Using PayPal for Sales

[Presto]

Hey everyone,

I just set up my website to accept sales on Dr. Pocket using PayPal. I'm curious if anyone else has tried this...

There are several cool things about PayPal.
1st. You get paid immediately, rather than waiting for a check.
2nd. It's coming from your website, so you can control all of the presentation up until the user goes to "buy".
3rd. It's so much cheaper to operate. (about 3% goes to PayPal rather than 20% to PocketGear or 30% to Handango)

Of course, there are downsides too.
1st. You must keep the registration keys available for the user on your website, unless you're really a slacker and warn them in advance that it won't be available.
2nd. Unless you list with PocketGear and Handango anyway, the software won't be in their search engines or hosted on their sites.

To offset the second negative, I do post with Handango and PocketGear, but to steer users toward using PayPal, I implement different costs based on the percentage taken by the hosting site.

For example, if I wanted to make $10 on a sale...
Using PayPal, I'd need to charge $10.61
Using PocketGear, I'd need to charge $12.50
Using Handango, I'd need to charge $14.29

That's quite a noticable difference, and I'd hope the smart buyer would be interested in using the PayPal option.

What do you guys think of this? I'd love to hear some feedback.

-John

You can see it in action at:
http://www.pocketadventures.com/purchase.asp

And yes, you can get Dr. Pocket for $2.70 during the Holiday Season promotion.

[Presto]

Just another comment...

If you think it's wrong to charge different amounts for different sites, just picture this.

Most commercial products are sold to retailers for the same price. The retailers mark up the prices based on how much profit they want to make on it.

Here, I'm the developer of a commercial product.
Handango wants to make 30% profit on my product.
PocketGear wants to make 20% profit on my product.
PayPal is content to take 3% for handling the transaction.

By implementing the different price schemes, I'm making the same amount of money on each sale, just like nearly every other commercial product developer in the world.

The informed buyer, as always, should be seeking the best price for the product. If they choose to buy from my website using the PayPal option, it's a win for them and a win for me.

I'm actually surprised I haven't heard more comments on this before. Maybe this will get people thinking...

Have a wonderful day,

-John

[Dan East]

I've used PayPal since day one with DEXplor, and have processed a large number of sales in that way. PayPal ends up costing me 5% per sale - that's because I want the ability to whip out my PayPal Visa and have access to my sales revenue with convenience. Now tell me if that doesn't beat Handango and PocketGear, where their fee is 6 times as large, and you might or might not even get a check once a month.

Dan East

[Markdh]

[Maf54]

I love using paypal `cause it pulls right outa my bank account.

[Kak]

[goodbye]

And for buying, I'd rather buy through PayPal then Handango or one of those sites too. I use PayPal through ebay all the time so I just got to do a few clicks, but with Handango I'd have to type all my info.

[Andy]

[Presto]

[sponge]

[egarayblas]

[fast_rx]

[Presto]