The vast majority of businesses in Canada are small businesses.
As of figures from December 2022, per this site’s data, 1.19 million of employer businesses were small businesses, accounting for 1.22 million of the total. It’s a huge segment that allows for so much variety, competition, and innovation within the Canadian market.
However, being a small business comes with many trials, particularly as the online space has become more and more important. Canadians aren’t overwhelmingly online shoppers, but there’s enough movement to make it an important arm of any business.
For example, over 80 percent of Canadian retail shoppers research online before going into a store. Further, 25 percent go online for key items, such as health, clothing, groceries, and the like.
Websites have become an important part of being a small business in Canada, even if they don’t directly do as much of the selling as locations do. This has brought one of the biggest names in online payments to the fore. PayPal is now a very popular payment method among Canadians. So, many small businesses wonder if they should integrate it as a payment method online and even in-store.
PayPal is synonymous with online payments
As a merchant, the easiest selling point of PayPal is that it’s so popular. The service boasts millions of Canadian customers, which means that you’d be making payments easier by accepting them via PayPal.
It removes a potential roadblock to converting a sale. Plus, it’s not just being used for retail sales. PayPal has also become a selling point for online entertainment platforms.
Distinctly to appeal to Canadian customers, online casinos have adopted PayPal en masse. As you can see when you visit the website here, almost all of the most respected brands have turned to PayPal as a payment method. It offers a way to deposit and, more importantly, withdraw, and people trust the brand as it’s quick and keeps their details secure.
PayPal has many advantages, such as its safety measures, ease of setup, competitive merchant fees, and features like the ability to set up recurring payments and the ‘buy now, pay later’ option. PayPal Zettle even allows for in-store payments with PayPal.
What’s the catch of using PayPal?
PayPal is found to be one of the most popular forms of online payment methods in Canada, but it’s not the only one. Interac, American Express, Visa, and MasterCard round out the most popular online payment methods in the country according to this listing page, and are arguably more accessible and easier to use.
After all, anyone with a bank account to perform online payments will be able to pay with Visa or MasterCard. Some may not want to transition to the world of eWallets just yet, and you may not want to deal with a middleman service that takes fees. As is always the case, a long-standing brand like PayPal does also have bad reviews and user feedback online.
Unfortunately, with the way that the world and the internet work, these user reviews or posts rise to the top of search engines and often prove to be very convincing. People are far more fearful of experiencing a similar bad experience than missing out on a good one. Directly for sellers, there are high chargeback fees, and accounts can be suspended if you breach their terms and conditions.
Accepting PayPal as a payment method for your small business would open you up to a wide audience seeking recognizable, safe, fast, and convenient payments, but some of the fees and potential issues can be off-putting, so weigh up the pros and cons carefully.
I read this article hoping to learn what disadvantages there might be for businesses to start using PayPal. You mention “for sellers, there are high chargeback fees,” but you give us no idea of how serious a problem that might be.
If given a choice of payment methods, I choose PayPal because I think that it is more secure. But I am open to using Visa or MasterCard.
I would like to know if I should be choosing credit card payments as a favour to small businesses to save them money. This article is not very helpful to me..