Google Checkout or PayPal?

[Areeda]

I'm thinking about setting up a flight instructor website.

Very simple, students and flight instructors register. After a lesson the instructor makes an entry with flight, ground time and a description of what was covered, then the student account gets charged.

Students can then log in and see the account balance and pay online with a credit card the instructor never sees.

Which service would you use for the project? Both charge the same 2.9% + $0.30 (if monthly billing is less than $3,000).

Joe

 

[jason]

Paypal, but simply because of name recognition and adoption rate. I think that more people will already have an account set up with PayPal and will have experience using it.

Cool idea, btw.

 

[Areeda]

Good point Jason. Thanks.

Several students have suggested it to me so I can't take credit for the idea.

Joe

 

[ScottM]

I vote for paypal first for the reasons that Jason stated. If you get a lot of customer calls for something else then look at adding it as an option.

 

[colohan]

Which service would you use for the project? Both charge the same 2.9% + $0.30 (if monthly billing is less than $3,000).

Is there a disadvantage to offering both and seeing which one folks use? Does either charge a monthly fee or the like? Or would it be confusing to users to offer multiple options?

Chris

(Disclaimer of bias: I work for Google, although not on anything related to the Checkout stuff. Personally I find that Checkout is easier to use than Paypal, but that is probably 'cause I use my gmail account for everything I do...)

 

[Areeda]

Is there a disadvantage to offering both and seeing which one folks use? Does either charge a monthly fee or the like? Or would it be confusing to users to offer multiple options?

Chris,

I probably will implement both sooner or later since there is no monthly fee.

The disadvantage is the extra code or more specifically the amount of documentation I have to read to implement what seems like a very reasonable amount of extra code.

Joe

 

[alaskaflyer]

I would research the dispute and chargeback policies of both to determine if one is more palatable than the other.

 

[MikePapa]

Why not have both?

 

[Areeda]

I would research the dispute and chargeback policies of both to determine if one is more palatable than the other.

Actually, I've never had a student who disputed a charge. What I'm looking for is way to make it easier for the kids who don't have a clue what a check is or what is means to pay cash for something.

Why not have both?

I'm not really adverse to having both, it's just twice the work (as far as I can tell). I am really wondering if there is any real difference between the two. As far as I can tell the answer is NO. Both are part of the "Evil Empire".

Joe

 

[alaskaflyer]

http://www.paypalwarning.com/

 

[Areeda]

http://www.paypalwarning.com/

That's an interesting site.

I have to say that I personally don't use PayPal to buy things. Although I do use credit card processed through their sites.

The big thing is that as a customer I feel merchants need to be held to high standard. What I didn't see on that site is a defense of the sellers that had problems.

I personally want to see that credit sales are more interested in the buyer than the seller. Of course I want the seller treated fairly but F-bomb the scammer.

Joe

 

[CJones]

I have zero experience with Google checkout, but I have used PayPal, so I'll speak to it:

I personally implemented PayPal on a site for work last summer. Very easy to work with - they have a 'sandbox' environment that you can use to test your scripts with pretty easily. PayPal also provides the ability of a user to make a payment without having to create a PayPal account. I wish I could get our other sites moved to PayPal, but they're fighting me on it so far because the university doesn't charge any fees to process payments.

Google Checkout may provide the same abilities that I mentioned above, but I don't have any experience with it to say yay or nay.

 

[sba55]

Anything but PayPal. It's an evil company. Even worse, they're not a bank, which means that they aren't covered by banking regulations. I wouldn't give my money to a random third party.

It's easy enough to use a payment gateway, such as authorize.net...

-Felix

 

[gprellwitz]

Anything but PayPal. It's an evil company. Even worse, they're not a bank, which means that they aren't covered by banking regulations. I wouldn't give my money to a random third party.

It's easy enough to use a payment gateway, such as authorize.net...

-Felix

We wound up using PayPal for a credit card processing gateway after they bought Payflow Pro from Paymentech, one of the major credit card processing companies now owned by Chase.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I've only used PayPal for plane rental in Lincoln. I'll generally pay by check now since I noted a surcharge for using PayPal for my last rental.

 

[jason]

I've only used PayPal for plane rental in Lincoln. I'll generally pay by check now since I noted a surcharge for using PayPal for my last rental.

I don't think that PayPal charges a surcharge to the buyer. The seller probably charged you a surcharge to cover his costs. Clay may be able to speak to it better than I, but I'd bet it was him passing along the PayPal costs.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I don't think that PayPal charges a surcharge to the buyer. The seller probably charged you a surcharge to cover his costs. Clay may be able to speak to it better than I, but I'd bet it was him passing along the PayPal costs.

It was the seller...I didn't want to go into too much detail here.