You can now use Paypal directly from inside Yahoo. Why bother you might ask? Well, before we get into that, let’s see how it works. Or does it work?
Where is the Paypal button in Yahoo?
It’s hard to find at first but here’s where it is.
1 Open Yahoo Mail.
2 If you look in the lower left corner of your Yahoo Mail, you’ll see a box called Applications.
3 Scroll down this list and, hey presto, there it is!
4 Click on the PayPal icon and it will tell you all nice and wonderful things, some of which are true.
How does it work?
There are a few ways to use PayPal. For example, if you see an item on the Yahoo site which has this blue shopping cart on it, then you can click on this and pay directly with PayPal or through your Yahoo account. That’s the idea anyway, but I didn’t see it happening in the examples I found on the Yahoo site.
The simplest way to use it is to send me directly to your friends while logged into Yahoo.
I want to Stay on Yahoo – You can Request money without having to leave Yahoo.
I want to Leave Yahoo – You have to go to the PayPal site if you want to Send money.
Click the PayPal icon to get started and when it asks you to Agree to the terms and conditions, click Yes.
Then click Continue. This opens the main screen from where you can send and receive payments.
To request money:
1 In the To field, enter your friend’s name and email address. Double check that it’s correct.
2 In the From fields, enter your name and email address. Double check that it’s correct.
3 Enter the Amount. Check that you selected the currency you wanted.
Tip: The default is US Dollars. Change this if you want to.
4 Enter a brief message and click Request Money.
To send money:
Basically, it’s just the other way around, except that you have to go to PayPal as well, which defeats the purpose of using it inside Yahoo. Either it’s one or the other surely.
1 In the To field, enter your friend’s name and email address.
2 In the From fields, enter your name and email address.
3 Enter the Amount.
4 Click Continue to PayPal.
And this takes you over to PayPal where you complete the transaction. Note that another web browser or tab will open. You should be brought here automatically but in case you’re not, check for any new browser windows.
Does it work?
1 This is a test payment that I sent to myself.
2 When the receiver, Ivan, gets this email, he has to click the Pay Now button to make the payment.
When I did this test, I had some issues. As I was not in the US, it redirected me to a foreign language version of the PayPal site.
This was understandable (as PayPal thought I was in that country) but it didn’t offer any way to return to the US site without closing the session.
If I simply went to the US PayPal site, I wouldn’t have had this problem.
What are PayPal Fees via Yahoo?
If you send money within the US:
- It’s FREE if your payment is fully funded using your bank account or your PayPal balance
- Credit or debit card fees are 2.9% plus 30 cents and you can choose who pays those fees-either yourself or the person you’re sending money to
If you send US dollars outside the US:
- 0.5-2% if your payment is fully funded using your bank account or PayPal balance. The fee depends on where you send the money
- 3.4%-3.9% plus 30 cents if you pay with a credit card or debit card
- Currency exchange rate includes a 2.5% fee
When you send money, the basic payment sources for your PayPal account will be used.
The following order is where funds will be withdrawn when you send money:
- PayPal balance
- Bank account
- Debit Card
- Credit Card
What currencies does it support?
You can send money to 65 countries. PayPal supports the following currencies:
- Australian Dollars
- British Pounds
- Canadian Dollars
- Czech Koruny
- Danish Kroner
- Euros
- Hong Kong Dollars
- Hungarian Forints
- Israeli Shekels
- Mexican Pesos
- New Zealand Dollars
- Norwegian Kroner
- Polish Zloty
- Singapore Dollars
- Swedish Kroner
- Swiss Francs
- US Dollars
- Yen
Technical Support
I regret to say that Yahoo and PayPal didn’t really cover themselves in glory here.
The PayPal Help site shows no answers for Yahoo. So, they don’t know about Yahoo. Again, I have some sympathy with PayPal as they’re probably writing the tech docs as we write and getting them online.
Yahoo were worse though. I emailed them twice and even sent screenshot. Nothing came back. I also posted some comments on their development blog – where they asked for feedback – and got no response.
I’m a big fan of PayPal, so I wrote on the blog that this Yahoo experiment was damaging the credibility of the PayPal brand.
Here is what I wrote:
Hi Folks,
First, can I say well done to you all! It looks like you guys/girls have turned a corner, esp with the WordPress integration last week.
Anyway, here’s my question and forgive my ignorance re tech terminology.
Is there a security risk if I log into Yahoo, log into PayPal, make a payment – but do not log back out of Yahoo?
In other words, is there any connection between my Yahoo and PP sessions?
I assume not but as these are so closely integrated, I had some concerns that the login/logout aspects could undermine the process, eg if someone used the Back button when logged into Yahoo and tried to ‘retreat’ into my PP account.
Thank you,
Ivan Walsh
http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2009/06/paypal.html
Posted by: Ivan Walsh at June 14, 2009 7:47 AM
I added those comments in June and here we are in Sept and no-one from Yahoo bothered to reply… So much for wanting customer feedback.
Why bother to use Paypal inside Yahoo?
Wouldn’t it be simpler just to go to Paypal, I hear you say.
To be honest, that’s what I’d do.
1 I don’t see too many benefit to Yahoosers (yahoo users) if they have to use this clunky and buggy application.
2. Having to use both systems defeats the purpose and the rush to integrate both these technologies seems to have been too fast, resulting in glitches that you usually don’t find in Yahoo and especially PayPal.
3. Yahoo needs to reconsider what it’s doing here. Rather than throwing features and new apps at users just to get headlines and media coverage is a waste and frankly erodes the credibility of the company.
4. Likewise, PayPal need to get closer to Yahoo as these type of partnership diminish both companies.
5. Maybe an alternative approach would be to send users directly to the PayPal site, but somehow, fast-track them through the payment process. In a similar way that Amazon has with its 1 Click buy option.
A 1 Click pay option would be great.
Can these companies do it?
What do you think?
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