Paypal costs increasing. Any suggestions for an alternative payment provider?

[carl888]

Most of my sales are to overseas. I see that the Paypal commission is now 3.4% + 30 cents per transaction.  Up from 2.4% because overseas sales are termed a "Cross border transaction."  Can anyone recommend a payment portal that doesn't charge such expensive fees?  I've recently come back to ebay after a hiatus but with the revised comission structure from Paypal itself, the total commission is over 11%.... it's left me wanting.... 

I don't have an issue with eBay and Paypal making money, but when they charge this commission on the freight component as well as any GST costs, then avoiding both income tax and GST in Australia themselves because they are not effectively operating locally I think there is a case to answer.  Just a thought, and thanks for any suggestions.

[lyndal1838]

You have to offer a safe payment method....you have a choice of Merchant Credit Facility which I presume you don't have, or Paymate which is more expensive than paypal, or paypal.

[digital*ghost]

Paymate fees were recently updated, they charge a 2.475% comission plus a 55c flat fee per transaction, but you actually pay a monthy subscription to use it and it has included value, for example the lowest sub rate is $16.50 per month and you don't get charged any more fees unless your transactions go over $500 (that is, the amount of money your account processes - if you had one $500 transaction, the fee would be $12.93, but if you had 100 $5.00 transactions, the fees would total nearly $67.50, so it can be good value if you have the sales volume and value to take advantage). 

International transactions are an additional 2.75% (so 5.225% in total), but it still might work out to be better value depending on your number of transactions (the fees go down and the monthly included value goes up the higher monthly sub you pay - more info here: http://www.paymate.com/cms/index.php/sellers/why-sell-with-paymate/fees-a-charges/australian-seller-...

Of course, you also have to take into account the number of buyers willing to use it.

[phorum_junkie*]

Paymate was first introduced in Australia in the hope they could cash in on the anti Paypal movement. However it did not appeal to buyers and sellers sonn came to realise it was not as good as it sounded. They were then taken over by an American company but still remain fairly unknown as there are many 3rd party services available overseas that do not have an Australian site.

There are also often emails here from buyers and sellers because the buyer only saw what they expected to see, not what was really there, and didn't realise they couldn't use Paypal.

I honestly don't think you would have much joy offering Paymate, especially overseas. You also have to take into account that it doesn't matter how much proof of delivery you have there is no protection against a bank chargeback.

Believe me I am not anti Paymate and have had an account since the first opened up shop. I also used to offer it, as well as Paypal, when I only sold second hand clothes for fairly low prices but only one person in all that time used it so I stopped bothering.