PayPal at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst UK

Carl Olav-Scheible from PayPal EU gave a great presentation today.  From a US perspective, it never occurred to me how important the cross-border trade (CBT) elements of Paypal are here in the EU.  According to Carl, buyers in Europe leverage PayPal for a CBT solution as frequently as they do for convenience and security.

It also seems like Merchant services (off-eBay Paypal) is doing very well here in Europe, Carl cited some stats I hadn't heard before:

• 13/50 of the top internet retailers in the UK take PayPal
• 10/50 of the top internet retailers in Germany take PayPal
• 15/50 of the top internet retailers in the rest of EU take PayPal

In the Q+A Carl answered many questions.  One that was interesting from a US perspective was around echecks.  Carl mentioned that 2-3% of payments are echeck and it's a solution for those people that don't have funds in their account.  The seller that asked the question mentioned that the user communication on echecks needs work as it tells the buyer it will take 2-3 days to clear and in reality it's more like 10 days.  Carl agreed that there is much room for improvement (we hear this from USA sellers too) and said they are working on it.

There were questions about the seller protection plan in the UK. Evidently it's capped out at 500 pounds.  Carl mentioned that they are looking at increasing it. He suggested 2000-10,000 as the potential range. They are also looking into how they can 'remove the asterisks' from many of the protections.  Asterisks are the little fine-print exceptions in the SPP that cause sellers to take a hit.