2009-03-24 PayPal explained
From Walkerpedia
This was originally sent to my email subscribers as part of my Tuesday emails series.
Hey. Happy Tuesday. How are you doing? Feel like you're becoming an internet ninja yet? Impressing friends and family with your knowledge of [Twitter explained|Twitter], [RSS explained|RSS] and obscure songwriters?
For those of you who are joining us for the first time, welcome to Ben's Wonderful Tuesday Email. I'm sending out a weekly email with tips on how to use the internet better. Some of it may be over your head, and some of you may already be fully-fledged internet ninjas. But I'll also be telling you about what I'm up to in the lead-up to Ben's Big Gig, and that's what you're here for, right? ;)
Contents |
But first, PayPal
Anyone who has tried to sell stuff online (ie. me) has had to deal with online payments. They are a nightmare. No question. But not because they are difficult to do, or because they are not secure. They are a nightmare because most people are scared of them.
It's fair enough. I would be too. But I'm going to explain, very briefly, why you should learn to love PayPal (if you're already pals with PayPal, I want you to explain this to one person this week).
PayPal is your local Post Office
In Charlbury (the village where I work) there's a Post Office. It's where old people go when they are confused. As soon as they need to relicense their scooter, send a telegram, wire some money, take out cash, collect their pension, buy a watercolour greeting card or send a letter, they shuffle around to the Post Office and queue for half an hour. They trust the Post Office. They trust the husband and wife team who sit smiling behind the counter in matching NHS specs.
On the internet, we're all old people. We're all sitting at our computers a little bit confused. When we see a link to something we understand, we're in there like a flash. For some of us it's Hotmail and Google. For some it's blogs and Twitter. And for some it's eBay and Amazon. Once you've used something, it's easy. Until then, you look at it like an old person looks at a cashpoint, thinking "How can I trust you to deliver what you promise? You are shiny and strange, and I have a perfectly good Post Office round the corner, thank you very much."
So how is PayPal the Post Office? Surely it's just another fly-by-night rip-off merchant that's trying to steal your socks and close down the local pub? Not quite. PayPal may charge sellers annoyingly high commissions, but that's because we're paying for guaranteed security. Like the Post Office, it's a trusted gateway through which you can pay for a myriad of exciting products and services.
But you don't need to be a PayPal member!
The oldies in Charlbury Post Office have had Post Office accounts since forever, and that's fine for them. I just wander in with my debit card, pay for stuff willy-nilly and wander out again.
And you can do that with PayPal too. This is important so I'll say it again, in a slightly slower and more patronising tone:
You can pay for stuff through PayPal with your credit/debit card, and you don't have to sign up.
PayPal doesn't make this obvious. Of course, they want you to join. So they make the "Sign up now!" button huge and the "Pay by card" button tiny. Now there's nothing wrong with joining. It's essentially just a useful way of storing your card and address details so you don't have to fill them in every time. But you don't have to.
Here's your homework ;)
If you're desperate to try out PayPal, but can't think of anything to buy, you could always get a couple of tickets for Ben's Big Gig. They are on sale from the Ben's Big Gig microsite.
If you're not going to be around Oxford on May 1st your homework is to think of somebody who might be around, and send them this link (along with a note saying something like "OMG this guy is like seriously just *amazing*. You HAAAAAAVE to go see him!!!" - I'll leave the exact wording up to you):
http://bensbiggig.ihatemornings.com/
If you're a Facebooker, there's a Ben's Big Gig event page.
And if you're a Twitterer, try this on for size.
Any questions?
Thanks for the feedback on the last couple of emails. Keep it coming! And remember you can always find me on Twitter (@ihatemornings) and at http://ihatemornings.com .
Talk soon,
Ben ;)
