I’m trying to decide between using 2Checkout or Paypal for our gateway. I’ve heard some good things about 2Checkout and they seem to be pretty solid. Their customer service was super fast in answering my questions. But I noticed that 2Checkout’s fee structure is quite a bit higher than Paypal’s.
So, I was wondering if any forum members here are using 2Checkout and why you chose 2Checkout over Paypal.
Thanks!
Ron
I can’t comment on 2Checkout as I have never used them, but I have used Paypal. The nicest thing about Paypal is the fact that most people already have a paypal account. When deciding what payment system to use make sure that whatever you decide to go with makes it super easy for your customers to use. This will lower the chance of abandonment.
Cheers!
Thanks Verscienta, but I’d like to hear from people who are using 2Checkout and why they chose 2CO over Paypal.
FYI … 2Checkout supports Paypal. Customers can pay with their Paypal account via the 2Checkout gateway.
Paypal gets my vote.
The checkout process of 2checkout is so convoluted. When going through that checkout as a customer, it seems like there are so many screens to go through.
Actually that’s not true. In fact, 2Checkout has a 1-page checkout which is pretty straightforward.
It doesn’t really help if you’re posting but not answering my question. I’d like to hear from those who have chosen 2CO over Paypal.
We use both for selling our 360 product views and services along with Google Checkout. Reason for keeping 2CO is that PayPal every so often doesn’t let folks to pay by a credit card. There are many reasons (here’s a few summarized in our blog post). Google Checkout sometimes rejects transactions made from oversees. This was getting pretty bad at some point and so had to get onto 2CO when customers couldn’t pay and/or refused to open paypal accounts. 2CO has a very solid payment verification system it seems, but their fees are brutal…
Hey M_wb360.
Thanks for your feedback. I read your blog post regarding Paypal rejecting credit cards. Very interesting. I’ve also heard of Paypal closing accounts on a whim with no real reason. I suppose 2CO’s higher fees is the price we pay for solid dependable service.
Also, I’m currently trying to figure out how to test our site (ie. test orders) using Paypal’s sandbox. OUCH!!! Can they make it any more difficult? Whereas with 2CO, I simply created a “demo” account and that’s it … it’s super easy to test orders.
All services close accounts for perceived abuse. The difference with PayPal is two fold, first the volume as PayPal is significantly larger and thus going to have more instances proportionally and the second is the method it’s done and following response. PayPal has clearly acted first and sometimes puts up serious hurtles for legit businesses to undo or just get back their money – that’s not good but the PR it creates is even worse.
However for all the backend stories, the frontend is a much different issue. PayPal remains smaller than direct credit card payments for most sites offering both but plays on that level. 2checkot does not. As a result when a customer is sent off to PayPal your likelihood of a close is simply going to be higher; trust even if just as a result of perception can not be understated.
There was a time when 2checkout really was widely used but their name shows up a lot less often and more and more it seems that companies are adding direct options or going with one of the major 3d party provides [paypal and to a lesser degree google checkout] leaving select industries to rely on 2checkout [if you’re in a space where they are common the equation changes]. I’d like to see a radical option, from 2checkout or others, like what Square is doing in offline processing but as things stand I think it really comes down to where you place more value – frontend pass through or backend policies and access.
Hey Ron - the biggest reason our fees are higher is because it is a flat rate fee. You don’t pay anything to us unless there is a transaction/you sell something. So no monthly fees, gateway fees, etc. We take care of a merchant account for you, PCI Compliance, etc. so that is why it’s higher. When it comes down to it - you won’t be paying much more with us.
We also have excellent fraud that allows you to sell almost anywhere in the world and we do not freeze accounts.
Just a few differences 
Hope it helps.
I will definitively agree with you. A lot of countries still does not have PayPal…and if you have a site which sell things worldwide the 2CO is the right service u must use…
The vast majority of people who can spend money are covered by paypal. But if you really want to support the developing ecomm regions you should be looking at alternative payment methods whether it’s phone based, credit based, etc… There’s a lot of places where credit cards are all but non-existent.
When you are selling some products online you have mainly two options to receive payments from buyers. The first one is PayPal and the second one is 2Checkout, these two are the cheapest options for you. The difference between PayPal and 2Checkout is that 2Checkout has no member base like PayPal. So with PayPal you can also receive payments from the other PayPal members using credit cards if you are the member of PayPal. @checkout commission fees also double than PayPal.
You’re forgetting credit cards which, despite the massive growth of third party payment platforms, remain the dominant payment method in most categories. Just because it’s easier to get started for businesses does not mean it’s more common, or even necessarily preferred by shoppers.
And of course while these names are known in the web community, let’s not forget the other major consumer brands in payment which range from Amazon and Google to Bill Me Later to regional mobile & credit based systems which can be extremely popular.
Thank you all for your great feedback and input.
After reviewing and testing orders in both Paypal and 2CO, I’ve decided to go with Paypal. It really came down to user experience, and I find Paypal’s interface to be a lot cleaner and allows our branding to stand out.
I tested 2CO’s one-page checkout, which is great, but their branding seems to take over the page. It’s a bit too overwhelming and our branding is easily overlooked, so our customers may wonder if they’re on the correct page.
I will hand it to 2CO, however, for their excellent and highly responsive customer service (which Paypal needs to learn from).
thank you for the compliments and feedback! I will make sure to record this and report it to the correct parties - we appreciate any input to help us improve. We are actually very close to rolling out a new single page checkout that Sellers can customize! Hopefully this will take care of the branding issue you have mentioned. We are really excited to roll this out. If you check back in 2 weeks - 1 month it should be out and you can let us know what you think!
We have no choice then 2Checkout, in Macedonia we could not use PayPal, we find the way to use payPal (more expensive then normal) but we are not satisfied from process of integration even we already done.
We hope that 2Checkout will be good solution for us.