The Benefits of Having a PayPal Account

With more than 150 million accounts worldwide, PayPal has become a household name among online business owners, hobby sellers and shoppers.

What makes the service unique is you can sell products and services as well as shop to your heart's content without ever releasing your private financial information to anyone.

How it Works

When you set up a PayPal account, you link the payment system to your bank account and/or credit card. Then when you want to buy something online, you click the PayPal payment option and confirm the transaction, rather than entering your credit card information.

The Benefits of using PayPal

1. Financial Data is Never Released

PayPal shares no financial data between parties. For example, if you purchase a pair of shoes online using your credit card via PayPal, the company you purchased the items from will never be privy to your credit card information.

2. Instantly transfer money from your bank account

Those not wishing to use their credit card for every online purchase love the fact that you can do instant transfers from your bank account using PayPal.

3. Affordable Fees

PayPal continues to offer its customers a low fee service for safe and secure online business transactions. Even without many serious competitors to compare with, PayPal has low percentage fees for business sellers and is free for shoppers and basic account users.

4. Universally Recognized

After eBay purchased PayPal in 2002, the site started being used more and more frequently by online sellers and shoppers interested in secure web transactions. Today, it's rare (and downright bad for business) to see a seller not offering PayPal as a method of payment for buyers.

While you probably already use PayPal for your craft business, here are a few tips that will greatly improve your business dealings while using the site:

• Set Up Tax Tables
  If you are a registered business with a tax license, you are by law required to charge taxes. The best thing to do is take the time to set up a tax table in PayPal so you can be sure buyers from your state or province (and/or country) are being charged at the time of their purchase for taxes you must collect.
  *Be sure to make a note of taxes on your shop page or website to avoid abandoned shopping carts and angry potential buyers
• Opt-In to A Business Account
  For better bookkeeping services, opt in to the business account and you'll be able to download higher quality sales reports to use with Quickbooks or another bookkeeping program.
• Dispute Wrongdoings
  While this article highlights the benefits of PayPal, there are customers who occasionally dispute a charge, even when you've shipped the item and are certain it's arrived. So, be sure to follow up and record your side of the story (and offer proof) in the dispute center.
• Use PayPal Shipping Tools
  Avoid post office lineups and by using the PayPal shipping tool to quickly ship your items using a pre-printed postage label.

Justine Smith is an Etsy success story who used her experience selling online and turned it into a full-time wholesale business. Her real passion is helping handmade sellers find success marketing their craft products. She offers tips on advertising, branding, social media and growth via email through her blog Justine's Media.

Main image courtesy of Steven Snodgrass.

Just a friendly reminder to enter Meylah's July Contest: What's Your Passion? Name Your Price! for a chance to get your own personalized site at your price...entries will be accepted up until July 31, 2010.