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Why do I need PayMate™?
What does it give me that I don't already have by using PayPal's WebAccept button alone?
An excellent question! Read on to find out why you NEED PayMate if you use (or are considering using) PayPal:
HISTORY:
PayPal allows you to accept credit cards on the internet. This is an excellent and well-trusted system that was popularized (primarily) by Ebay users who wanted to be able to accept credit cards on the web. The PayPal system is also used by thousands of smaller business owners who, for various reasons, do not use 'standard' merchant accounts and processing. The reasons these vendors might not use 'standard' merchant accounts can include:
- too difficult to be approved (due either to the nature of the transactions or the credit history of the individual)
- too difficult to program and integrate into their website
- too expensive (either in set-up fees, transaction fees, or both)
Because PayPal is so much easier to set-up and use, and because it is a trusted service, and because it eliminates the objections listed above, many people decide to use PayPal to process their credit card transactions.
THE PROBLEM:
When you place a 'WebAccept' button on your website, your customers are taken to a secure PayPal form where they can complete the purchase. When everything is complete, your customer may (or may not) be redirected back to your site to accept your merchandise. In the event that your merchandise is something traditional (e.g. goods that must be shipped), you would wait for the confirmation email from PayPal stating that the customer's credit card was approved and that the transaction was completed. Then you would ship out the product. This involves personnel (expense) and human judgement of some sort to determine that the transaction was actually approved. HOWEVER, in the event that you sell 'payload' products (e.g. software, databases, e-books, etc.)... your customer cannot automatically receive their goods after their purchase unless:
- Your scripts allow them to download immediately - sort of an 'honor system', risking that bad/fake transactions will be able receive your product (or that someone will share the download link for your product with others)
- You constantly (24 hours a day) monitor the emails you receive from PayPal and manually validate a transaction within your web system, hoping that your customer will wait for the 1-5 minutes it may take you to receive the email verification and set some flag within your system that allows them to download
- You ship/email the product later (not in real time), which leads to expense (personnel) and the lack of a fully automated system, as well as customers who are dissatisfied because they have come to expect being able to receive/download your product IMMEDIATELY
- You create your own custom scripts/components to handle the PayPal Instant Payment Notification process.
THE SOLUTION:
PayMate talks back to the PayPal processing system and determines in REAL-TIME whether or not the purchase was approved. As soon as your customer presses the 'Pay' button on PayPal's system, your web server receives instant notification (via the PayMate package) and logs the sale to a database. Rejected (invalid or unapproved) sales are also logged to the database and can help you determine whether a follow-up sales call is warranted, or whether someone might be trying to abuse the system and make a false purchase. PayMate allows your web system to determine (without human judgement or intervention) whether or not a sale has been approved, and can allow your web system (scripts, etc.) to send the product in real time. If you ship 'traditional goods', the system can be used to tie directly to your shipping/fulfillment software, again without human intervention. The system also includes a sales report system that allows you to drill-down and see the details for a particular transaction (click here for a sample report.)
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PayPal and WebAccept are trademarks of PayPal
PayMate is a trademark of effengüd software
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