If you’re accepting payments solely through PayPal, you could be doing yourself a disservice, whether it’s from questionable credibility to lost sales.

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There does come a point in the process of every online business where you must ask yourself, “Is it time for me to switch from PayPal to a merchant account?”

To see five major indicators that you should be accepting credit cards directly on your site, watch today’s video.

Happy selling!
-Matt Winn, Volusion

 

Here’s the transcript if you’d like to read along:

Hi, everybody! My name’s Matt, and I’m the Social Media Manager here at Volusion. Welcome to Two Minute Tuesdays, where we give you two minutes of ecommerce advice to bolster your online success.

A very common question we encounter, especially from new online business owners, is: When should I switch from accepting payment through PayPal to accepting credit cards directly on my site through a merchant account?

That’s a great question, so pay close attention, because I’ve got five signs that it’s time for you to make the switch.

First, and often most obvious, there will be a point where PayPal is no longer cost effective. Although it depends on the rate that you’re looking at for your new merchant account and your current PayPal rate, there will be a plateau that you hit with your sales revenue that makes a merchant account much more affordable than using PayPal.

Secondly, if you’re seeing an increased rate of abandoned carts, PayPal could be partially to blame. With some versions of PayPal, when customers are checking out from your site, they’re redirected to PayPal’s site to log in, create an account, the whole nine yards. Essentially, this creates an obstacle for people that just want to buy in a hurry, and that could be leading your customers to abandon their carts and search for an easier purchase elsewhere.

Third on our list, if you need to access funds more quickly, a merchant account might better suit your purposes. Keep in mind that PayPal will hold onto your funds in your PayPal account for five to seven days before moving them to your personal or business bank account. That means if you frequently have new inventory to buy or need to pay for big investments in a pinch, you might want to take a look at switching from PayPal so you’ll have more direct access to your money.

Number four, and you may not have thought of this one before, but if you’re selling more to business owners than the average consumer, it’s probably time to accept payment directly on your site. In B2B transactions, it’s quite rare for a corporation to actually purchase something through PayPal. Often they want to use a more professional method, like accepting payment directly on your site.

And last, but definitely not least, if you’re looking to grow your brand, you might want to think about accepting payments directly on your site. Why? To be frank, a lot of people will see a site that only accepts PayPal and perceive it as being fairly amateur. On the other hand, if you’re accepting payment on your site directly, it gives your business an air of confidence and credibility, and that’s an especially powerful thing for a growing brand.

Keep these five signs in mind when you’re considering whether or not you should make the PayPal-to-merchant-account migration. If you have any questions, leave me a comment in the box below and I’ll get right back to you.

From me to you, happy selling!