We added PayPal to Vehiso websites because of a moment like this one. Picture a buyer who found your website ten minutes ago. They like the car. They like the price. They click to reserve it, and they are asked for a sixteen-digit card number, an expiry date and the three numbers on the back.
And they hesitate.
Not because anything is wrong with your site. Because they have never heard of you before tonight, and handing card details to a business they met ten minutes ago feels like a leap. So they close the tab and tell themselves they will ring in the morning. Some of them do. Some of them do not.
The same buyer would have paid with PayPal without a second thought. They use it everywhere else. It is a checkout they already know, with a login they already have, and no card number changes hands.
That is the whole reason Vehiso has a PayPal integration.
Why PayPal, when you already take cards
We have written before about adding Square for dealers who already run their card payments through it. PayPal is a slightly different argument. It is less about which processor the dealer uses and more about which one the buyer trusts.
A familiar way to pay makes it easier to commit. Every buyer who commits online is one fewer enquiry going cold while it waits for a callback.
You do not have to choose between PayPal and cards, either. Vehiso also supports Stripe, Square and Blink, so you can offer PayPal next to card payments and let each buyer pick. The one who wants to type a card number can. The one who would rather log in to PayPal can do that instead.
For the bigger picture on choosing processors, our guide to online payments for car dealers goes through the options.
What the PayPal integration does
Anywhere a buyer pays a deposit or reservation fee on your Vehiso website, PayPal can be one of the ways they pay.
Pay with PayPal from the listing. A PayPal button sits in the reservation step on every vehicle listing. Buyers pay a deposit or reservation fee without leaving your website to find some other way to pay.
Payment requests paid by PayPal. When you send a buyer a payment request from the DMS, they can settle it with PayPal from the payment page, the same as on a listing. Handy for the balance ahead of handover.
Automatic vehicle reservation. The moment a PayPal payment is captured, the vehicle is marked as reserved in your stock list. Other buyers see it as reserved rather than available, and you stop fielding enquiries on a car that is already spoken for.
Recorded against the deal. Deposits, reservation fees and full payments taken through PayPal are logged against the right deal in the Vehiso DMS as soon as they are taken. One place to see what has been paid on a car, rather than PayPal in one tab and your DMS in another.
Refunds from the DMS. If a deal falls through, refund the PayPal payment from the deal in Vehiso. The money goes back to the buyer through PayPal and the refund is recorded alongside the original payment.
Open all hours. PayPal payments work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A buyer browsing on a Sunday evening can secure the car there and then, rather than waiting for Monday.
Where it fits in a sale
PayPal is also one of the providers that can take the deposit in our buy online checkout. A buyer works through cash or finance, part-exchange, extras, delivery and a handover date, then pays the deposit with the provider you have connected. If that is PayPal, they pay with PayPal, and the car is reserved.
After that, the order can appear in the buyer's "My garage" on your website through the customer portal, where they follow it through to handover.
So the journey runs: find the car, reserve it, pay the way you trust, follow the order. All of it on your website, under your name.
Setting it up
Connecting PayPal is a short, guided setup. You do not need a developer or an agency.
1. Connect your PayPal business account. You need a PayPal business account. From it, you create an app in PayPal's developer dashboard, copy its client ID and secret, and paste them into your Vehiso payment settings. That is the only technical step, and it is a copy and paste.
2. Set your deposit amount. Decide how much buyers pay as a deposit or reservation fee, either as a fixed amount or a percentage of the vehicle price.
3. Switch on PayPal payments. Turn it on in your settings, and the PayPal button appears on your vehicle listings and payment pages.
4. Let it run. From here, every PayPal payment reserves the vehicle and is recorded against the deal without anything extra for your team to do.
It is worth taking a small test payment yourself before you tell anyone, so you have seen the whole flow from the buyer's side.
What it costs
Vehiso does not charge a platform fee or take a cut of payments taken through PayPal. There is no separate integration fee.
PayPal's own standard fees apply to each transaction, the same as anywhere else you accept PayPal. Those are set by PayPal, not by us, so check your PayPal account for the rates that apply to you. What you keep from every deposit is the payment less PayPal's fee, and nothing else.
A few honest limits
The integration connects to a PayPal business account. If you do not have one yet, that is the first job.
Setup involves creating an app in PayPal's developer dashboard to get the client ID and secret. It sounds more technical than it is, but it is a step in PayPal's dashboard rather than a single "connect" button, which is different from how the Square connection works.
PayPal's fees are PayPal's. We do not add to them, but we cannot remove them either.
And PayPal secures the car. It does not do the rest of the deal for you. Part-exchange, paperwork and handover are still yours, which is where the rest of the DMS comes in.
Which plan it is on
The PayPal integration is included in every paid Vehiso plan, from £49 a month, with no separate integration fee. It comes alongside the rest of what is on those plans: your dealer website, the DMS, online payments through Stripe and Square as well, and the AI tools.
Start with a free seven-day trial of a paid plan, no credit card required, connect your PayPal business account and take a test payment before you go live.
If you have been losing deposits to buyers who would not hand over a card number, give them the checkout they already use. See the details on the PayPal integration page, or compare plans on our pricing page.
More from the Vehiso blog
- Square for car dealers: card payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay on your website
- Introducing Buy Online: let buyers reserve a car from your website in one checkout
- Introducing the Customer Portal: My garage for every buyer
- Car dealer online payments: Stripe, PayPal, Square and Blink compared
- Accepting online deposits on your dealer website
- Car dealer invoicing: a practical guide
