Using Pay Pal in your business?

[crabo]

We are setting up a honey business for my wife and I. The bank wants some pretty hefty fees for for setting up charge cards. (especially if you don't use it much)

Would paypal work as a single source for credit and debit charges? I've never had any problems with paypal in the dealings that I do.

My wife's website is http://beegirl.biz

Thanks,

[DLCTEX]

Do some searching and you can beat the bank deals easily. Google it and you will find some.

[leadman]

There are many sites that tell of problems with PayPal ffreezing accounts for extended time periods for various reasons. Since they are not a bank they can do this legally from what I have read.
They can refund a buyers money without your approval and not give it to you from what I have read.

You may want to do some searches on the internet and also check the PayPal agreement.

[Breadman03]

Look into Square. They seem pretty competitive and are mobile as well.

[Recluse]

Couple of suggestions,

Check into and/or join NFIB (http://www.nfib.com/) (National Federation of Independent Businesses). I joined them a number of years ago for my sideline businesses. Good information, plenty of resources, and the dues most certainly do not break you.

They have various merchant services for members that are not only reasonable, but accountable because those services do NOT want a "bad e-mail" circulating around that they're hosing small mom & pop shops.

NFIB is also a national organization, so if you're willing, or planning, on shipping the honey outside of Texas, you can have some network resources already available to help answer questions, concerns, tax laws, etc.

Second suggestion is before you sign or agree to any merchant type service, run an extensive BBB search and query on them, and if they have several "unresolved" incidents, absolutely call the corresponding BBB locale/office and find out what happened.

I would not let individual or isolated incidents scare me off, but if you see a pattern, then that's when you write off the potential merchant services provider.

As far as Paypal? I'm not a huge fan of them, but do use them from time to time--mainly to send money to members and the forum here. I do not like their politics, and I do not like that they are pretty much completely without any regulatory oversight.

However, in fairness keep in mind that for every bad experience you read about with Paypal, there are probably over a thousand positive experiences that you hear nothing about.

These are things you have to weigh and consider when operating a business. It's easy to armchair other people's business and say, "No way in heck I'd do business with THAT bunch because of their politics," but sometimes you have to hold your nose if you want your business to get off the ground, let alone thrive long enough to get you through the roughest patch of time, which is generally the first three years.

:coffee:

[wilit]

Look into Square. They seem pretty competitive and are mobile as well.

+1 Square Up is awesome. My BIL uses it for his business. Super low rates.

https://squareup.com/

[Alvarez Kelly]

An aquaintance used PayPal to process credit cards over the phone for his business. After shipping several orders to an overseas customer with no problems, he shipped a large order to the same customer. The customer gave him the same credit card number he had used before while on the phone... A month or so later, the customer claimed he never authorized the charges on his credit card. PayPal reversed the payments, since the credit card company asked them to. I don't fault PayPal directly, but he had no bank on his side at all... It cost him $30,000.00!

Selling anything overseas can be a bit scary in todays market. You would almost have to use a secure site, where the customer had to input his own credit card info to avoid the potential problem I mentioned.

Whatever you do, good luck with your venture!

[Adam10mm]

1. Proofread the website. I found a few errors at first glance.

2. Paypal is Paypal, but is a household name. With a merchant registration, you can accept CCs from non-Paypal users. Paypal isn't very business friendly in the case of disputes, etc. They aren't a bank and aren't regulated as such. There is no protection or assistance for reversing charges against you. Paypal will always refund the buyer and disregard the seller.

3. If you go to a CC processor/gateway, Authorize.net is the standard. When I took online payments, that's who I used and I can't say enough good things about them.

In my business experience, I advise you to go with a processor and not Paypal.

[cajun shooter]

I have been a Pay Pal member for about 8 years and I had one dispute with them over a $27 stool that arrived broken and they sided with the seller.
I live in a rural area and my closet PO is about 5 Miles or so.
To make a purchase on this and other forums that require a USPS MO or Pay Pal it becomes a no brainer for me.
If I had to go to the PO a few times a day or whatever the cases may be cost me money in fuel and time plus the price that the PO charges for the MO. It is cheap but not as cheap as sitting in my chair at my desk and doing it via Pay Pal.
Several people have had problems concerning gun type of sells and purchases but I have not. They don't realize that we all unknowing buy from anti- gun sources every day.
Pay Pal does like to charge merchants fees for any items that are sold on E-Bay(Same owner).
Read the fine print and get opinions from current businesses that use the company on a daily bases.

[cuzinbruce]

I take PayPal for the items sold on eBay and elsewhere. Minimal problems. A few but that is the cost of doing business. If you have a physical store, there will be shoplifting, breakage, shopworn, etc. It is easy to start with them, and they have good name recognition. The fees should be mostly based on what you sell. Hopefully nothing to pay up front. Get the business going and then shop for better deals on services. Parasites selling services can kill a business faster than anything