My Internet Business Strategy

Is PayPal Sufficient?

A question that I am asked many times is whether or not PayPal is a sufficient means of accepting online payments, or is a merchant account absolutely necessary.

While this is partially a question that each individual will have to decide for themself, I do often recommend using PayPal as an online payment system at least until the quantity of sales reaches a level that manual manipulation of the orders becomes too much.

With PayPal, autoresponders are not available. And, follow up with customers is mandatory. However, if you're only making a few sales, and it's not a cumbersome task to manually do your follow up, then it works just fine.

Furthermore, the number of PayPal accounts topped 96 million in the 4th quarter of 2005. That's an increase of over 30 million from one year before. Payment volume increased from $5.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2004 to $8.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Although many consumers are signed up with PayPal, credit cards remain significantly more common as a payment method in the US.

But PayPal is a good alternative, especially for small business entreprenueurs.

Deb
Internet Business Strategy
My Web Gal, Development Specialtist

posted by Deb @ 11:05 AM