PayPal started life as a consumer to consumer money transfer system. It soon became the number one payment method for online auctions at Ebay and was eventually acquired by Ebay in July 2002.
PayPal’s popularity was in no small way due to the ease of use, as all that was required to use it was an email address.
PayPal quickly evolved and developed business services allowing merchants to sell goods online.
PayPal doesn’t require you to have your own merchant account to start selling online.
PayPal currently offers three types of accounts:
Personal: This is the standard PayPal account used for money transfer between individuals and online shopping.
Premier: For buying and selling. Accept credit card,debit card, and bank account payments. Used for individuals and must use the individual name
Business: This is perfect for your online business.Same as premier but supports multiple users and is associated with a business name.
One of the most important aspects of PayPal are that there are no setup fees .
This means that it doesn’t cost you any money until you have actually made money as the fees are transaction based.
The fees vary depending on whether you are USA or Non USA .Here are the UK paypal fees.
Main PayPal Features
- Shopping Carts: PayPal has a free customizable built in shopping cart or integrates with hundreds of available shopping carts if you already have one.
- Subscriptions/Recurring Payments: You can set up recurring payments – ideal for membership sites.
- Donations: Probably the most commonly seen PayPal button.
- Accept Multiple currencies– Accept payments in US, Australian and Canadian Dollars, UK pounds, Yen and Euro.
- Real time notifications of payments.
- Test transactions– Carry out test transactions in a test environment so you are sure they work ok.
- Credit Cards Accepted : The buyer can pay by credit card and no longer need to have a PayPal account to make a purchase. This used to be one of the main drawbacks to using PayPal. A PayPal account is now optional and not mandatory. It also means that a small business doesn’t need to go through the expense and hassle of getting their own merchant account before they can start selling online.
- Customized Payment Pages: You can add your website colours and logos to PayPal’s payment pages.
- Invoicing: You can send your customers detailed email invoices. You can create and save up to 10 customized invoices using PayPal
invoice templates. - Refunds: You can give full or partial refunds to your customers up to 60 days after the sale.
- Integrated Shipping: Allows you to create packing slips for your shipments. Includes integrated shipping and delivery tracking for buyer and seller.
- Automatically send order updates and status notifications.
- Mass Pay: You can send payments to large groups-like affiliates.
- Auto Return: -When the buyer has made the purchase on the PayPal site he is sent back to a URL on your website. This can be used to confirm the order, a thank you page, or a download page or simply just to make sure the buyer stays on your site.
PayPal has many other features and they are continually adding to the features.
Regardless of the other payment options you provide on your website, because of its widespread use, and instant recognition, PayPal should always be offered as an option.
For most websites PayPal can be the only
option.
If you want to accept offline orders PayPal also support virtual terminals allowing you to receive the order via Fax and enter it into the PayPal system.
Related Articles:
- Understanding online Shop Options
- Adding a PayPal shopping Cart to Your Website
- PayPal Buy Now Buttons
- Understanding Merchant accounts
- Ebay review of paypal account types
