Paypal Payments - Accepting Credit Cards through Paypal
Accepting Paypal payments is simple and easy. Simply go to Paypal.com, sign up for a new account, and within 20-30 minutes, you can be accepting credit cards online through Paypal. Few companies online provide an experience as easy and painless as what Paypal provides.
Paypal has been around almost since the beginning of the commercialization of the web. Since the beginning of their existence, they’ve been making it easy for people to buy and sell online without having to go through the hassles of getting a full merchant account. Depending on your credit history, level of cash flow, and what type of business you are operating or plan to operate online, getting a merchant account can be a daunting task. The level of paperwork needed is enough to make a grown man cry. Thankfully, there’s an alternative.
What kind of approval process does Paypal require?
The main verification that Paypal asks for is for you to confirm first your email, then your bank account, and possibly a credit card if you plan on funding your account through a credit card. Most of Paypal’s transactions are encouraged to go through the bank account instead of the credit card. This benefits both Paypal and the merchant using Paypal. Paypal greatly reduces their risk of getting a chargeback and in turn can pass great processing rates to the merchant using Paypal to collect payments online. The merchants’ customers benefit as well from being able to make purchases online without the use of a credit card.
Is there any downside to using Paypal?
There are a couple of downsides that I’ve identified to using Paypal as your credit card solution. The first one is minor. When offering someone Paypal’s subscription feature for recurring billing, they must create a Paypal acount. Not generally a big deal but it is something you should consider.
The second downside and more major is Paypal’s reputation online. Paypal is a reputable company that has conducted its business affairs with professionalism and dignity but there has been some bad mouthing of the Paypal process among some people online. This is most likely to only affect long time internet users and not people who have only been online 2 or 3 years. Nevertheless, it is something to be aware of. Both of these issues can lead to lower sales conversion rates for your website.
The most flexibility will come from having your own merchant account. Having said that though, Paypal offers an excellent alternative to the initial setup costs and ongoing expenses of getting your own merchant account.
July 27th, 2005 at
oh never mind… you said countries other than the US and Canada.
I’m an idiot. My bad.
July 27th, 2005 at
A while back, Paypal’s account optional feature that allows your clients to bypass the whole Paypal account creation feature was only available to US and Canada. Now, after some recent investigation on my part, it appears that Paypal has made the Account optional feature available worldwide.
This is just another example of the high level of service you can expect from Paypal. Thanks Rob, for bringing it to my attention. I’ve modified my post above to indicate the changes.