PayPal can allow everyday folks without a business to accept credit card payments. Buyers pay with a credit card that is hooked up to their PayPal account without sharing their financial information. On both counts, that is pretty cool! Many businesses online accept PayPal payments because it is far less expensive to accept credit card payments this way than through other merchants, especially for Canadian business owners, as the banks in Canada have a monopoly on credit card processing and charge BIG bucks per payment process and to set up an account.
PayPal, however, charges you nothing to set up an account or to maintain an account. They take a dividend from each payment that you receive and that's it. (Click here for details on their billing structure.) There are different kinds of accounts and you will benefit most from a business account, as you will be able to accept all forms of payment: balance transfers, credit card and debit card payments, and e-cheques.
PayPal offers a free shopping cart, so that shoppers can purchase multiple items from your web site and pay without sharing their credit card info with you, creating a greater feeling of security and trust. It's not the best shopping cart out there, but I have never minded buying from a web site that uses PayPal's shopping cart. Many web sites use it with success.
I like the detailed information that Paypal provides for each transaction, and they can be pulled up and reviewed for many months after, which makes accounting easier if you lose receipts (which I do all the time and this is why Cheryl does our accounting!).
It is easy to invoice customers with PayPal and they needn't have an account to pay you. They can make a one-time payment by entering their credit card information into the invoice form, just like they would if shopping at any web site (still, without passing their financial information onto you). You can even invoice through your Outlook Express by adding PayPal buttons directly into your email. (For more info, click here.)
To sign up with Paypal, just click here, choose 'sign up' and it will guide you through the form. There is an extremely low learning curve with PayPal.
