what online payment company do you like or use yourself?

Geoman

Anyone,

I am thinking of starting a small online internet coin store. Nothing big, and it will never compete against the big boys. But, I wanted to try it anyways. However, I am trying to decide how to accept payment. Obviously, a customer can email me, and we can arrange payment via postal mail, such as them mailing a money order to an address.

However, I also feel that it is a good idea to offer some sort of online payment options, for the convience of the customer. So, what do you people with online stores use? Paypal? Others? I have read the merchant section of Paypal to get an idea of the costs, etc. And I realize some of the feelings about Paypal (ie: freezing accounts, etc.) from previous posts. So, is their other companies you also offer? I have surfed a lof of website looking for different ways and companies people accept online payment from. I just want to get a general feeling here, and hope you will share your thoughts.

For people who buy, do you like Paypal the best? What other companies do you use?

Thanks for any input you have on online payments.

kieferscoins

Paypal is the one most used by everyone. Lots of coin buyers on ebay use it and I bet it would be the type of online payment they would use.

Cameron Kiefer

poptopsRus

Get an online credit card merchant account. It will help greatly.

jeffnpcb

Depending on sales and size of your business, work with your bank for a low percentage on taking credit and debit cards. They may also offer you a deal on direct deposit transactions which would be as fast as PayPal. If the user on PayPal is not verified, I would not deal with them!

ohbaby

I use Paypal but never keep a balance, never. If you do you must read this.

Paypal is an abusive and less than user friendly service. Too bad they dont have more competition because they would then clean up their act.

bizzarri

Paypal is like cutting a thick steak with a very sharp knife - As long as you know what you are doing, it's very easy and safe.

Screw up, and you get cut and bleed big time.

I use PayPal and accept credit cards through them. They are much easier to deal with than my bank, who actually wanted a bigged discount than what PayPal charges me.

Follow their rules if you use them - signature confirmation on shipments, ship only to confirmed address. I also hesitate if the buyer isn't verified, but so far the only unverified buyer was a CU board member, so he was BETTER than verified ;-). Read as much of their fine print as you can.

A little known PayPal fact: you can officially have TWO paypal accounts - one personal one, and one premier/business one. So you can reduce your discount by having non-credit card transactions go to the personal account, and only have CC transactions go the business account. It's also handy to have two accounts to try new PayPal features.

Keep a minimum amount of cash in the PayPal account, and get their free debit card. You can use their debit card to pay things and get an instant 1.5% rebate - pretty cool.

PayPal also works for international transactions, since you can keep money in different currencies - they support Euros, Canadian dollars, British pounds, Japanese Yen (I think...). I don't use this feature yet, so I can't remember the details. You can move money around, or not -
you can keep all the money you receive in different currencies.

Lots of features. Use a strong password - multiple words and numbers, including "non-dictionary" words - like proper nouns misspelled with numbers instead of letters (substitute zero for "o", or 1 for "L").

Good luck!