Coins for my collection are almost exclusively bought thru auction companies in Europe. The ones I deal with have a Pay Pal option for convenience. Every once in a while I come across a coin that I would like to add. The auction company does not accept PP for payment. A bank transfer is acceptable but a large cost when the coins price is 200 Euros. I cannot imagine being a company in this day and time and not offering PP as an option. Rant Over.
And yet you have found several companies... The problem isn't not offering PayPal, it's with your imagination
I like Paypal. I like American Express. Both are accepted in MANY places. They just aren't accepted in ALL places. Does this really surprise you?
PayPal is particularly unfair to sellers, though. Except that doing business on the internet is dangerous due to all the hacking, I keep the number of credit card numbers I use online to two only. One is for use at PayPal and Amazon, the other is with my two insurance carriers and utilities companies. These cards have not been compromised at all. I avoid using my PP account whenever possible, probably because, as a seller, I was the victim of unscrupulous buyers years ago.
^^^ This right here. I also had an online commerce business for many years. I stopped accepting PayPal back in 2012. They are buyer friendly and seller headaches. If I still had the business running today I would still shun PayPal.
Truth be known, all manner of intermediary payment options are a headache to the seller. They do not offer their services for free. A businessman seeks the options that are most affordable to him. My business typically works from a 10%-12% margin. If I used PayPal, they would take more than 3% of that in transaction fees and I simply cannot afford that. I won't use them.
Those of you who have a business should have 1 computer for just banking and paying bills. Use that computer for finance business only. Do not go to any other sites including USA Today. Don't use it for Facebook or anything else. If You want to go on social media or anything else have a seperate computer and make sure your passwords and usernames are all different, especially between computers. This one thing will virtually guarantee that your financial accounts will never be hacked.
@Burton Strauss III So if an auction company has a coin I want up for bid that I would like to add to my collection and they do not accept Pay Pal I can imagine I have it in my collection. @geekpryde European auction companies for the most part do not accept Am Ex. If they do the fees are quite costly. The 3-5%fee the auction houses charge for using Pay Pal is a small price to pay to add a coin to your collection. @LA_Geezer Transacting thru Pay Pal makes a purchase easy for me. The protection they offer from fraud on part of the seller or loss thru the mail is second to none in my book. @masterswimmer The few European auction houses I've talked with mentioned that they rarely if ever have issues with Pay Pal. Pay pal protcts both buyer and seller in the transactions I've been involved with. @Randy Abercrombie All of the auction houses and dealers I've dealt with add that transaction fee to the buyers invoice. The buyer bears the brunt of the fee not the seller.
I absolutely recognized I was forgoing some business from people who wanted to transact using PayPal exclusively. That was fine with me. Those people were a fraction of the total transactions my storefront engaged.
I don't sell on Ebay so I can't comment on some of the complaints voiced, but I agree as a buyer PP is very convenient and as far as I can tell, as safe as any other form of online payment. The only online selling I've done is on watch forums, and it's quite normal to either fold PP fees into the sale price, or charge them in addition to the sale price. Either way, the buyer bears that burden. I think many sellers on the CT sales forum do the same. As a buyer, I don't mind paying for the convenience.
I also do a good portion of my buying from European auction houses. I have never had the option of using PayPal. I find it just as easy to call up the auction house and complete my transaction over the phone. I’ve also had my bank issue and disperse “official” checks to the auction companies if need be. Both of these options are almost always cheaper than the fees associated with a bank wire. To any extent, the fee burden has always been mine to deal with as the buyer. The 3-5% extra in negligible if you really want the coin(s)!
Don't really use Paypal myself. Within the European Union I can make a transfer (even instant payment these days) without having to use an extra service that requires an extra signup. Outside the EU (and here as well of course ) credit cards usually work fine. Christian
Yep, and that fee is pretty similar to the fee on any credit card, but is easier to push to the buyer since it's more visible (to the buyer). I do a ton of paypal business, and suspect I'd lose a lot of customers if I didn't support it. On the other hand, their new policy of not refunding the fees on a refund is going to shake things up a bit. We'll see how the customers react to that one...