South West eCommerce

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