Saturday, September 15, 2007, PayPal and barriers to buying on the internet

When I made a recent request to the Fuzzies to create a player/store for embedding into other sites I also made the suggestion that it use PayPal as a means of checkout. They seemed to like the idea but wondered why I suggested Paypal. So here's my reasons why.

I buy stuff online a few times a year and have had mostly good experiences so far. But I do hesitate before trusting any new vendor online with my credit card information. Sometime it becomes a deal breaker and something like a piece of software I might've bought will go unpurchased if I have to spend the time and trust to enter my CC information.

The bizarre exception for me has been when a site offers a way to purchase using PayPal. One reason is that I don't have to enter as much information which means the transaction is quicker and can be more of an impulse buy then it is when I have to sign up for or enter a ton of information.

I think it is a function of sales that isn't often considered in online purchases but if I need to go get my wallet, find the Credit Card I will use, enter all the information required to register with a site and then make the purchase I have several steps to possibly abort my purchase. If I stood in line at a grocery store and had to enter all of the same information I would likely not return to shop at that location. In the real world credit cards are easier to use then cash which is why the USA has so many people in deep credit card debit. If you take something that is usually easy then start making it hard you will always lose customers.

Now when you compare the experience using paypal to buy something online the experience can become easy again.

Click yes.

Enter your PayPal info.

You are finished.

I think this is very important in the entertainment field. Since it's disposable income that is being spent you don't want the costomer to consider the money they are spending. You want them to have the fewest steps to go from thinking of buying to bought in the shortest time possible.

I think that Apple has really driven this point home with the iTunes music store in several important ways. When you download the software for iTunes you enter your information and can choose to always "buy now" or use a shopping cart. People who choose buy now never do more then click one button and the song, album, movie or TV show is downloaded to their machine and added to their library. They don't get confronted with the money they are spending so the money doesn't register it. People like me who use the shopping cart still have it very easy because we can buy a song with only one additional mouse click per file or buy everything in our carts with one click of the buy all now button.

So the distance to go from finding something to buying it in the iTunes store is at most two mouse clicks of confirmation. Not something that could be beaten so it must at least be matched.

I think this is one of the major things that seperates iTunes from the rest of the online music stores. Most of the others use a web interface that can also direct you to anywhere on the planet. The iTunes Store sticks to the store so you remain single task oriented. (In fact if fuzz created something similar to the iLike sidebar for iTunes that might help bring them into that fold. Wow that would be really cool. Me want!)

When I shop using eMusic my experience is not as nice. Buying an album opens a separate application that then downloads the songs to your hard drive. Once they are downloaded you must then move them into your library. (Sorry PC folks but that shit reminds me of Windows! It reminds me that I'm using a computer which I don't get from Mac applications like iTunes.)

So again why PayPal... It's all about the number of clicks and what I have to type to spend my money. Don't make me work for it or I will lose the burning desire to Rock and/or Roll!

Marqui Adora

P.S. The Fuzz store is easy and simple but I think you could get a few more degrees of comfynesstitude by adding paypal as an option for payment.