PayPal Alternatives for Online Payments
If you sell anything online, you probably use PayPal — a lot of small businesses and part-time sellers do. But many sellers are also not happy with having to pay PayPal fees, as they can be quite high, especially if you sell a high volume of merchandise online.
In addition, there are many people who strongly dislike PayPal for their policies and the way they behave toward the “little man.” eBay has practically made PayPal into a monopoly on the auction site by mandating that all payments be made online now — and of course, PayPal is the primary service provider for online payments for small-time sellers like those on eBay. This has therefore angered many sellers (and buyers!) on eBay.
PayPal leaves a lot to be desired, so you may want to try to find another way to accept payments online. Here are a few options for all you rebels:
- Google Checkout. Google’s answer to PayPal is a similar system called Google Checkout. Initially they offered a lot of cut-rate fees that made this alternative much less expensive or even free. Even recently, their fees were considerably lower than PayPal’s. Now, however, Google Checkout will be raising their fees to match PayPal’s. Still, if you simply want to avoid supporting a big-business type of company like PayPal, you might choose Checkout just on principle.
- Paymate. This appears to be an option primarily for Australian sellers, as it deposits the funds directly into your Australian bank account, but it is an alternative that is accepted on eBay as well as elsewhere. Additionally, people without accounts can use Paymate to pay, by entering their credit card numbers on a secure payment page just as they would on, say, Amazon.com.
- MOTO processing. There are still many services to choose from for MOTO (mail order/telephone order) and online payment processing. If you process a large volume of transactions, most likely this will be your most cost effective option. Do a search online and make sure you get a deal that will benefit your business!
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