About Paypal Micropayments

[Isis Ophelia]

Searching for information about how to manage sales using paypal I found in a forum something I want to share with you, for some might be of interest.

It was said there, that if one decides to use Micro Payments, all payments received through PP will be treated as micro payments, that makes for example cash outs from other grids more expensive. It was given the advice to the one who had asked to use instead 'Digital Goods Payments' https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/de ... heckoutDG/

And here is information about the Paypal fees for Digital Goods payments
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/digital-goods

Someone else has already experience using this kind of payments?

[Isis Ophelia]

More Info for those who will sell in US$ in the Marketplace.

I called today Paypal Germany. They confirmed that if one configures his account to receive micro-payments, all payments received will be charged the fees for micro-payment, which is much higher the higher the amount paid is.

Payments for Digital Goods have the same fees as micro-payments but do not affect all other payments. To be allowed to receive payments for digital goods, one has to edit his setting to be a Business account. It doesnt cost anything to do it. And after you have your Merchant ID you can write an email to Paypal asking them to activate the Digital Goods payments. In the mail one has to explain that what will be sold are only digital goods that can not be used in real life.

I have no information if there are different rules in the different countries. So i would adivice to call the support in your country and ask them.

[Isis Ophelia]

hello to all

I have never used Paypal to sell any kind of goods online, so now I am insecure what the best method would be. Reading around makes me even more insecure. Seems many are searching for this kind of info: micropayment how? and digital goods, better? the answers, even those given from paypal employees differ so much.

I do not want to offer my products *over-priced* but do not want to make minus numbers after paying the paypal fees. So would wish to find a fair balanced price for my customers and for myself.

If anyone has experience using micro-payments I would appreciate to hear your openions. That would help me a lot.

Thanks in advance

[Nala Rissa]

Hi Isis,

We set the minimum price for items sold via PayPAl to be $1 so that you'll be guaranteed to profit from sales no matter how you configure your PayPal account.

PayPal's regular transaction cost is $0.30 + 2.9% (3.9% for merchants not located in the US). PayPal offers discounts for merchants that have high sales volumes.

PayPal's digital goods option enables you to pay $0.05 + 5% (6% for merchants not located in the US).

Which option is better for you depends on how much your items cost. As a general rule of thumb (which may not be applicable to you) I'd recommend going for the digital goods option as it will enable you to keep a significantly higher percentage of your revenue when selling low-cost items.

One way to try to estimate how much you should charge is to see how much these types of items cost in Second Life Marketplace. If the item you want to sell usually sells for less than $1 then either sell it in KC (which you'll be able to use to cover your Kitely expenses but not to profit in real money) or bundle a few items together so that you'll be able to sell the lot for at least $1.

[Isis Ophelia]

I thank you Ilan, this really helps me to have a red line to follow. I appreciate your help