What’s the easiest way to pay for things online?

There are few things more annoying than buying something online from a new website (which you might not go to again) and having to create a new account. Each time you do feels like:

– Just another password you might forget

– Another source of annoying marketer emails

– And/or another potentially hackable place of storage for your personal information

That’s where PayPal comes into play:

You’ve probably seen this PayPal (or Google, Amazon or Apple Pay) icon on most of the non-Amazon shopping websites you visit. Stop glossing over it! It’s a massive time saver. Once you go through the initial account setup on PayPal’s website, enter in your addresses and connect your bank account/credit card, all your information is consolidated and ready to be shared with any website who chooses to accept it (there are many!).

Going through this process generally allows you to not have to create a new separate account at the website you are visiting and checkout time goes down drastically. A few FAQs you are probably wondering about:

Well, can’t PayPal be hacked just like the other websites?

Of course, but PayPal has been in business for several decades now and is one of the pioneers in the online payment space. I trust their encryption team more than a random retail company with a small staff which just launched last year.

What about returns and order history?

So the one downside is, if you plan on ordering from that website periodically in the future, you won’t have your order history all in one place. We suggest that if you are buying from a website you do shop at regularly, it likely makes sense to create an account with them and simply use PayPal to handle your final payment.

Returns with PayPal are still a breeze. At the bottom of most websites you shop from you will find a link which allows you to process a return/exchange. Typically all you need is an order number and zip code/email address and the rest is easy. Payment is refunded back to PayPal and, if you paid with a credit card, back to you original card. The whole process is seamless and involves no extra steps on your end.

How’s PayPal compare to Amazon, Apple and Google Pay?

They’re all great and make our lives as consumers easier to manage. PayPal just seems to be the most widely used and will likely stay that way until Apple finds a way to really breakthrough.

We strongly recommend everyone uses PayPal when paying for things online. It’ll save you a lot of time and make your life just a little bit easier. Many of our favorite products, like AllBirds, are #PayPalFriendly and you can see a full list of them here.