Fontdue. No Paypal?

Supherb
Supherb Posts: 9
in Type Business

I’m really frustrated right now. I genuinely loved the Fontdue platform, but after investing a lot of time and money into building my website, I later discovered that they don’t support PayPal for client payments in the U.S.

That’s a huge setback for me and honestly has killed my motivation to keep working on the site. From my experience, most people I know here primarily use PayPal rather than the other payment options available.

Does anyone know of a simple workaround to integrate PayPal with a Fontdue site? If not, are there any alternative platforms similar to Fontdue that do support it?


Thanks!

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Comments

  • Johannes Neumeier
    Johannes Neumeier Posts: 405
    Without commenting on Fontdue per se…

    My experience is exactly opposite. Nobody cares to pay via Paypal, whereas Credit Card is the world wide business payment form (and Stripe, and Fontdue by extension, provide a lot of other payment methods, e.g. wire transfer, other locally established services). Paypal may be pretty handy for international money transfers, but in terms of e-commerce, I think you are perceiving something as a problem that is not.
  • Johannes Neumeier
    Johannes Neumeier Posts: 405
    And to comment on Fontdue per se... the entire payment flow is built around a Stripe subvendor setup, where Fontdue never has to collect or deal with any money directly. Stripe just subtracts their fee and the Fontdue percent fee from the customer payment and sends it their way, the end customer money goes straight to the foundry, which is very elegant. Implementing Paypal or any other kind of non-Stripe integration would mean Fontdue would have to implement a tooooon of money handling (collecting, splitting, royalties, world-wide payout, tax obligations on top). If I were Fontdue, never in a million years would I add Paypal "just because". People don't seem to understand how much work payment gateways are, and how much of a blessing Stripe is with handling all that behind one service and easy API, plus their subvendor setup makes it all even more perfect for this. 
    Compare that to supporting customers that build entire websites on a platform without familiarizing themselves with the available payment options...  :|
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 347
    edited 3:52PM
    My impression is that PayPal is really important. Stripe doesn't work in many countries, and many digital nomads (or nomads by the force of circumstances) can't easily open bank accounts, get cards, etc.  Also, there is still some skepticism about paying with cards directly.

    Some people gave up on the type business because PayPal doesn't work in their countries. I didn't explore that argument further.

    I would say that what is described here as the Fontdue options is the western default point of view. (which is a legitimate business strategy, if it is a strategy and not a misconception).
  • Supherb
    Supherb Posts: 9
    edited 5:56PM

    For over six years, I’ve been running a very successful online business (unrelated to type), and the largest portion of our customers—both domestic and international—use PayPal.

    I want to be clear that this isn’t criticism of Fontdue—I really love how easy the platform is to use, how you can customize everything and their customer support is amazing. However, the limited payment options (no PayPal)  are a bottleneck for growing our U.S.-based type business.

    As Igor mentioned, there’s still some hesitation around paying directly with cards. On top of that, most customers aren’t willing to create a new Stripe account just to purchase fonts.

    With that in mind, again, can anyone recommend alternative platforms similar to Fontdue that also support PayPal?

  • Stuart Sandler
    Stuart Sandler Posts: 401
    Ahem . . . https://typedrawers.com/discussion/5527/need-a-foundry-website-font-bros-has-you-covered
  • Thierry Blancpain
    Thierry Blancpain Posts: 223
    I’ve run a successful type foundry for over 16 years, and we haven’t offered Paypal payments in the last 13 years or so. You absolutely do not need Paypal as a payment option to run a successful foundry.

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