Limitations of PayPal Website Payments Standard

A few reasons why the upgrade from PayPal Website Payments Standard to the PayPal Website Payments Pro option is indeed worth it.

If you have already decided that you want to accept payments on your website using PayPal but are unsure which option to use, then there are a few reasons why you should consider spending a little extra and using Pro.

Consistency

The most obvious reason is the fact that accepting payments using Pro keeps your customers on your website throughout the complete transaction. This ensures that you can maintain customer confidence in your website, by providing a consistent experience throughout the checkout process. This option also appears more professional and keeps your company branding intact.

PayPal standard offers you basic options to customise the payment pages on the PayPal website but these are pretty limited and can't really compare to the option of using your own website design.

Post payment processing

Another limitation of PayPal standard is what happens once a payment has been completed on the PayPal website. It is advertised that customers are automatically redirected back to your website once they have made a payment.

In theory this is great as it means if you have any subsequent order processing scripts, such as automatic email notifications to your customers or perhaps order management in your CMS / admin system, then you can collect the order details and confirmation of payment from PayPal.

However, in reality customers are only auto-redirected if they choose to pay using a PayPal account. If they decide to pay using a credit / debit card then instead of being redirected to your site they are taken to a different PayPal page asking them to join PayPal. There is a small text link that takes you back to your website, that you can customise, but this is small and easy to miss. Therefore many of your customers will end the order process at this stage and will not return to your website and activate the subsequent order processing functions.

This is one key factor where the Pro option again is invaluable, especially if post order customer interaction is important to your business model. PayPal state that this "hidden" sign-up page is because only customers with a PayPal account are protected for fraud and problems with their payment.

More reasons to choose Pro

In addition to the features provided by the standard option, with Pro you also have access to their virtual terminal. This allows you to accept and process card payments by phone, fax and mail so could potentially be an important channel of income alongside your website.

While the pro option requires you to sign-up for a merchant account (with a monthly fee of 20 pounds) and initial development costs of your website will be higher due to increase in programming, I would definitely recommend it if you want a truly professional e-commerce website.

For more information on the various PayPal options please visit their Payment Services Comparison Guide.