Not so long ago it was complicated and expensive to have credit card payment facilities online – a disincentive for small and home-based businesses. That has all changed, with services like PayPal and ClickBank.
At Virtual Assistant – THE Blog, Kathie has a helpful explanatory post about PayPal and how easy and useful a service that is. I’ve commented there on a particular benefit I’ve experienced, which is that when I can get clients in the US to pay me or my company through PayPal rather than by cheque (check), I do not have to pay the outrageous fees our Australian banks charge to process international cheques.
There is also a good and economical service we subscribed to long ago for transactions within Australia – StrataPay (there
is a one-off payment, currently AU$119, and transaction fees are $2.50
per transaction and an additional 1.65% for Credit Cards or 2.65% for
AMEX and Diners).
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
If you conduct ALL of your revenue transactions through PayPal, be ready for the day when ALL of your revenue is stop-cocked at PayPal. I’m still in a queue awaiting resolution of a demand for $810 of revenue that PayPal has kept in its accounts on my behalf. My claim is three years old now.
I’d heard about people who have the problem Bernard mentioned but not had any personal contact with any of them. I’m wondering how/why it happens? I do know that I don’t keep funds for any extended time in Paypal – better off in my own bank so it’s usually shifted fairly quickly. I can’t help wondering if there’s another portion of the story that no-one has shared – or perhaps they don’t know that part and are still waiting to find out what it is?
As a seasoned home business owner, using Paypal was one of my better decisions. I get less chargebacks, less “tire kickers,” and Paypal seems to lean on the site of the merchant, rather than the customer’s often trumped up claim that he or she was wrongly charged.
The fact remains that Paypal has not yet implemented wire transfer to most of the countries. For example, it shows absolute ineptitude on the part of Paypal not to provide the facility for transfer of payments to India. There are thousands of software firms in India which could have used Paypal to accept payments from clients. The number of users online is exploding in India and Paypal has already lost billions of dollars in potential business. I am sure this helps Google!
Definitely seems pretty shortsighted not to include India.
Well there is alot of bad transactions coming from India and they know it, so it is wise to restrict it.