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PayPal: 5 Things You Maybe Didn?t Know

If you?re going to blog for profit, you?ll need a way to accept shopper?s money for whatever you are selling, whether that?s a service, products, advertising, or memberships.

With the shopping cart comparison I?m doing, I know a dozen decent ways to do just that. Some are easier than others, some are cheaper, and some have better features?but few are easy, cheap, AND featurific.

Also, retrieving your money is just as important as accepting it. This may seem obvious, but in the bustle to get money into your account, it?s easy to overlook the options (and limitations) for getting your well-earned money out.

Which is why I really like PayPal. You won?t find many affordable online payment services with instant, easy access to your money that include a flexible, free shopping cart. Actually, you might not find any.

That said, here are 5 things I tell clients who believe PayPal?s fees are too high, their options too few, and other popular misconceptions—

PayPal?s cart can manage inventory

Product inventory is not something every shopping cart can handle, but PayPal’s does a darned good job with it— for free.

Whether you?re selling tangibles or intangibles, you may need to set a limit on how many items you sell. What if you?ve made only 17 widgets? What if your teleseminar can have only 25 participants? Tallying the orders as they come in would be a major hassle, and you have to sleep sometime.

With PayPal, all you need to do is check the ?Track inventory? box when creating a button, and then add the quantity you have in stock. Be sure to set a low-quantity number to receive an email when your stock gets low. You can also prevent sales when you?re sold out or just add a warning to the shopping cart. You can even add your cost to track the item?s profit and loss. True story.

PayPal?s cart can manage recurring payments

The recurring payments required for membership sites and other subscription-based models is another feature you won?t find in every cart—rarely for free, and not always fully operational. This feature was broken for months with a popular free cart that starts with a G and ends in an oogle Checkout.

As both a vendor and a customer, I?ve found PayPal?s recurring billing works exactly as described and expected. No missed payments, no double billing, no monthly drama, and it’s completely hands-free (except for unsubscribing).

And there are options: You can set the billing cycle in days, months, weeks, or years, and also select how many cycles until the billing stops—and yes, ?Never? is a selection. You can even set a trial period?s price and duration, and add a second trial period with different selections. Pretty nifty?

PayPal has low fees with special discounts

Yeah, it stings a little to see PayPal take 2.9% + 30¢ from every transaction. But you know what? The more you earn, the lower the rate. And if you think PayPal?s rates are high, check out merchant account rates for online purchases. They require monthly fees (and more) that PayPal does not.

Here are two things I found in my research that were news to me, and I?ve had a PayPal account for almost ten years:

1. PayPal offers discounted rates to non-profits
   Instead of paying 2.9% of each transaction, non-profits pay only 2.2%.
2. PayPal has tinier fees for tinier transactions
   If your transactions are usually under $10, you may opt for the ?Micropayments? fee structure and pay 5% + 5¢. The percentage is a little higher, but the fee is lot lower. The example on PayPal?s site shows you?ll pay 36¢ with their Standard rate on a $2 transaction, but only 15¢ with their Micropayment rate?less than half as much!

PayPal gives you instant access to all your money

It may be hard to appreciate how awesome this is until you look at merchant accounts and other payment processors, like ClickBank. Read their policies and you may find your earnings will be held up to a month before they?re paid out. Also, a percentage of your income may be held back for product returns.

PayPal, on the other hand, offers instant access to all your money. If a customer purchases an ebook at 2:45pm, you can spend those earnings at 2:46pm. PayPal may hold back some of it, but only if you develop a history of heavy returns. Unlike others in their industry, PayPal assumes things will go well instead of penalizing you from the start, and ever after.

One thing to note: A purchase paid with an eCheck can be delayed 3 to 5 days while it clears, so you may choose not to accept them.

PayPal allows you to spend your money in lots of ways

Instantly accessible money is great, and it helps to have multiple ways to spend it. Some services only disburse funds through the mail, charging a notable fee and taking almost two weeks. Most will do a bank transfer, but again, watch out for how much it costs and how long it takes.

With PayPal and a few clicks, funds can be transferred to your bank account within 3 to 4 business days for free. Or for a nominal fee they will mail a check that arrives in about a week. But my favorite options are much faster: I pay directly from my PayPal account as I shop online. When I?m away from my computer, I withdraw cash from ATMs with my PayPal debit card or swipe it at the register like any other bank card. Very nifty, that!

So.

There are plenty of things I like about PayPal and I recommend it to everyone, whether they?re just starting out or a few rungs up the blogging-for-profit ladder.

I accept PayPal. BestBuy.com accepts PayPal. Heck, even behemoth Walmart.com accepts PayPal. You?re never too small or too big to accept PayPal.

So what do you like, or not like, about PayPal? Lemme know down below?

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Published by: Grant Griffiths

Full post as published by Blawg for Profit on March 16, 2010 (boomark / email).