocunt you might be getting slapped with higher fees?

Most paypal transactions these days are card funded and 1.2% + 30p is cheaper than most card handlers rates.

But even then Paypal are pretty competitive if you use them alot, if your starting off it's gonna hurt a bit fee wise. The main benefit of using them is high consumer trust due the percieved protections of the format over something like a random credit card handler. Just anecdotally, I've offered a payment gateway (Sagepay) and Paypal for years and around ~70% of my sales are Paypal. Sage or Opayo or whatever they hell they are called now are fractionally cheaper even now but it's not much.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Lastwolf

[steve-t]

Hi Al

Thanks for the reply.

As far as I know, my customer's other payment gateway's fees are cheaper, but the other issue is some customers don't realise you can use PayPal to pay with debit/credit cards without creating an account, and so the sale is lost. That said, I think there are some countries where you still have to create a PayPal account even to use cards, the USA being one of them. The info in red might be out of date - I mention it because one time we had to disable the other gateway which led to a flurry of complaints about only having PayPal. If you can call 3 complaints a flurry that is.

I guess the bottom line is the customer in question wants their other gateway as default, I'm just trying to oblige - I edited the file and it works fine, hopefully I will remember to check it when there is a update to the PayPal Commerce plugin.

Steve

Edited January 26, 2022 by steve-t

[Claudia M]

When I started using PayPal Commerce instead of standard my fees when up to 3.49% + .49 (USA)  In looking at PayPal's fee page they state this is standard for all other commercial transactions.

[DiMarca Online]

As most of my customers are international, there are extra costs for valuta conversion with PayPal. I usually pay about 5%+0.35 (euro). A lot!

 

I also use Stripe which is a lot cheaper: 3%+0.25 (euro).