Bye bye PayPal, Hello Transferwise.com

[Sablon Audio]

I think it’s fair to say that we all know and mostly love Paypal. It’s been around for ages and has long been the go-to choice for electronic payments. Seductively easy to use and secure however it has become expensive..... make that expensive with a capital ‘F’ when it comes to doing international business like Sablon...

Whilst their domestic charge is a fairly reasonable 3%, a 2% loading gets added for international cross-border payments and there is then a further 3.75% charge for currency conversion. The total cost becomes a gouging 9%, so I’m going to say ‘enough!’. From now on, PayPal will only be accepted on orders at full list price, essentially for new customers, unless existing customers who receive a 10% discount on their subsequent orders wish to cover their charges. I'm sure you will agree that it is better to take out costs than raise list prices.

Another, lower cost, payments service provider is needed and this is where Transferwise steps in. Transferwise offers an international platform which is almost as easy to use as PayPal, yet barely costs 1% all in. That’s way cheaper than what retail banks charge for currency conversion and a number of you may actually find their services useful for other private and business purposes. You can read about it in the links below however imo it is a very exciting company in which I would be happy to invest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransferWise

https://transferwise.com

 

[asiufy]

Congrats! TransferWise is great, and just yesterday I was telling a friend about it!
PayPal is worthless now, at least for merchants.

 

[Sablon Audio]

Thanks Alex!

 

[Golum]

I think it’s fair to say that we all know and mostly love Paypal. It’s been around for ages and has long been the go-to choice for electronic payments. Seductively easy to use and secure however it has become expensive..... make that expensive with a capital ‘F’ when it comes to doing international businesses like Sablon...

Whilst their domestic charge is a fairly reasonable 3%, a 2% loading gets added for international cross-border payments and there is then a further 3.75% charge for currency conversion. The total cost becomes a gouging 9%, so I’m going to say ‘enough!’. From now on, PayPal will only be accepted on orders at full list price, essentially for new customers, unless existing customers who receive a 10% discount on their subsequent orders wish to cover their charges. I'm sure you will agree that it is better to take out costs than raise list prices.

Another, lower cost, payments service provider is needed and this is where Transferwise steps in. Transferwise offers an international platform which is almost as easy to use as PayPal, yet barely costs 1% all in. That’s way cheaper than what retail banks charge for currency conversion and a number of you may actually find their services useful for other private and business purposes. You can read about it in the links below however imo it is a very exciting company in which I would be happy to invest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransferWise

https://transferwise.com

Can't agree more - but I have a feeling people are still a bit reluctant to move to TW...

 

[Sablon Audio]

Hmm, that’s not been my experience so far Golum but tbh that observation is in the context of existing customers where we know each other. New business can still use paypal if they wish as it has been priced in along with international courier delivery.

 

[MTB Vince]

This looks like a very cost effective alternative to PayPal. Thanks for the tip @Sablon Audio!

 

[Folsom]

I'm interested to some degree. It largely depends on how PP handles something I got going on right now. I'm not saying it happens often, but for the second time in my life I have everything on lock down.

 

[Derainer]

Current example:
I was supposed to get € 4,200 from a customer in the USA. Paypal collected 188,00 € as fee.
So my decision is: never again Paypal.
Transferwise is a fair portal.

thanks Rainer

 

[Sablon Audio]

Current example:
I was supposed to get € 4,200 from a customer in the USA. Paypal collected 188,00 € as fee.
So my decision is: never again Paypal.
Transwise is a fair portal.

thanks Rainer

They would also have collected @€150 from the customer when translating their USD into EUR. Is hard to justify this level of commission.

 

[Folsom]

PP sure does make clearing houses look good. The thing that sucks is wait times.

Any experience using Transferwise for little stuff? I organize some DIY projects as well and so it's many people all at once, so there's lots of shipping that I have to pay out. PP's debit card was really useful for that.

 

[Derainer]

What we did?
Client sent me an order check with Fedex. I cashed it at my bank and the fees are only 20,-- €

Take care Rainer

 

[XCop5089]

Mark

I'm happy to do a "Faster Payment" direct to your bank account, on our next transaction - Cost ....... Nil!

Steve

 

[Derainer]

They would also have collected @€150 from the customer when translating their USD into EUR. Is hard to justify this level of commission.

My importer in Japan only pays me with TransferWise in € and he only pays a very small fee.

 

[rgmd11]

I think it’s fair to say that we all know and mostly love Paypal. It’s been around for ages and has long been the go-to choice for electronic payments. Seductively easy to use and secure however it has become expensive..... make that expensive with a capital ‘F’ when it comes to doing international business like Sablon...

Whilst their domestic charge is a fairly reasonable 3%, a 2% loading gets added for international cross-border payments and there is then a further 3.75% charge for currency conversion. The total cost becomes a gouging 9%, so I’m going to say ‘enough!’. From now on, PayPal will only be accepted on orders at full list price, essentially for new customers, unless existing customers who receive a 10% discount on their subsequent orders wish to cover their charges. I'm sure you will agree that it is better to take out costs than raise list prices.

Another, lower cost, payments service provider is needed and this is where Transferwise steps in. Transferwise offers an international platform which is almost as easy to use as PayPal, yet barely costs 1% all in. That’s way cheaper than what retail banks charge for currency conversion and a number of you may actually find their services useful for other private and business purposes. You can read about it in the links below however imo it is a very exciting company in which I would be happy to invest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransferWise

https://transferwise.com

I have used TransferWise since 2016 and it is an excellent service with a very close to spot rate exchange, for numerous transfers you can save substantially compared to the legal robbers we call Banks and never mind talking about PayPal plus it’s a speedy service

 

[Folsom]

I have used TransferWise since 2016 and it is an excellent service with a very close to spot rate exchange, for numerous transfers you can save substantially compared to the legal robbers we call Banks and never mind talking about PayPal plus it’s a speedy service

Does that mean you've done any smaller transactions?

Also can you keep track of transfers on it, like you sign in or?

 

[Elberoth]

I have been using Revolut for the past year for small payments instead of PayPal. I don't think there is a fee (or a cap on transferred amount).

 

[rgmd11]

Does that mean you've done any smaller transactions?

Also can you keep track of transfers on it, like you sign in or?

Hi
Yes you can transfer any amount, and there is a record of every transaction made, either sending or receiving with the spot rate at the time and charges are very low compared to banks

 

[Steve Williams]

Why not a simple wire transfer from bank to bank.

It costs me $40 to send an international bank wire

 

[Sablon Audio]

Retail banks charge @3% for fgn exchange Steve.