Payment Options and your eBay Store
One of the great advantages of opening a store on ebay is that you instantly have access to a robust, secure and widely adopted payment system built in. The practical upshot for your online business is that once an auction has completed, or a customer clicks on the Buy It Now button, they can instantly pay you. Your buyers have a number of payment options they can use. Which ones you offer within your ebay store is up to you. You can choose any combination of the following payment options to offer to your customers:
- Cheque
- Postal orders
- PayPal
- Credit Card
- Debit Card
- Direct bank transfer.
Payment with PayPal
PayPal is now completely integrated into ebay. Once your business has opened its own PayPal account, anyone with a credit or debit card can pay for the goods you are selling. Your sellers don’t have to have a PayPal account of their own, but if they do, the payment is even faster as the funds are simply moved from your seller’s PayPal account to your own. PayPal offer three account types you can open:- Personal Account
- Premier Account
- Business Account.
Each one is designed for a specific group of buyers. As a business user Premier and Business accounts are your best options as they both offer credit and debit card payments you can easily add to your ebay store.
What does PayPal Cost?
Just as with taking credit card payments for the goods your business sells, if you use PayPal you will be charged commission on each payment. The fees your business will pay are based on a percentage of the value each sale is worth. You can see the latest fee structure on the PayPal website: https://www.paypal.com/uk/fees. Other forms of payment such as cheques will attract the usual fees your bank charges to process these payments.Is PayPal Secure?
Before anyone can start to use the PayPal system they have to gain what is called ‘verified’ status. After they have applied for a PayPal account each applicant is subjected to a number of security checks to ensure their identity is valid. Once their account has been verified they can then begin to make purchases and payments.As a seller your business needs high levels of security to ensure your payments reach you intact. PayPal also have free Seller Protection that covers any physical goods you sell against fraudulent purchases up to the value of £3,250. You can read more about this cover as conditions apply on the PayPal website. All of your PayPal payment details are encrypted and the service also uses the Address Verification System (AVS) and the Card Security Code (CSC) services to verify cardholder details before payment is authorised.
