Should you use personal payment services?

Personal payment services are an easy way for small businesses to take payments online.  Personal payment services like PayPal, Amazon Payments & Google Payments enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. They can provide a number of benefits to small online businesses, including:

• Personal payment services cater to small businesses that do not want to set-up their own online payment mechanisms.
• Personal payment services cater has a number of options that allows users to quickly set-up online payment mechanisms on their Web sites:
• Send Money allows you to pay anyone with an email address.
• Request Money just enter the recipient's email address and the amount you are requesting. The recipient gets an email and instructions on how to pay you using PayPal at www.paypal.com.
• Buy Now Buttons Buy Now Buttons or Pay now buttons are a low-cost way for you to accept credit card and bank account payments, and can be fully integrated with your website in a few easy steps.

While there are advantages to personal payment mechanisms, there are also disadvantages. These include:

• Personal payment services usually only accept debit and credit cards
• Because PayPal, Amazon Payments and Google Checkout true payment gateway, there are some extra steps you need to go through in order to deposit money from your personal payment account into your bank account.
• Perhaps the biggest disadvantage is that using a personal payment service establishes you as a small vendor which could negatively impact your credibility online. 

For many small businesses that can’t really justify the expense of a more traditional payment gateway, however, PayPal, Amazon Payments or Google Checkout can be essential to setting-up your online business. When making a payment service decision,  it is a good idea to review your business needs. Different payment options can be compared based on simplicity for you (the entrepreneur), ease of use for the customer, cost as well as any potential impact on your credibility.  Compare a number of different options, and understand what would work best for your particular situation. Remember, no decision is forever, if you need to, you can add a true payment gateway at a later date as your online sales grow.

Labels: payments, website tips