Why PayPal payments are important for your online shop

Since its creation way back in 2002, PayPal has become an integral part of shopping online. It’s gone from being a slightly obscure payment method, reserved for eBay purchases, to being one of the most well-used payment services in the world.

According to PayPal.com, over 250 million individuals use PayPal each year, and over 7 million businesses offer it as a payment method. As you can see, PayPal is a very popular payment service, but this is just one of the reasons why you should offer PayPal payments if you have your own online shop.

In this post, you can find out more about the many other benefits of accepting PayPal payments for both you and your customers.

1. Your customers may already be familiar with PayPal

The main benefit of accepting PayPal payments at your online shop is that your customers probably already know, and love, the service. Most people, who do a lot of online shopping, now have a PayPal account. This is because the service is accepted everywhere, from online grocery stores to PayPal casinos.

All of this means that offering PayPal as a payment option makes everything easier for the customer. They can log-in to the service and pay you in a quick and straight-forward manner, in addition to feeling safe whilst doing so.

PayPal is a respected and trusted payment service. This not only means that the PayPal logo will reassure your clients that you can also be trusted, but also means that they needn’t share their banking details with you, should they have any worries.

2. You can specify payment preferences

PayPal is also a great way of keeping certain buyers away from your shop. As a PayPal merchant, you can set your ‘Payment Receiving Preferences’ however you want them, so that you only sell to those who meet your requirements.

This may include:

• Refusing international purchases.
• Refusing purchases made in another country.
• Refusing purchases from people who do not have an address registered to their account (this gives you added protection as a seller).
• Refusing purchases from eCheques.
• To only accepted payments from verified PayPal accounts.

3. Only pay when you sell

Unlike most online payment services, which charge a monthly or annual service fee, PayPal only ever chargers vendors when they make a sale. PayPal also imposes no sign up fees and no termination fees.

This can be a real money saver for those who don’t sell often, or should your online shop ever hit hard times. Essentially, PayPal is there for you through the good and the bad; if you’re not selling, they understand that paying for the service would be very frustrating.

PayPal’s fees for merchants

Whilst PayPal doesn’t impose any service fees, each time you sell through PayPal, you will be charged a standalone fee. This amounts to 3.4% of your sale amount + 20p, however fees may drop to as low as 1.9%, based around your total sale volume.

Alternatively, if your processing payments of under £5, you can agree to the ‘PayPal Micropayments’ fees which are 5% + 5p.