Does anyone just use PayPal for their website GC's?

[Pompal 09.]

I am looking at my options right now. I really don't want to have to give another 5% to Spaboom or one of the other companies just yet if I don't have to. I really don't mind having to mail out a GC.

 

[HannahSaysHii<3]

Yes, I just use a PayPal shopping cart on my website, very easy to setup. I say they can have their gift certificate emailed to them or posted within one business day, though if they want something faster, they can call and check if I can email it quicker (fastest gift certificate turn around has been less than 5 min, they called when I was on the computer.....)

I'd say about 60% of people just want it emailed to them to print out, 25% want it snail mailed to them or the person they are giving it to (popular with the purchasers overseas), 5% want it emailed directly to the person getting the certificate, and 10% want to call by and pick it up (that's usually my regular massage clients, at least 90% of my gift certificate sales are to people that I've never seen)

 

[Jillian]

i use Paypal for GC's and credit card payments. i haven't had any problems with it so far. there is a section where you can create an invoice. i love that feature. i save GC's and regular session invoices as templates. it only takes a second to send one out.

 

[Tink42]

just my 2 cents - spaboom is so easy and you really never have to think about it. clients go there, print up their cert. and that's it. you run their credit card when you feel like it or get around to it. it's so worth the 5%. no trips to the post office, no emails to anyone, no remembering to send something out....it's so great!

 

[D.MackinAllDay[:]

I wouldn't mind giving SpaBoom the 5% if they could also process the credit card. Their concept is good, but in my opinion, only 1/2 of the solution. I may get flamed for these comments, but think others should be aware that if you don't already use PayPal or their other payment partner option.. I think it is Authorize.net... you can't even use them without incurring more expense in a new service to even get paid.

I looked into incorporating them into my website this year for Christmas, but found the PayPal fee of $20 a month on top of the 5% to SpaBoom too prohibiting at this point. I already pay ProPay to process credit cards, and thought that a company of their size would have the ability to utilize any processing service, but according to them, I am wrong. What a disappointment!! I hope they do begin to partner up with other CC services.

 

[1414b]

I am only looking for a way to process credit cards so people can purchase the GC's, easily without having to open up an account for processing cc's on my own. I really do not want to use any of the other sevices just so that I can have a nice GC printed out, when that will cost me way more than poseforum.xxxe and the GC's that I have already purchased.

 

[Krimson]

I looked into incorporating them into my website this year for Christmas, but found the PayPal fee of $20 a month on top of the 5% to SpaBoom too prohibiting at this point.

I'm not paying $20 per month for PayPal (well I am in busy months - I think my roughly 2.5% transaction fee will be over way $20 this month but some months I sell no gift certificates, so I'm still ahead) I'm just using the PayPal Website Standard option. PayPal Website Pro has the $20 per month fee, but you don't need that to use PayPal on your website. Do you have to have the Pro version with SpaBoom???

I'd not checked the PayPal website for a while - they've now got Virtual Terminal - accept credit cards via phone/fax/mail order THAT - is $20 per month. Since most people find out I sell gift certificates through my website, since they're already online they pay online, I hardly ever get people requesting to pay over the phone, it wouldn't be worth it to me, but someone else out there, it might be worth considering.

 

[farraj]

Ok, that worked... it was just a bit annoying to get the button to hyperlink properly...

Yes, it prints out GC's fine, with a variety.

The only thing I realized that I probably should change it from them entering the amount to a fixed amount, but then I end up having a million buttons... but I can change it around later. As long as I have it up I am better off, and half the battle is won! It wasn't hard once I realized how to do it!

 

[Huckleberry Sin]

oooh, I don't use the PayPal gift certificate option, I just use a PayPal shopping cart, but that's very fast.

I can see a few problems with the gift certificate option -
- It looks like the person the gift certificate is given to needs a PayPal account.
- It looks like the money only goes into your payPal account when the certificate is redeemed "You pay only the standard payment receiving fee at the time of redemption, and nothing more"
- it looks like when it is redeemed you still need to have a shopping cart option on your website set up for them to make a purchase with it.


If you just have the git certificates as shopping cart items, you do need to send them the certificates yourself, and you have to make sure they pay using the shopping cart AND send you an email with the details from/to/what/message but the money goes into your PayPal account when they purchase the gift certificate, not when it is redeemed and the person the certificate is given to doesn't need a PayPal account, they don't need to know how it was paid for.

 

[wendy c]

oh well, I guess I will figure it out in time...

From what I read, and see, I don't think I need the shopping cart. You click on the button and it instantly brings you to the page for the GC's...

 

[nickjonas4life]

yes, you're right you don't need a shopping cart to sell PayPal gift certificates - you need a shopping cart to redeem PayPal certificates, and you only get the money when they are redeemed, they do hand over unredeemed gift certificate money 18 moths after the purchase, so you don't totally miss out, but I'd hate to be waiting until June 2008 to get my Dec 2006 gift certificate money, maybe you prefer to have the money when the certificate is redeemed (some people do )

Honestly, a PayPal shopping cart is easy to set up, though you probably don't feel like it after doing all the PayPal gift certificate setup

 

[benchrisdarren]

Is that Paypals way of keeping you honest?? Geesh!! Me thinks Paypal is taking advaneforum.xxxe of the low redemption rate of gift certificates and profiting on the interest. I would love to know how many gift certificates they have been paid for and not paid out yet. Paypal must be rolling in gift certificate dough!

Is is possible to mark the certificate redeemed on the paypal account so you are paid right away but then keep track of them separetly at your office? This might not be possible if the buyer can check on the certificate tho to see when it was redeemed.

 

[perfection]

PayPal does try to keep your money as long as possible, it's how they make money. Holding onto the gift certificate money until they are redeemed is a bit much though - you have no control when you get the moeny out of PayPal and into your own bank account, at least with all the little PayPal balances in everyone's account, being left there to make other purchases or not being transferred because of the fees on a small transfer, the PayPal account holder has control on how long PayPal holds the money, unredeemed certificates, PayPal is the one that controls when the money is handed over. I'm sure the little amounts of money in the average eBay PayPal users account is much much MUCH larger than all the PayPal gift certificate money, PayPal is just rolling in money

Certificates are redeemed by the recipient making a purchase on your website, they can't just make an appointment and hand over the PayPal gift certificate to the therapist, it must be done using either a PayPal request for funds, shopping cart or Buy It Now button.

 

[PossiblyNotMaybe]

So then with the shopping cart you get your money deposited right away? or do you have to wait?

 

[Miss. Weasley]

With a shopping cart the money goes into your PayPal account straight away, and you can then transfer it to your bank account when you want - for US accounts there is no fee for the transfer. You need a Premier Account (no monthly fee), and there is a PayPal tranaction fee for payments made into your PayPal account (1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD), eg on a $100 gift certificate you'd pay $3.30 tranaction fee and that's all. The 1.9% to 2.9% is a sliding scale based on your monthly transactions, unless you're doing over $3000 per month it will be 2.9% + 30c. There are no credit card merchant fees etc, that is all covered in the one transaction fee.

 

[Pompal 09.]

Ok, this is an HTML issue... and since I have a Mac, and run my website on iWeb, HTML is out of the question. So my only choice is to either have it as GC's, which I finally found where you said that they will give you the $$$ after reimbursement... or have it as a Buy Now button. So I can't have a View Cart, or Add to Cart... Hopfully the Buy Now will be as affective. Although it only allows one transaction at a time, which is a downfall...

 

[Pompal 09.]

The only difference between the buy it now buttons and a shopping cart is a shopping cart opens the PayPal page in a new page, that may be more an iWeb issue with the use of frames than HTML (because you're using HTML for everything already without it being an issue)

You've got a few different Buy it now buttons, so it should give enough options for a start.


I would make the comment on your home page about gift certificates link to your priices page - I spent a while figuring out where to look for gift certificates
On the prices page, you tell them to email about the gift certificate and give your email address without the .com - not sure if that was intentional to stop spam, but some person will not add the .com and their email won't get to you.

 

[Hope<3]

How I got around the HTML was that the GC's and the Buy it Now buttons had an e-mail link that was able to be hyperlinked on the iWeb, but they didn't provide that info for anything for the "cart" feature.

Yes, I accidentally left off my e-mail, I will go fix it again... I have taken too many hours looking at this thing... and got distracted. I will go back and fix it. Thanks for letting me know about it.

 

[Eiginh]

I wouldn't mind giving SpaBoom the 5% if they could also process the credit card. Their concept is good, but in my opinion, only 1/2 of the solution. I may get flamed for these comments, but think others should be aware that if you don't already use PayPal or their other payment partner option.. I think it is Authorize.net... you can't even use them without incurring more expense in a new service to even get paid.

I looked into incorporating them into my website this year for Christmas, but found the PayPal fee of $20 a month on top of the 5% to SpaBoom too prohibiting at this point. I already pay ProPay to process credit cards, and thought that a company of their size would have the ability to utilize any processing service, but according to them, I am wrong. What a disappointment!! I hope they do begin to partner up with other CC services.

Hi, folks! Larry from SpaBoom here!

I just wanted to clarify a few points about this, as well as explain our rationale ... because we're all about changing things if we have something wrong or can do better.

First, a quick overview of the payment options with SpaBoom, then I'll follow with our rationale:

• Manually. Go to SpaBoom to get the CC information for every sale, then manually run the CC information like you might do a phone order. Yes, you do incure the discount fees your bank charges, and no, we cannot provide the card code (i.e. CVV2, etc) number, because the card companies prevent anyone from storing the card code in a database.

• PayPal Web Payments Pro. We can integrate with this $20/month PayPal account, and send your CC transactions to PayPal for payment to you. This is a merchant account, so you're paying PayPal's discount points.

• Authorize.net. We can integrate with just about any merchant account that is "Authorize.net Compatible." Like PayPal, there are additional fees with this from your bank.

We are considering a few more payment options, including the PayPal shopping cart (i.e. PayPal Web Payments Standard) and Google Checkout. But, even with these, you still have discount fees to contend with.

So, let me explain our rationale for why we have our customers process the CC's themselves, versus our processing the CC's. I would really love feedback here, if you disagree with my rationale.

• It's your money. If SpaBoom processes the CC's, the customer is establishing a relationship with SpaBoom. SpaBoom's name is on the customer's CC statement. If SpaBoom processes the CC, when do we send you the money? Upon redemption or upon sale? If redemption, you're missing the unredeemed cash. If sale, there are some big issues with this (see next two points below).

• CC companys do not allow for third-party transactions. That is, the CC companies would have a fit, if SpaBoom sold a GC on behalf another party (i.e. The GC didn't have the SpaBoom logo on it). We've looked and looked for a Merchant Account provider that would allow us to do this, but so far have failed to find anyone. Suggestions here would be MUCH appreciated!

• Risk avoidance for SpaBoom. If SpaBoom processes the CC for our customers, we're on the hook for chargebacks (i.e. contingent liability). What happens if a customer of SpaBoom's goes out of business? How do we get the money for sold GC's back, to cover for potential chargebacks? What this ultimately means, is SpaBoom would be in the unenviable position of having to check credit, as welll as monitor the viability and stability of our customers. This seems way too intrusive in my opinion.

• Sales maximization. The numbers speak for themselves. Customers trust and want to do business with YOU. They want your logo on the GC. They get scared and confused, when your website sends them to somewhere else to make a purchase. This is why SpaBoom mimics the look-and-feel of your website (patent pending), and why your "shopping cart" looks just like your website, regardless of how CC's are processed in the backend.

Sorry for the long post, but I've received enough questions about this, that I thought it was necessary to outline our thinking ... which can always be changed because in the end ... SpaBoom is only going to be successful if YOU are happy with our service!

Have a GREAT holiday season, and to the existing SpaBoom customers: We'll be here through the holidays to make sure things are running smoothly! If you haven't read our blog lately, please do so (www.spaboomblog.com). There are some great ideas on how to maximize your last-minute holiday sales!

Sincerely, Larry.

 

[Pompal 09.]

Thank you for the explanation, Larry! That does make sense to me. I've found my gift certificate sales have improved so much that it is very much worth the fees, including the Paypal $20 monthly fee. Your professionalism makes it easy to trust SpaBoom, and having my "shopping cart" look just like my website without my having to build it is priceless!