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Ecommerce - The Affordable PayPal Solution

By Paul Hurkmans

The popularity of online shopping may have been growing steadily over the past several years, but lately it has gone gangbusters. If you're a business owner and sell products (or perhaps services) you really need to start looking at selling online. The trick is to find a way that's effective, while at the same time being affordable.

Thankfully, there is a way, and it's not expensive to set up or maintain.

As their website suggests, PayPal is one of the world's most popular ways of paying for goods or services online. It's a faster, easier and safer way to make and accept payments online and via mobile phones. Companies such as Myer, Jetstar and Big W use PayPal, so you can trust that it will work for your business too.

What's more, an ecommerce solution can be set up for small change. The only other cost is PayPal's transaction fees, which are 2.4 percent plus 30 cents for each transaction for most small businesses. Transaction fees can be even less for businesses that do significantly more business online.

Compare this with the cost of a merchant facility from a bank or credit union - which will likely amount to hundreds if not thousands in establishment fees and ongoing fees - and it's easy to see why more businesses are choosing PayPal.

Integrating ecommerce with PayPal:

• First, you need a PayPal account linked securely to your chosen bank account.
• You create a button (such as a Buy Now button) for each product and set your price and postage and handling costs, in PayPal.
• You create a page on your website where you provide details on each of the products you are selling.
• Alongside each product you have the product's unique PayPal button.

When a visitor clicks on a PayPal button they are taken to PayPal, where they enter address details and make the payment. They don't need to be a PayPal member to purchase; non-members can use their credit card to make payments.

Get started

It really is relatively simple and straightforward to set up ecommerce on your website. Any web developer can help you through the process and it should only cost $100 or so for a few products.

So what are you waiting for? Start with a product or two and see how it goes. You'll then be part of the online shopping phenomenon!

Paul Hurkmans is a business communications and marketing material specialist. He owns En Pointe, a business that provides services and products such as web design copywriting, email marketing, photography and other marketing material to small businesses.

Webmaster message: For a PayPal shopping cart there is no setup fee and no monthly fee, only the 2.4 percent plus 30 cents fee for each transaction. Go to the PayPal website. If you don't already have a PayPal account, you'll need to sign up for one. In order to use a Paypal shopping cart, you'll need to sign up for a Premier account type, which may require you to link to a bank account. After you've set up your account, type "shopping cart" in the search box in the upper-right corner of the webpage. This will send you to a page of search results. Your best bet is to start with the link What is the PayPal Shopping Cart? in the Help Center box on the right side of the page.