Is Paypal the best option??

[DonegalPaul]

Basically I was wondering if it is worth looking at the other options or not?

Thing is Im tempted to use paypal due to how widely its used, the number of people that must already be subscribed and the fact you dont have to be to buy through it but, they do take a nice little slice for themselves.

I recognise that other payment methods will too, but for example theres one advertising for 8p per credit card transaction. seems a bit i suppose but if I were to have something worth £500 bought it would cost 8p, paypal take a bigger slice do they not or am i being stupid?

[michael_s]

You really need multiple payment options. Standard CC gateway, paypal or google checkout should be available for your customers. It gives the impression of an established professional business, and gives your customers what they love the most, choices.

No matter what processor you use, you will pay fees. That is the cost of doing business.

[aaanativearts]

A lot of people say PayPal is considered amaeturish and you should offer some other processor along with it. I personally don't see it, since most noobs to the Internet are already familiar with it from eBay, and it's now a pretty established brand so I think by now most people trust it.

It's all I use, and I am happy with it, but I haven't tested with other options, so I may not know what (if anything) I am losing by only having PayPal. (Some people say sales will increase as much as 25% with a "real" processor.) I had origianally planned to get other processors when my business got better established and I knew my sales would warrant the monthly fees, but it's 3 years later and I've never gotten around to it, and what I'm doing with just PayPal seems ok.

The advantage to starting with PayPal is there is no up front cost to get set up, and no monthly fee (unless you also want to process credit cards offline, and then it's only $25/mo) so if you are starting on a shoestring or aren't confident that you will have regular sales, it's the cheapest way to get started. Most of the others charge a hefty fee to get set up initially, and many charge a recurring monthly fee on top of the % they take of each sale.

The percentage Paypal takes on each transaction depends on how many $$ (I'm in the US) you are processing each month. The more you process, the lower the % they charge for each sales transaction. For low volume sales, I think it is 2.9% plus 30cents per transaction. Most of the other credit card processors charge in the 1-4% range, depending on your credit rating and volume of sales,so I feel this is in the ballpark if you are just starting out.