About: Tim Clydesdale

Hi Cristián,

I’m very familiar with s2member’s refund policy, I read it before I purchased s2member. I am also aware that a refund is completely discretionary, so I am not demanding a refund, merely humbly requesting one. (Again I would have preferred to discuss this via the Private Contact request)

While I don’t think anyone specifically is to blame for the fact s2member is not working for me as expected, but as you can see below, there were a number of factors that worked against me.
1) PayPal website and documentation is appalling and the Australian website even states they offer a PayPal Pro (like) service called PayFlow Pro:
https://www.paypal.com/au/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-comparison
(See: PayFlow Pro – Internet Merchant Account: Included)
But upon speaking with a PayPal sales rep, it turns out that page is completely incorrect, sigh…

2) s2member’s “PayPal® Services / A Quick Comparison” makes no mention of PalPal pro only being available in the US (including Alaska/Hawaii), the UK, and Canada. I’m not going to be unreasonable and say that it should have been there, but it certainly would have saved me a lot of time, effort and frustration if I knew this right from the start.

While I’m certainly not saying that I’m a complete victim in this, I am saying that I performed a fairly through due-diligence before I purchased s2member and some exceptional circumstances have arisen which I think may warrant a refund.

Needless to say that purely from an ethical business point of view – If a customer buys a product and they cannot get 90% of the deemed value out of it because of exceptional circumstances out of their control, it seems a bit cold hearted to turn your back on them. This isn’t a physical product that loses substantial value as soon as it is opened or leaves the store. Further to that, this isn’t buyer’s remorse, I so desperately want to use s2member (I love the open source goodness of it and the support forums), but it cannot perform 90% of its stated functions for an Australian merchant.

-Timbo

Hi Cristián,

Does it have to be PayPal Pro for your site, though?

That’s a rather vague question/statement? To accept a payment from a customer? No it doesn’t have to be PayPal Pro, I could use PayPal Standard or Express Checkout. There are two problems with that though:
1. The inability to accept payments on our site directly (only being able to pass the customers through to PayPal), will eventually appear unprofessional if we were to grow into a larger organisation (which every business would hope/expect). To quote the s2member site:

With regard to PayPal Pro:

Increased conversion rates make a HUGE difference

On most sites, conversion rates increase by over 20% – because you’re accepting Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Discover, Maestro, and Solo (directly on your site)

Reference: http://www.s2member.com/kb/paypal-services-a-quick-comparison/

2. We intend for our site to require recurring subscriptions and Express Checkout is not really a viable option as it requires customers have a PayPal account. Our demographic is an older audience which I imagine will mean they are less likely to have a PayPal account, let alone to set one up specifically to use our service. PayPal standard is also not a viable option (see point 1 above).

The other payment options s2member offers are not suitable either:
Authorize.net is not available in Australia
Google Checkout passes the client to Google for processing payments (see point 1 above – potentially hindering our growth possibilities)
ClickBank passes the client to ClickBank for processing payments (see point 1 above – potentially hindering our growth possibilities)

Basically, I’d be more than happy to start with PayPal Standard, but as you can see that would be very short sighted of me. Not to mention a very poor business decision to limit my business before I’ve even started it – the sky’s the limit you know!

As unfortunate as it is that PayPal Australia does not support the PayPal Pro service, it is also s2member that does not support PayPal’s Australian services – PayFlow Pro or Website Payments Pro – Hosted Solution. But I understand that – as a business you only have so many resources and you need to cater to the largest market. I’m in the same situation…

So Cristián, can you see a possible solution that I have missed?

-Timbo

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the detailed response.

Could you just confirm the following for me:
1) There is no way for an Australian merchant to process s2member payments on their site, it has to be passed to PayPal, Google, etc. Meaning there is no paid PayPal version for Australian merchants that are compatible with s2member.

Of the free versions of PayPal:
2) PayPal Checkout Express requires the customer to have a PayPal account to process recurring payments.
3) PayPal standard w/ ERP does not require the customer to have a PayPal account to process recurring payments, but s2member Pro Forms are not compatible with PayPal standard.

Pro Forms integrates with Authorize.net:
4) Authorize.net does not offer service to Australian merchants.

Have you ever considered integrating a service such as Spreedly:
http://spreedly.com/

Though I have not used them, from what I have seen it should provide s2member with the appropriate API hooks and billing capabilities required to get the job done. This would open s2member up to a plethora of alternative payment gateways (and potentially allow us Aussies to process cards on our site).

-Timbo

Hi Raam,

Great thanks.

Also, in addition to my s2member/Hosted Solution question – If I decided to bite the bullet and setup an Internet Merchant Account (with a bricks and mortar bank) and use PayPal as the Payment Gateway (PayPal Payflow Pro), can I simply use the PayPal Pro Forms in s2member to accept payments? I presume the API and transactions are exactly the same with PayPal, but instead of the money going to my PayPal account, it’ll go to my Internet Merchant Account.

Also, would it be possible to add some Australian specific info here:
http://www.s2member.com/kb/paypal-services-a-quick-comparison/

Perhaps add some information about PayPal Payflow Pro as well if s2member supports it?

-Timbo