Downside of Using Paypal Express for Business

Recently I finished a Paypal Website Payments Standard Integration with IPN (Instant Payments Notification) — something which was poorly implemented by the version two developer. Hopefully redeemed myself with that at least. I am highly interested on e-commerce-type projects. Since 2007 I did a few small e-commerce projects and based on experience, I could say that Paypal is a more sensible option than other payment gateways like Protx.

Paypal offers both offsite payments solutions like Paypal Website Payments Standard and direct payments solutions like Paypal Express Checkout. The issue I saw with Paypal Express Checkout recently was that users had to be verified Paypal users before they can purchase an item. I was about to purchase ebooks from Peepcode but apparently they only use Paypal Express Checkout and did not accept credit cards. I logged in to paypal and entered my credit card information. Was charged about $1.90 but got a message saying I have to wait for my card statement before I can confirm my card. It takes about one month before I can get my card statement. Frustrating.

If I ever had a product to sell online, I would use Website Payments Standard although it is an offsite payment solution, the customer has an option to choose whether to enter credit card details or login to Paypal.

I think on that day I was not able to purchase a very important resource I learned that you should give your users a choice.