Differences between US and UK PayPal on postage

[WeaversBazaar]

Hi

I see that the US PayPal allows configuration of postage cost by either weight or an order or total vlue of an order.

The UK Paypal configuration only allows postage calculations based on order value (either in straight tariff bands or as a percentage of the order value).

However the Post Office and other carriers usually calculate postage costs on weight.

Why is this facility available in the US version of Paypal but not in the UK Paypal?

Thanks

Matty

[CAP_UK]

I would love to know the answer/reasons to this too -

I sell prints of my artwork and at the moment I have a choice - either fleece my customers in the UK to order to cover the costs of shipping outside the UK, or not fleece my UK customers and then get a huge profit loss as I can't cover the postage outside the UK. Not easy to do when the prints range from £3.00 - £6.00, and I can fit multiple prints in a single postage tube.

Anyone from PayPal want to step in here and help explain please? To me this is the BIGGEST weakpoint in the website standard package.

Rob Henderson

Caricature Aircraft Pictures

UK

[Brian1295]

Paypal offers different functionality in different regions.

here is some cart providers that can enhance your checkout:

https://www.paypal-business.co.uk/paypal-partner-solutions/index.htm#partnerFinder

[WeaversBazaar]

Hi Brian

Thanks for this response.

However my question is about the logic of what Paypal UK has put in place and the reduced quality of service that results. I know that we could achieve this through paying for an enhancement by a third party.But why should we?

The technology within Paypal is already there - and postal systems, on the whole, structure their tariffs around weight/volume rather than value.

So the question remains - why does Paypal UK not offer a feature that is available to Paypal users in other countries?

Thanks

Matty

[Brian1295]

Paypal offers various different features in different markets/ countries.  Some are more limited than others and in some places it's not available at all.

[Brian1295]

Please note that some carts are indeed free of charge also.

[FTO]

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@Brianpp wrote:

Paypal offers various different features in different markets/ countries.  Some are more limited than others and in some places it's not available at all.

---

This answer does not reveal the logic behind offering different features in different countries, it merely states the fact that paypal does this.

If somebody would just come out and say 'paypal uk will never offer a feature where you can select postage value by weight because we want you to use third parties' (or something to that effect) we could all stop tearing our hair out and get on with discovering alternative solutions.

[WeaversBazaar]

Hi FTO

I have been thinking how to best respond to BrianPP but you have put it very well . There clearly does not seem to be an answer to the actual question - just suggestions for work-arounds.

I have been looking at some of the third-party providers and, having opted for the Paypal Standard version because of it's simplicity and straightforwardness, realise that moving to include such third parties would create a great deal of complexity - much of it technical and therefore beyond my capabilities.

I still cannot understand why there are variances in the type of service Paypal offer on a geographical basis and nor can I understand how the UK Paypal came up with a default cart value basis for postage costs when our postal system is weight based!

I would really like Paypal to explain this

Cheers

Matty

[FTO]

Hi Matty,

Yeah, the automatic postage parameters on paypalUK are illogical when UK postage is (I assume almost exclusively) based upon the weight of the item.

Like you, I'm pretty reluctant to go down the 3rd party route due to complexity and time. At the moment I'm thinking of using the 'shipping' and 'shipping2' variables on my 'add to cart' buttons, thereby giving every item a fixed postage and additional postage cost on multiple purchases of the same item. It is a far from ideal solution but, other than the unfavourable third party option, I'm not sure what else to do.