10 replies to this topic

[madams]

Hi

How do you get arroud the problem with PayPal and multipal sites?

Everything works ok but when there is a purchase, the PayPal payment page shows the original website address and not the new one.

This is a bit confusing for the customers if the main site is devorce.com and the new site is weddings.com

The customer orders from weddings.com and on his CC statement it says "divorce.com"

Anyone know a soution to this problem

[Jill]

I think if you create a different paypal address for each different site (or product) that might do the trick. You still use the same pp account just add an email address to it.

Might be wrong about it working, as it might depend on your set up, but see if it does the trick!

[madams]

Yeh Jill...

I can set up to 8 e-mail addresses...

PayPal says...

You may add up to eight email address to your PayPal account, through your profile. Remember that each email address can be associated to one PayPal account at a time.

"One PayPal Account"
This means that if your account title is "Green Wellies" all email addresses will defult to that heading.
So if I use the same PP account for a site that sells Dog Toys, the puchaser is faced with the heading "Green Wellies" on PP. And when he gets the Credit Card Statement, it says "Green Wellies"

Seems strange to me.

Anyone else familiar with this problem?

[Randy]

If it's any consolation --and I know it's not-- I run into the same basic issue with full blown merchant accounts too.

In order to get the site's actual name printed on the customers credit card statement I have to have a completely separate merchant account just for that site. Pain in the tush, and a little bit more expensive since there are dedicated monthly fees for each merchant account, but worth it IMHO.

I used to have it the other way, where the corporate name and toll free number printed on the customer's receipt, then making PROMINENT mention of what would appear on their stattement both on the site and in the email they get sent after a purchase. But after getting far too many phone calls from people trying to figure out what they'd ordered or the occasinonal chargeback attempt because people simply didn't recognize the charge and didn't feel like calling I've come to the conclusion that each site simply needs to have its own merchant account. Just a cost of doing business. And it's not that much per month after all.

My calls on this subject used to average 20-30 per month. All easy to deal with, but still. Since I made the change a few months ago I've not had a single call questioning a charge. So better for me and better for customers as far as I'm concerned.

As to your exact question, I don't think you're going to find a way out of the box they've painted you in. Unless you want to set up multiple, completely separate Paypal accounts. With each one having it's own unique email address and funding options. I don't believe they'll let you use the same bank account or credit card across multiple accounts either. I seem to recall running into that one once years ago when I wanted to set up a Paypal acct to specifically be for eBay stuff. They told me no go, because I already had another account tied to the checking account to pay affiliates.

[Catz]

In order to get the site's actual name printed on the customers credit card statement I have to have a completely separate merchant account just for that site.

This makes perfect sense. It will help you seperate charges/fees and most importantly chargebacks attributed to each site in less time than dividing up items from each site mixed in one statement.

This is important to know if you are looking at ROI for each individual site rather than all sites combined.
One site may be poorly written and costing you money while another is doing great, but it would look like both are doing ok if looked at together.

After getting far too many phone calls from people trying to figure out what they'd ordered or the occasinonal chargeback attempt...I've come to the conclusion that each site simply needs to have its own merchant account. My calls on this subject used to average 20-30 per month. Since I made the change a few months ago I've not had a single call questioning a charge.

Considering the amount of time saved, this really shows the benefit of seperate PayPal accounts, even if there is a little extra expense involved.

Your time is worth quite a bit and if you're wasting it on offline issues, phone calls and administrative work,
you have less time to do what you really enjoy, which is working online!

[Randy]

Well, that's fine Catz. Except.

I don't use Paypal. With Merchant Accounts I can have multiple accounts both deposit into and pull funding from the exact same (corporate) checking account. So it's not an issue for me. But with Paypal it would be, last time I checked. They won't let you use the same checking account on two accounts. Or the same credit card-ATM card on the same account. That'll be an issue unless you want to go to the trouble of opening a differen checking account for each site, just to get Paypal to stop throwing fits.

It will help you seperate charges/fees and most importantly chargebacks attributed to each site in less time than dividing up items from each site mixed in one statement.

I don't need a Merchant Account or Paypal or any other payment system to help me with such tracking. Some might, I don't. Have a full internal tracking set up and have for years. To the point that I can tell you from 5 years ago exactly how many purchases and how many dollars and cents came into any of my web sites on any specific date. I can even break it down farther if need be.

That's not their job. That's not even something they advertise because they know it's not their job. Me thinks they just like that guaranteed fee they get every month.

[MaKa]

Even if you could create multiple accounts according to their TOS:

2.2 [...]You may only hold one Personal Account and either one Premier or one Business Account. [...]

So you are limited to a total of two accounts. If you wanted to start dating.com after setting up weddings.com and divorce.com you'd be stuck.

[Randy]

Ouch ! Yeah, that TOS thing will get ya every time!

So no go with Paypal. Not within the rules anyway.

Is Paypal a critical component for you Madams? Perhaps something like Google Checkout might be an alternative? I can't say whether they have the same issue for multiple sites since I've never used it myself. It might be worth a look though.

[Catz]

Good thinking Randy, you would expect Google Checkout would be set up to let you have multiple web sites with unique business names showing up on invoices. Looks like you can change your credit card statement name with them using one bank account if you want.
http://checkout.goog...i...&topic=8679

As for PayPal, you do want to stick with their TOS or it could cause issues such as them putting a hold on your bank accounts.

Didn't think much of paypal for a long time, just didn't trust the fact that they could put your bank accounts on hold whenever they chose to but working with companies that wanted to give them a try, I have to admit it hasn't been a bad experience, it is simple and convenient...except for the cost.

I can tell you from 5 years ago exactly how many purchases and how many dollars and cents came into any of my web sites on any specific date

Randy - It's a given that you would have everything automated down to the smallest detail, and of course with superior tracking as well. You have a big head start over most in the online business and being experienced enough to do it all yourself, you save quite a bit of expense that others in business must pay for.

Plus, you know you can trust yourself and you will be there for the long haul, unlike employees of most companies.

Although, I was not referring to simply what came in but what came in minus what went out...as in is it worth it to sell particular items online. You are way past that stage but many trying to do business online are just starting to learn.

Working online we tend to look at things in simple terms. Sold this item for this much, minus advertising expense. In reality, if looking at it as a business administrator or owner (as you know) a lot more comes out of that amount before it actually becomes profit.

My point was more that keeping these extra fees separated in whatever manner works for them can be helpful. It is not necessary to have seperate accounts for seperate sites or businesses, but it can be helpful if someone chooses to for whatever reason they may have. Sounds like you lucked out too, not all Merchant Account companies are as cooperative as yours.

There are still many businesses out there that are working from invoices and in spreadsheets, selling online even though they don't really even understand how the internet works yet. They are overwhelmed, behind the times and many have just entered the online world recently (other than using email and buying items online) and are really feeling lost.

They need every little bit of help they can get...and many wouldn't understand how to use the functionality you have created even if they could afford someone to put it into place and maintain it.

[Randy]

Yeah, it's definitely not a seamless process as things stand today Catz. This much is for sure.

While I can tell you how much a given site made on a certain day for any day within the past several years, and can track it by product/service sold and even whether it was a New customer sale or a Returning customer sale I openly confess it's not easy to do.

I'll tell ya a natural step forward that's just not there right now, but should be. And that's the ability to more easily merge data back and forth between a merchant account and web analytics. You can kinda/sorta do it with some tagging, but it's still not seamless because web analytics and merchant services are still two completely different systems. This seperation makes it difficult at best to come up with useful stats. Though IMHO this should be easy to accomplish.

Makes me wonder when one of the big suppliers like Authorize.net will start working with another biggie like GoAn to feed the data back and forth between the two apps, effectively providing users of both services a more robust, better solution solution. It's not like it should be all that difficult.

[madams]

It's not like it should be all that difficult.

Nor is splitting the atom, if you know what your doing )