Using PayPal for easy online selling - Part 1 of 3
Make it easy for your web site’s visitors to buy the products you sell… add PayPal payment options to your site today and increase your sales!
PayPal is a convenient and trusted method of transferring funds online, allowing buyers to purchase items using Visa, Mastercard and other major credit cards from online sellers. PayPal use has skyrocketed in part due to the popularity of the online auction site eBay and now serves over 100 million accounts.
PayPal is secure as neither the buyer nor the seller has access to the credit card details of the other party; PayPal acts as a middle-man, moving the funds from the buyer’s account to the seller’s account. PayPal handles your customer’s sensitive payment details so that you do not have to. Best of all, a customer does not have to set up a PayPal account to buy online from you; they can simply enter their credit card details into PayPal’s secure online form to complete their purchase of your item.
PayPal provides a short demonstration of how PayPal online payments work, which you can view at PayPal’s Standard Demo .
This article is the first of a three-part series in which we will explain how you can begin accepting PayPal payments through your website. The remainder of this article focuses on creating your PayPal account, while parts 2 and 3 will detail, respectively, how to place a “Buy Now” button on your site to sell a single item and how to use PayPal’s Shopping Cart tool to sell multiple items with a single check-out.
The first step to accepting PayPal payments through your site is to create a PayPal account. Signing up for a PayPal account is easy and free. To begin, go to http://www.paypal.com/ and click the ‘Sign Up Now’ button.
You will be prompted to select an Account Type from the following options:
- Personal Account - best suited for individuals looking to shop online, not for selling online.
- Premier Account - best suited for both buying and selling online, allowing you to securely accept credit, debit, and bank account payments.
- Business Account - similar to the Premier account; suited for online businesses which will have more than one individual accessing the PayPal account.
For online selling a Premier account should meet your needs, unless you have more than one individual at your business who will need to be able to access your company’s PayPal account; if this is the case, select a Business Account instead. Note that PayPal charges the seller a small fee based upon the amount of each transaction… full fee explanations are provided through the ‘low fees’ link under each Account Type and range from 1.9% to 2.9% of the transaction amount, plus $0.30 (in US Dollars).
Select your desired Account Type, provide the country where you live in the drop-down menu and then click the ‘Continue’ button.
The next secure form will prompt you for your Name, Address, Telephone, a valid Email Address (which will be used for logging into your account), and Password. The information you enter is only for PayPal’s use and will not be shared with other parties. Select a secure password which will be easy to remember yet difficult for others to guess…the most secure passwords are not common words but rather are a combination of letters and numbers. Paypal requires a password with at least 8 characters; longer passwords are generally more secure than shorter ones. The password you enter will be case-sensitive, in that upper- and lower-case letters must be entered in exactly the same way each time you log in, so be sure to enter your password exactly as desired.
Next, select two ‘Security Questions’ and provide your own answers to those questions. These questions and answers are used in the event that your password is misplaced and you need to regain access to your account, so be sure to enter your responses carefully and remember them.
Then read PayPal’s User Agreement and Privacy Policy on the form, and click to check the boxes indicating that you agree to these policies as a user of PayPal’s services. Finally, enter the security code as shown in the small yellow box at the bottom of the form, and then click the ‘Sign Up’ button.
PayPal will then send an email message to the address you provided. Retrieve the email message and click on the link provided in the email… this confirms both that your email address is valid and that you have access to it. A browser window will open to a PayPal secure login screen, where you must enter your password in order to activate your account. Congratulations… you now have your very own PayPal account!
In order to sell using your new PayPal account, you must provide PayPal with a credit card or bank account. On the left side of the PayPal window (under ‘Activate Account’) click either the ‘Add Credit Card’ or ‘Add Bank Account’ link. If you choose to add a Credit Card, you will be prompted to provide your Name, Card Type, Card Account Number, Expiration Date, and Card Verification Number as well as Billing Address; click the ‘Add Card’ button when finished to save the card details. If you choose to add a bank account instead, you will be prompted to provide your Bank Name, Type of Account (Checking or Savings), and your Routing and Account Numbers, both of which can be found on your checks (a sample is shown in the online form); click the ‘Continue’ button when finished to save your account details.
If you don’t yet have a web site and are looking to start selling items online, we invite you to create a free web site using WebSpawner.com. Tomorrow, in Part 2 of this series, we’ll look at adding a PayPal “Buy Now” button to your web site so you can begin selling.