Since PayPal announced earlier this week that it has surpassed 100 million users worldwide, I thought this would be a good time to discuss the merits of Paypal from a business perspective.
Many online buyers feel Paypal is a safe, easy and convenient way to pay online because they do not need to share their financial information with every online merchant. But I’ve come across several merchants who seem leary of setting up Paypal as their credit card processor, perhaps because the Paypal name has been used by spammers and phishers to try to con people out of account information. This would be like uninstalling Microsoft Windows because so many hackers target viruses to Windows users (why? because so many people USE it).
Paypal is one of the most economical way for merchants to gain the ability to take credit cards over the internet. Paypal accounts have no start up costs and you are only charged when you make a credit card sale. Most merchant accounts charge ongoing statement fees and annual or monthly fees whether you make a sale or not.
Of course, there are times when another merchant service or full merchant account may better suit your business. I will try to cover more options and various scenarios as I can.
More information about Paypal can be found at https://www.paypal.com.