Alternative to Paypal "Buy buttons" for European-based companies?

31 points by Nicolas___ 14 years ago | 30 comments

Paypal is the clear leader in the "Buy button" field...it's easy, quick, and it just works. And also, you can use it if your company is based in Europe (mine is).

But the company's policies and reputation makes me wonder if I really want to work with them as a partner. Paypal seems to have a history of freezing accounts without much of a reason. I don't want to face this situation, no matter how small or big my business account balance happens to be.

Dear HN fellows, do you know/use/run a service that provides "Buy buttons", that can be used by non-US companies ? Thanks in advance.

ig1 14 years ago |

I did a pretty thorough review of the players in this market, and although there are alternatives they're all worse than Paypal.

The chances of Paypal suspending your account depends a lot of what you're doing with it, if you're operating in the b2b space or if you're selling a product then you shouldn't have any problem.

Most of the companies that have had accounts suspended have tended to be doing non-standard things (asking for donations, acting as payment middle-men, etc.), if you're going to be doing something weird get Paypal to ok it upfront and put a note on your account.

You can also sweep money from Paypal to your bank on a daily basis to minimize the impact.

My second choice after Paypal would be 2co, although 2co have some pretty bizarre requirements on the UI of your purchase screen, which in practice a lot of vendors just ignore. But it made me hesitant about using them.

Depending on the nature of your customer base Amazon or Google payments might work for you as well (but these both require your customers to have an account with the respective provider).

econgeeker 14 years ago | |

I've used amazon payments, google checkout, and paypal.

Paypal ======

Note, I refuse to use the euphemism "freeze your account" because that is not what paypal does. Paypal steals people's money.

PayPal will steal your money for all kinds of reasons, including the people who buy from you. You don't even have to be doing anything "weird" (unless selling people software online is weird.) When paypal stole our money, one of their demands to get it back was that we provide an invoice from the manufacturer of our software proving we had enough units to fill customer demand. This invoice had to be paper based, and we needed to scan it. It needed to be signed in blue ink by someone at the manufacturer. I kid you not, those were paypals demands.

We're selling software that we created, we're the manufacturer, and it is downloaded so, it is "created" the moment someone buys it. There is no risk that we'll run out of inventory. We'd been doing good sales, we had very happy customers, and no complaints.

Our crime? One of our customers had paid someone else via paypal, and that other person turned out to be a scammer. Paypal, when they went after that scammer, looked at everyone who paid him, and then everyone else those people had paid and then stole the money in those accounts as well. This was clearly an automated process and apparently happened instantaneously. It was clear from trying to talk to the "support" at paypal. by the way- attempting to work with paypal to resolve these things means dealing with people about as bright as the local DMV and MUCH less interested in helping you. As far as they are concerned, because their software decided so, you're a scammer trying to rip them off. They have no interest in actually telling you anything about what's going on. They just make arbitrary demands in the hope that eventually you'll give up.

Paypal was completely irrational, and dishonest. They lied to us many times. We did things they demanded and they just ignored it and then made more demands, or demanded the same things again.

As far as I'm concerned, Paypal boosts earnings by stealing their customers money. The only thing unusual about our account at that point, compared to previous periods, was we had left more money in it, since we'd not been withdrawing it to our bank account for a couple months. So there was a nice sum of cash for them to steal.

Amazon Payments ===============

We used Amazon at a different point in time. One day, Amazon just deleted our account, completely! Again an automated fraud thing, but they recognized the error. They mostly made things right. There ware a couple kindle books that had been purchased that they promised us a coupon to let us buy again and never delivered, but that's not a problem. Amazon's customer support was really disorganized and vague in their communication- they would often give us instructions that started with "Log into your account" when the account itself had been deleted. By trial and error we were able to figure out what needed to be done to get mostly everything back to where it needed to be. So, amazon, not really well organized, but not out to steal your money.

Google Checkout ===============

Used them for quite awhile. No real problems. No hiccups.. well, I think there was a problem with one order but we were able to resolve it, between us and the customer. Fortunately didn't ever have to deal with google "support" (since in my experience with other google products there isn't likely to be much.) Google's policies were much better than paypal, and they ran a tight ship that ran very well.

We looked at 2CO as well, and in our research they seemed to be a good place. If I needed to do this again, that would be my first choice, though I'd keep google checkout as a possibility, the real issue being more which one looked like a merchant account and which one looked like a branded pay button to our customers.

saurik 14 years ago | | |

I was once temporarily limited (with threat of suspension) by PayPal, and was asked to provide documentation from Apple that I was legally authorized to act as a reseller for their products. However, as I do not sell Apple products, but instead sell products that are used with Apple products, I obviously do not need such paperwork.

In my case, I called them, had a kind conversation with a random customer support representative (as, at the time, I did not have a specified account manager), and it was cleared up: took about an hour, and I've had very little trouble ever since (I was once sent through "account underwriting", but that was not a serious undertaking).

I am very curious, therefore, what "went down" during your phone call with PayPal that made them start treating you so poorly: that has never been the experience I've had working with them. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say I /like/ PayPal, and go out of my way to use them for ludicrous things like paying contractors and employees.

ig1 14 years ago | | |

I'm not sure I fully understand your story, but Paypal's normal policy for suspended accounts is that they'll hold the money for 180 days before releasing it to you (this should be in your suspension email).

antihero 14 years ago | | |

Why didn't you withdraw the money from your Paypal account hourly/daily? That's what I'd have done :S

Nicolas___ 14 years ago | | |

Your Paypal story is exactly what makes me want to partner with someone else.

Amazon and Paypal solutions sound great but they are both limited to US and UK :(

colin8chSE 14 years ago | |

PayPal, Amazon and Google can be great solutions, one confusing thing to keep in mind is that YOUR customers are actually THEIR customers, all the customer data belongs to them, not you. If you ever want to switch providers or you grow into needing your own merchant account, those customers are "locked in".

I'm the Founder at Simplified Ecommerce, and our goal is to help solve this unfair situation for startups and Entrepreneurs.

http://SimplifiedEcommerce.com/aboutus

hartcw 14 years ago |

I run a UK based company, and use three different 'Buy buttons' on my website - that is: 1. Paypal 2. Google Checkout 3. Fast Spring

I've not had any problems with any of them. Paypal and Google Checkout are comparable in price, I think its about 4% cut.

FastSpring is a bit more, about 8% I think, but it has the benefit of handling tax complications - ie. it checks where the seller is, and charges VAT accordingly. Plus it handles currency conversion so the buyer can pay in their local currency.

colin8chSE 14 years ago |

For digital goods and subscriptions try Simplified Ecommerce. I'm the founder, here's the basics:

http://SimplifiedEcommerce.com/aboutus

Integrations as easy as PayPal "BuyNow" links, beautiful customizable payment pages, affiliate marketing like ClickBank and recurring subscription billing without any programming or complicated API's.

International companies are welcome and receive weekly settlements via Bank Wire (US companies settle with ACH/ direct debit to their bank account).

You can get started right away without going through the long, complicated pain of applying and qualifying for a merchant account. Then as your business grows if you get a merchant account, the transition is seamless, as easy as submitting your new merchant account credentials. All your integrations, products, subscription plans, affiliate relationships, custom payment pages, data, reporting... stay intact.

and YOUR customers' data is YOURS, securely stored in our PCI level 1 compliant tokenized vault and is fully portable.

I'd love to hear your questions and feedback!

Colin@SimplifiedEcommerce.com

Flam 14 years ago | |

For the love of God, can your site give pricing info when I click on the pricing section??? Thank you

colin8chSE 14 years ago | | |

We're in Beta and working with each new customer closely, getting their feedback and developing what we think is going to be fair pricing when we officially launch.

If you don't have a merchant account, our pricing will be around 7%, competitive with Clickbank, Plimus, Fastspring, etc.

If you already have your own merchant account, our pricing will start at about $70/month and $0.25.txn, competitive with Recurly, Chargify, etc. We're a payments gateway too, so you avoid those additional fees.

yread 14 years ago |

I hope that one will emerge similarly to how Thawte was created to avoid cryptography export restrictions. And the founder could get very rich too and spend the money on something as cool as Ubuntu, too.

petercooper 14 years ago |

Sort of. http://www.clickbank.com/ works fine for European vendors (certainly UK, at least) and they have a good affiliate system built-in. The key downside is you must very specifically define your 'products' through them - you can't just set up arbitrary calls to take arbitrary amounts of money, as you can with your PayPal buttons.

fastspring 14 years ago |

FastSpring is all-inclusive and works with companies all over the world. Order pages are translated into 18 languages, end customers can pay using foreign currencies, VAT is properly collected when required, etc. For SaaS services, try SaaSy.com

grimen 14 years ago |

Keep you eyes open on Merchii.com - launching the beta soon. Enables secure e-commerce on any website in a few minutes. The pitch on the site now is not the entire picture.

marquis 14 years ago |

The horror-stories of Paypal are because of the massive market that this company has. Considering the sheer number of businesses and individuals using this, it's natural that offences get publicised. Personally I have no problem using Paypal at all, and as ig1 notes I'd only expect issues if you fit into a pattern of suspicious activity (sudden large transactions etc).

citricsquid 14 years ago |

There's a reason people still use Paypal even after all the horror stories: there is no alternative.

slowpoke 14 years ago | |

And alternatives cannot gain ground because everybody uses paypal. It's a vicious circle. And one of my favorite examples for why monopolies are bad.

pavlov 14 years ago | | |

I don't see where the monopoly is. Customers are free to switch to a better payment processor by just changing a few links on their website.

If someone offered European customers better service than Paypal at roughly the same price, I'm sure it would be popular. But it turns out that handling transactions in 30+ countries is pretty complicated and fraught with bureaucratic problems, which is why Paypal remains the only option.

ig1 14 years ago | |

There are alternatives like nochex, worldpay, etc. but none of them have a better track record than Paypal.

antihero 14 years ago | |

Google Checkout? Amazon payment?

Nicolas___ 14 years ago | | |

These are both great solutions, but there are strong geographical limitations for both of them (US or UK only).

roberts_vc 14 years ago |

What about http://moneybookers.com ?

matthall28 14 years ago |

I highly recommend AlertPay.com

It's PayPal minus the pain

addandsubtract 14 years ago | |

I was just skimming through their docs and came accross this:

>One major drawback with Advanced Integration is that anyone can see the HTML code for your "Buy Now" buttons, which means that a third-party can tamper with the item variables and make fraudulent payments if they so choose. [1]

Um, no... wtf?

[1] https://dev.alertpay.com/en/integration-tools/html-integrati...

vampirechicken 14 years ago |

www.2checkout.com

hm2k 14 years ago |

You could give coinb.in a go if you wanted to accept via bitcoins rather than USD or EUR.

http://coinb.in/