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Accept Credit Cards Online The Cheap Way
- Categorized in: Website Development
Very often, we get asked by small businesses how they can accept credit card payments online.
What we tell them is that, unfortunately, if you want a full-blown credit card and shopping cart system on your web site, it does cost money. And, because many of our readers and customers run very small businesses (or are sole traders), the benefits of online credit card systems just don't outweigh the significant costs.
Enter PayPal, a system which will suit many small business operators, that allows you to set up your site to accept credit card payments with no initial outlay of money. The only cost of the service is a fee per transaction of between 1 and 3%.
Paypal offers you a couple of ways to accept credit card payments.
One is to actually have a link on your web site. When the customer clicks on it, they enter a secure site that actually resides on the Paypal domain. They simply follow the prompts, enter their details, click on submit, and the money is put into your account and the customer is returned to any page on your web site you want.
The second way is to send an invoice via email. You simply fill in the details within your Paypal account screen and hit Send. The customer receives an email with details and a link which takes them to a secure site for payment.
As mentioned above, the advantage of Paypal for small businesses is that there is no upfront fees whatsoever to join, unlike other merchant systems which can cost you hundreds or even thousands to set up and then charge you annual fees on top of that.
To find out more, visit the Paypal web site at www.paypal.com
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PayPal is not a good method, at all. They exert way too much control over your money. I myself just received an email from them, out of the blue, where they are now placing all my received funds in a 21-day "pending balance," which prevents me from accessing those funds for that time frame. PayPal stinks. They act like a bank, but since they're a company, they do not have to abide by standard federal banking regulations...regulations that have been put into place to PROTECT us. If I had my way, I'd shut them down. What they do is illegal, all day long, and since Ebay and PayPal are two intertwined companies, the potential has always been there for them to take advantage of everyone that uses their sites. Ebay stresses to use PayPal, but hassles you if you choose another method, or your own merchant account. And if you use PayPal and list an item for sale on Ebay, you get charged a whopping FOUR times for that one single item. Ebay charges you for the ad, then charges you another fee once the item sells, then PayPal charges you a credit card percentage rate and transaction fee on the money you receive. It's ridiculous profit mongering, and considering how many complaint sites there are about PayPal horror stories as well as Ebay, I wouldn't trust either of these companies further than I could throw them.
I totally agree, i am a freelance florist and every time a payment goes through they hold the payment for 21 days by this time i have accepted an order to deliver flowers, customer has them but i have no money for up to 3 weeks. They have supposedly refunded customers but customer says no that the debit has come from their card, so for a £30 sale i have spent hrs trying to still get my money from customer, letter debt collector the list goes on. What should be simple exercise has turned in to nightmare i have no choice now but to look at alternative method as having payments withheld on daily basis now. DON'T USE THIS SERVICE IF YOU NEED YOUR MONEY NOW?
After eight months of using Paypal for my shop they started putting my money on hold for 21 days and their explanation was that I was at high risk for a charge back. I have 100% positive feedback and no complaints, and I don't use e-bay. Now I've noticed they are charging 5.9 to 6% on all of my sales instead of the 2.9% + .30. Not only that but they charge their percentage fee on state sales tax and shipping also. They just took .85 out a $14.00 shipping fee.
Paypal is great for buyers but not so great for sellers. The big risk for sellers is that any buyer can dispute a charge for any reason up to 45 days after the transaction. Paypal will immediately grab the funds from your account leaving you at the mercy of the buyer, who may claim for instance that the goods never arrived. Many scams take advantage of this. It is however very easy and widely accepted. Anyone with a Paypal account can simply send you money via email or via your checkout