Since we find ourselves often reporting about PayPal usage in Israel, I thought our readers would want to know that PayPal is now available in Hebrew! Well, kind of. Here’s the link, but no matter which language I select for the interface (top-right corner of the screen), I see English. It seems that the roll out hasn’t been so smooth. But PayPal has a .co.il domain name, so that’s a good sign. Here’s a screenshot in the meantime:
This is an important end to a serious usage barrier that existed until now for PayPal in Israel. Israeli merchants couldn’t really use PayPal as long as the interface for customers was in English, and it certainly makes life easier for them in terms of setting up their accounts.
It’s kind of funny that PayPal released a Hebrew version, since last week I gave a lecture to a group of Gush Katif evacuees on how to use PayPal in order to sell their art to a wider market. (Fact: unemployment in Gush Katif hovered around 0%. Since the Jewish residents were removed from the area, their employment rate is around 30%.) The group did not speak English, and found the English interface to be daunting. I told them that PayPal had mentioned plans to make PayPal Hebrew, but I didn’t foresee that happening any time soon. Nice to see I was wrong.
Here’s my presentation (in Hebrew, with English screenshots), which is a basic intro to getting started with ecommerce and PayPal:
We’re always on the lookout for interesting uses of social media by companies and organizations, and right now there are two groups on Facebook using photos as part of extensive social media campaigns. One is the Inbal Hotel, which is holding a contest whereby the person with the best photos of Jerusalem wins a night for two at the hotel (pick me, pick me!). The second is Nefesh b’Nefesh, with their “This is my Israel” photo contest. Read on to learn more about how each of these organizations is using photos and social media to engage people with their brands.
Inbal Hotel – the first in their field
Inbal Hotel Facebook photo contest
It’s easy to jump on the social media bandwagon once it’s already moving, but to be the first to get the bandwagon going in your field can feel a little daunting. As far as I know, the Inbal, a hotel in Jerusalem, is the first Israeli hotel to really go all the way, social media speaking. From their gung-ho presence “all over” Facebook and Twitter, it’s easily apparent that Ruth Waiman, the enthusiastic Executive Assistant along with Online Marketing Manager Pinny Orzach, the SEO/SEM person, have been given the OK to really give social media a try.
It really is a risk when a company decides to put a substantial amount of employee hours towards a social media presence. There could be growing pains when a conventional company puts itself out there in the world of social media. Often there is a slight image change as the company shows itself to be more hip and young through their social media presence.
You’ve got to be at least a little creative and really quite proactive to keep your social media presence alive and well. It’s not just about posting, “The chef is now cooking duck for dinner.” It’s about being cool, fun and interactive.
The Inbal Hotel’s latest photograph competition is exactly that – cool, fun and interactive. Actually, the beauty of their competition is that it isn’t about the Inbal. It’s about Jerusalem. You can enter the competition by posting up to three photographs you’ve taken of Jerusalem on their Facebook wall. At the end of October the best photograph will be chosen and the winner will get a night for two at the hotel.
When I wrote to Ruth about their latest contest, she explained:
To further boost our interactions on Facebook on both English and Hebrew walls, the photo competition was launched and has been receiving enthusiastic feedback from the outset.
Having now received close to 80 photos on the combined pages, we’ve definitely noticed an increase of fans and interactions and are hoping to involve external photography professionals for the judging due to take place early next month.
Ruth also mentioned all the events they’ve been hosting at the hotel, including the WordCamp afterparty (which we, as the WordCamp organizers, are really grateful for) at the beginning of September.
Nefesh B’Nefesh’s “This is my Israel” Campaign
Nefesh B'Nefesh This is My Israel campaign
Slightly before the Inbal’s competition commenced, Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN), the organization that supports Jews who move to Israel, started a photo contest on their facebook page. To participate in this competition, people were requested to take a picture of themselves holding a sign that says “This is my ISRAEL” somewhere in Israel. The place where they are photographed should be one that they see as truly representing Israel for them.
Also, a fun campaign that is not about the actual organization behind the campaign, but instead about “you” and Israel.
What a wonderful use of social media to get people involved in an organization and, of course, more connected to each other and Israel.
It is currently voting time on the NBN campaign so you can go to the album and click “like” on your favourites. The winning photographer will receive a Flip video camera. Sweet.
Goals and drawbacks
The main goals of campaigns of this kind are exposure and building a certain image and relationship with your followers. As long as your campaign really is, as I said, fun, cool and interactive, and not all about you, the image and relationship aspects will probably be fine. The only problem with these types of contests is that if you want to participate in the contest, you might hesitate telling others about it since the last thing you need is more competition!
(Of course that brings up the question, why am I writing about it here if I plan on entering the Inbal contest? I suppose my blogging addiction is stronger than my “I need to win” attitude.)
Otherwise, both of these contests are a great and fun use of Facebook.
And here are my pictures
So yes, I plan to enter three of my pictures in the Inbal competition. Here are the photographs I’m considering. Which ones do you think could be winners? Help me choose! I really could use a night in a fancy hotel.
We at illuminea get quite a lot of PayPal support requests due to the fact that if you search for PayPal Israel on Google we appear high on the first page of results.
Well, we just found that PayPal Israel has established a local support number!
The number is 073-713-7777 and is open 9am to 6pm Sunday through Thursday.
I had a PayPal question so I decided to call and see how the support was. The rep was very friendly and helpful, and it turns out he’s located in Dublin. He told me that since this support service is new, the Dublin office is taking Israeli support questions until about the end of July, when the Israel office will have finished setting up Israeli support agents.
He also told me you can email your questions to israel@paypal.com. This is a temporary address until the Israeli support team is up and running.
Hurray!
Here are some other PayPal posts we’ve written that you may find helpful:
You might have sunshine on a cloudy day, but you definitely don’t have the month of May unless you know what’s going on this month!
Here are some of the hottest business events going on in Israel this spring-time:
May 4, 2010. Ramat Gan, Israel. Techonomy 2010! 6 new companies will present their new products for the first time on stage in front of the Techonomy crowd and an expert panel of judges. Live updates will be taken by twitter from the audience and those watching on-line.
May 6, 2010. Jerusalem, Israel. Next Jerusalem Tweet-up HaGov / The Lion’s Den is a great new kosher bar and the perfect location for this event. Happy Hour specials last until 9:30. (That’s why the little Twitter Bird up there has passed out — no, he is not dead.)
May 17, 2010. Haifa, Israel. Web Personalization: From ICQ to Facebook. Personalization involves the use of technology to accommodate the differences between individuals. Personalization is increasingly becoming a factor in Web applications in education, healthcare, and business settings. This lecture will focus on current Web personalization trends in the hi-tech industry.
To check out what other exciting event are happening this may visit our May calendar page. To plan ahead, view illuminea’s calendar page.
Ever since Barak Obama managed to raise $6.9 million out of $25 million through small donations on the web, 92% of which were $100 or less, many involved in the non-profit world started to understand the potential of crowd sourcing small “micro-donations” instead of, or in addition to, the traditional approach of getting small numbers of large donations. Micro-donations are generally under $10 per person, with the idea being to crowdsource very large numbers of donors. A good example of an organization that maximizes the potential of micro-donations is Kiva. Kiva’s fund-raising activity takes place almost exclusively on the web, where it allows donors to make small donations to finance small businesses in developing countries. Kiva uses the web and social media brilliantly (their email newsletter is one of the best I’ve seen), and their emphasis on the fact that donations are “person-to-person,” and the transparent nature of their enterprise succinctly represents the personal culture that users of social media expect and appreciate.
round-up simplifies micro-donations
A new initiative in micro-donations came to Israel in 2008 in the form of round-up, or “Igul Letova” in Hebrew. round-up is a non-profit that enables people to give micro-donations to non-profits of their choice by rounding up purchases on credit cards or by rounding down salaries. The option to give automatically every month by rounding down one’s salary was recently added by the organization.
I interviewed Vered Shavit Mazor, Manager at round-up, to learn more about their initiative.
Me: How can people join the new employee salary round-up option?
Vered: This is being implemented in companies that are characterized by an ongoing connection (like computerized payment or collection) with a large user base. Until September of this year, the only option for rounding up was available credit card companies. In September, we introduced the option for companies that use Hilan Tech to manage their salaries to offer round-up to their employees. Hilan Tech developed a unique module for their system which enables direct donation from an employee’s salary slip. Amdocs and Matrix are already offering their employees to round-up.
The way the rounding up works is as follows: an employee chooses to donate a small amount on a monthly basis by rounding down their salary to the nearest 5 NIS, 10 NIS or 20 NIS, which would yield an average monthly donation of NIS 2.5, NIS 5 or NIS 10 accordingly. The employee chooses which cause or category of causes will receive their donation. In the event that the company is interested in doing so, the module can also enable the employer to match the employee’s donation, for the same cause.
Me: How does the employee choose the cause they are donating to?
Vered: Employees can choose to donate to a minimum of one or a maximum of three causes from the list of eligible causes compiled by round-up. The donations can be made to general categories of non-profits, like health or education, and/or to specific designated NPOs. The employee’s donation will be divided equally between the selected causes. In the event that a general category is chosen, the donation will be divided equally between all the NPOs in that category.
The amount of the donation will appear on the salary slip as a debit line and the cause/s for the donation and the amounts transferred that month shall also be presented. If the employer matched the donation, an additional line item will appear on the salary slip noting the employer’s donation. round-up transfers the monies in full according to the specifications of the donors, based on a report received from the employer via Hilan Tech.
Me: What does a company need to do to join?
Vered: The implementation of round-up is via the salary accountant and/or the human resources department, and based on the Hilan Tech salary system which has been configured to handle the matter in a simple and effective way.
Me: How did round-up select the organizations that receive the donations?
Vered: A public committee founded by round-up and headed by President of the Supreme Court (ret.) Judge Meir Shamgar prepared a list of categories and foundations that can be selected by donors. All the causes in the list successfully passed the “Seal of Transparency” test of Midot, an organization that rates and screens non-profit organizations.
The list of eligible causes currently includes over 40 foundations in the following categories: health, education, children and youth at risk, welfare and employment, women in distress, culture and recreation, communities in need and new immigrants, quality of the environment, tolerance and human rights, and people with disabilities.
Me: What’s the big vision behind round-up?
Vered: Several shekels from many employees can total tens of hundreds of millions of shekels per year for advancing social causes.
Me: Thanks Vered!
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While round-up doesn’t specifically use the web or social media to crowdsource their donations, the approach to micro-donations via credit cards or salary slips is simple and therefore effective. Additional details about round-up can be found on the website: www.round-up.org.il.
Still confused by how to use PayPal in Israel? You’re not alone. No matter how many times we write it up and try to understand all the ins and outs, and jump for joy over new developments, we still have more questions. Ever since PayPal started paying attention to Israeli online payments, we’ve eagerly been following the developments along the way, and have even become so PayPal obsessed that we’re now considered PayPal experts.
But of course we’re obsessed since being able to easily accept and send online payments is crucial to any kind of online commercial activity. If you’re driving traffic to your ecommerce site with SEO (search engine optimization) and/or social media marketing, you need to see measurable results and often that includes making sales. The ability to use PayPal or other online gateways without having to sell our unborn children (someone on twitter actually made that comparison) can make all of that possible.
Luckily, Nissim Ohayon, Sr. Business Development Manager at PayPal Israel came to Jerusalem Web Professionals last night to try to calm our anxiety.
Here were the major questions and answers from the evening
- Can you withdraw US dollars in Israel?
No, you can only withdraw money in the currency of the country you’re in. In Israel, you can withdraw shekels. In the US, you can withdraw dollars.
- Can I use a local Israeli credit card like Visa Cal or Isracard to RECEIVE money?
No, but now it’s not really an issue since you can withdraw funds to your Israeli bank account.
- Can you use a local Israeli credit card to SEND money?
No, only PayPal or international credit cards at this point. No plans yet to make this available.
- How can I fill up my PayPal account with money?
Right now, the only way to fill up your account is through getting paid by someone else. No plans announced yet for when you can transfer funds from your bank account to your paypal account.
- There are 3 types of PayPal accounts – Personal, Premier, and Business. What’s the difference?
Personal: You can receive payments via PayPal only.
Premier: You can accept credit cards. For individuals who buy and sell online.
Business: You can accept credit cards. For merchants who buy and sell online.
- What are the fees associated with the Merchant (Business or Premier) accounts?
You can look at the PayPal Israel site to see a list of transaction fees.
- Are there any fees associated with the Personal account?
PayPal to PayPal payments are free. However, let’s look at the following example. Let’s say you have a personal account and someone is supposed to pay you $10. If their account has $0, the money will come from their bank account or credit card. If it comes from their credit card, you pay 5.4% fee to PayPal.
- Can you set up a PayPal Debit Card in Israel?
Not at the present time.
- Are there any plans for Hebrew integration, Hebrew buttons, etc.?
Not at the present time.
Handy Israel-Specific Send, Receive, Withdraw VISUAL
For Web Developers
Nissim discussed X.com, a developer network community for developers looking to extend PayPal’s usage with new applications.
Alternatives to PayPal in Israel for accepting local credit cards
Since PayPal doesn’t accept local Israeli credit cards, Tranzila came up as the only alternative to PayPal to accept local Israeli credit cards. The problem for small businesses in Israel is that Tranzilla charges a monthly fee which is not cost effective for minimal monthly transactions.
Conclusion
In short, Nissim reminded me what a great option PayPal is for safely accepting international payments. He also emphasized what a huge marketplace PayPal is with over 200 million users and $3Billion in play every 2 weeks.
It was also so nice to see a real person behind the faceless company come to Jerusalem to explain the nitty gritty and answer our zillions of questions.
Unfortunately, PayPal Israel doesn’t look like it will be in Hebrew or accept local Israeli credit cards any time soon.
For more questions, you can follow Nissim on Twitter, or ask questions here in the comments. He’s been very responsive here on our other posts about PayPal.
More on using PayPal in Israel:
There always seems to be confusion regarding how Israelis can use PayPal – can they use it in their currency, i.e. Shekels? Can they withdraw funds? Are there limits they should know about?
Almost a year ago I blogged about an announcement on the PayPal blog regarding new PayPal currencies, one of which was the Israeli Shekel. Despite that post, some questions still persisted, and the accuracy of the information was doubted.
Well, I’m happy to say that I now have the latest info regarding PayPal and Israel straight from PayPal! The following information was provided by Nissim Ohayon, Sr. Business Development Manager at PayPal Israel:
While PayPal services are not fully rolled out for Israeli merchants, thousands of Israeli merchants are using PayPal for cross border sales with great success. Here are some links that will direct you to the products and features available to Israeli merchants today:
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- Main PayPal web page for Israeli users and merchants: www.paypal.com/il.
- Small to Medium Merchants:
- Email Payments – Click here for full details
- No integration required.
- Accept credit/debit card as well as PayPal balance and echeck payments immediately.
- Website Payments Standard (WPS) – Click here for full details including fees and integration tools.
- Simple to Integrate. Select from one of three easy integration options.Click here for details.
- No need to “qualify.” Just open a premium or business account online and follow the instructions.
- Your site can be integrated and ready to accept credit card payments in a single day.
- Click here for an online demo (may take a few minutes to load).
- To see if your shopping cart software already has a kit for Website Payments Standard, please follow this link.
- Merchants with their own merchant account:
- Express Checkout (EC) – Click here for full details including fees and integration tools.
- Some advanced programming may be required.
- To see if your shopping cart software already has a kit for PayPal Express Checkout, please follow this link.
- If your shopping cart is not listed on the page at the previous link, please direct your developers to this link to review the API documentation on how they can integrate PayPal Express Checkout to your site.
- Your account may need to pre-qualify for Express Checkout, so please contact me directly if you wish to integrate this product into your site.
A few important notes for Israel-based users and merchants to consider:
- Withdrawing funds is now available directly in Israel, in New Israeli Shekels via an Israeli-issued Visa card. Since Visa cards in Israel are typically linked to a bank account, those funds do settle directly into your bank account, via your credit card. Please note that this feature is restricted to a $750/day limit. We have plans to improve on the withdrawal methods for Israeli accounts in the coming months, so please stay tuned.
- PayPal users and merchants that have a US bank account may link it to their PayPal account even if their PayPal account is here in Israel. This allows Israeli merchants and users to move funds in and out of PayPal directly to/from their US bank account without the daily limits mentioned above.
- The PayPal web site will not be available in Hebrew in 2009. This means that Hebrew sites will not be able to integrate with the service yet.
To get started, open a PayPal Premier or Business account to start accepting credit cards and PayPal payments today by clicking here.
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Note what it says about withdrawing funds: it can only be done with a Visa brand credit card, and the money is transferred through the Visa network and arrives in their bank account. This is because the overwhelming majority of Visa cards in Israel are linked to a checking account. So when Visa goes into the account to withdraw funds, funds will be deposited instead (or, at least offset from some of the withdrawals for Visa transactions).
I hope this information is helpful!
Here are some upcoming events posted on our Israeli hi-tech and business events calendar. Check out the calendar to see a full list of all the events and conferences in March 2009.
March 2, 2009. Avenue, Airport City, Israel. GameIS2009 – 5th Yearly Israeli Game Convention. This is a full day event about interactive entertainment and the people who make it all happen. They will cover everything from high end international business trends to how to get in the industry.
March 2-3, 2009. Tel-Aviv, Israel. IPv6 Forum Israel Day Conference at ISOC. The agenda includes speakers from the IPv6 Forum , Juniper Networks, Cisco Systems, the IDF, Bechtel, STKI, ECI Telecom, PurePeak and Tel-Aviv University.
March 3, 2009. Jerusalem, Israel PresenTenses’s Leaders in Philanthropy Panel will bring together three leading foundation executives who will share their experiences approving funding for the best and the greatest Jewish causes, reveal insider fundraising secrets and discuss the Jewish philanthropy climate during the financial crisis. *A unique, individual Q&A session will follow the panel, providing opportunity for brief one-on-one introductions.* (Hebrew)
March 4, 2009. Ramat Gan, Israel. MySQL User Group Meetup. Agenda: 16:00-16:30 – Gathering & Registration; 16:30-17:15 – Eliran Malki, MORE IT – MySQL success story; 17:15-17:25 – Break; 17:25-18:10 – Shlomi Noach, InterBit – MyISAM & InnoDB Tuning Fundamentals; 18:10-18:20 – Break; 18:20-19:05 – Moshe Kaplan, Rocketier – Sharing Design overview
March 12, 2009, Holon, Israel. GarageGeeks Session: Lost in Conversion? “Future of Web Analytics” Web analytics and conversion optimization is probably the biggest untapped opportunity within online marketing, particularly in a time of economic downturn. Within this GarageGeeks session, you be exposed to best practices and new developments in measurability, user behavior analysis and proven conversion rate tactics.
March 29, 2009. Airport City, Israel. TheMarker.Comvention and Social Media Summit: Israel which will explore the state of Social Media, where things are headed in the future and where the money is today and will be tomorrow.
March 31, 2009. Tel Aviv, Israel. Techonomy The event that delves into the business and economy behind the Web 2.0 technological revolution.
See all upcoming events and conferences in Israel for March 2009
Here are some upcoming events posted on our Israeli hi-tech and business events calendar. Check out the calendar to see a full list of all the events and conferences in February 2009.
February 12, 2009, Jerusalem, Israel. Jerusalem Twestival, over 180 cities worldwide will be hosting Twestival 2009 to raise money for Charity:Water which provides clean drinking water to villages in Africa. More details.
February 15-20, 2009. Jerusalem, Israel. Jerusalem International Book Fair is a unique biennial event which draws over 1200 publishers from more that 40 countries who display more than 100,000 books in different languages. More details.
February 16, 2009. Ranaana, Israel. Lecture by Prof. Judith Donath on social media and networks “ Visible interactions: The Design of Sociable Media “Designers of online environments shape the social potential of these spaces far more profoundly than do the architects of our familiar physical spaces: they determine whether participants are anonymous or named, whether history persists, whether reputations are prominently displayed or privately discussed.
February 17-19, 2009. Eilat, Israel. International Renewable Energy Conference & Exhibition. Technologies, Investments, Implementations and Regional Development. The focus will be on formulating strategies to fight the global energy crisis. Examples of successful industrial or governmental strategies will be presented. Networking will be conducive to transforming specific threats into business opportunities. More details.
See all upcoming events and conferences in Israel for February 2009
November 3, 2008. Tel Aviv, Israel. Beta Goes Public @ The Barbie. Beta, Israel’s hi-tech rock band, launches its Public Beta tour with a performance at the Barbie club. The performance includes original songs, “upgraded” cover versions of rock hits from the 70s and 80s, and some comedy sketches all based on the Israeli hi-tech culture. More details
November 4, 2008. Netanya, Israel. The Entrepreneurs club is hosting Asaf Peled, Benny Shneider, and Yoram Shamir at Cisco HQ. More details
November 4, 2008. Tel Aviv, Israel. Building a Social Network of Enviornmental Activists in Israel hosted by Jeff Pulver and Eilon Schwartz. More details.
November 5, 2008. Tel Aviv, Israel. Breakfast with Jeff Pulver and friends. If you’ve never been to one of Jeff’s breakfasts, watch this video: Introducing the Personal Social Networking Toolkit More details.
November 5, 2008. Holon, Israel. GarageGeeks are hosting Yahoo! BOSS(Build your Own Search Service) with Yossi Vardi. They’ll be discussing BOSS technology, with Q&A for Yahoo’s leading product folks headed by Bill Michels, GM of Yahoo! Search BOSS; Eran Palmon, Head of BOSS Egnineering; Ronny Lempel, Head of the Yahoo! Haifa Research Lab.More details.
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