Hello Grasshoppa,
Since the launch of my e-commerce business The Black Belt Tape, I have been going through trial & error on getting my website right & one of it is on the payment platforms. My e-commerce platform EasyStore has multiple payment methods for me to include in my e-commerce store & it even supports multiple countries payment such as China, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia & many more. E-wallet payment is also offered for selected countries.
To shortlist this, I have to select at least 2-3 payment platforms that can support my e-commerce site as my target audience are located in South East Asia and international. Assuming that my target audience is purely Malaysia, it will be easier as I can select a few platforms such as Maybank2U, iPay88 or eGHL & e-wallets such as Grab, Boost, Touch&Go & Fave. To target a bigger audience, the local related payment platforms may not be the best choice for me to choose.
This has led me to think, what is the payment platform that I always use for international purchases? First platform that came to my mind is PayPal. The only thing that I am not a fan of PayPal is on their higher exchange rate compared to credit card payment. Each time when I have a choice to choose between credit card payment & PayPal, I will always opt for credit card payment but the website that is powered by Shopify has issues when it comes to credit card payment as the delivery address will have to match the credit card address. This has happened to me multiple times & there was once where I remembered when I was doing impulsive buying on a limited edition BJJ gi during Black Friday & it was declined. LOL. Good thing is, I never proceed with the purchase again after it was declined. For a website that is powered by Shopify, it is best to use PayPal although the exchange rate is a turn-off.
One thing that I like about PayPal is the convenience of setting up a business account. Since this is an international payment platform, the good thing is you can actually transfer the money out from your business account directly to your local personal bank account instead of your local business bank account. To keep things professional, I actually opened a local business bank account & registered a business entity for me to run my e-commerce store. The linking of my PayPal business account & my business bank account is seamless.
Aside from having higher exchange rates compared to other options, PayPal is also having one of the highest when it comes to transaction fee. As a new start-up e-commerce store, hitting RM12,000 is not easy so currently I under the first category for my local & international customer. It is considered quite a high transaction fee especially if your profit margin is too little. As for their withdrawal fees, it’s RM3 for withdrawal below RM400 & free for withdrawal above RM400.
I had only 1 payment platform for the first few months as it was the easiest one to apply & approved until one day where somehow EasyStore or PayPal was having an issue in one of the transaction where my 2 of my customers failed to make payment. During that point, I had to react fast to solve this so I went into EasyStore to find another payment platform where I stumbled upon Stripe. Being inexperience in e-commerce related business, I do not know anything related to Stripe except when I was doing my e-commerce course in Udemy. That payment issue has driven me to create a Stripe account & guess what, it was approved within an hour or less.
One of the good things about Stripe is, it is a global payment platform where it is accepted in most countries worldwide which is very good for my e-commerce business where my focus market is international. It is secure for all my customers as they just have to input their credit card details & it will be processed accordingly & securely. Aside from supporting credit card payment, Stripe also supports FPX which is good for Malaysia based customers. Their transaction fee is slightly lower compared to PayPal. By using Stripe, my customers are able to pay using credit & debit card + 3D secure authentication or FPX to make any purchase in my e-commerce store.
By using Stripe, you can actually set auto payout either daily, weekly, monthly or manual payment. Your customer’s purchase amount will be available for withdrawals within 5 working days if you are based in Malaysia as long as you link your registered business bank account with Stripes. Their minimum payout is RM5 & if your transaction or balance is less than RM5, they will hold the money until it reaches more than RM5.
Conclusion :
As an e-commerce platform that focuses on the international market, I think that it’s good to have both PayPal & Stripe as your payment platforms as it is accepted worldwide but if I had to pick one, I will definitely go with Stripe for the convenience & lower transaction fee. It also helps customers to save money for those that are purchasing items with foreign currency.
You may also want to check out my previous post on How I Started My E-Commerce Store.
OSS!
