I use Google Checkout for services without any issues. Different prices, different services - the only thing I don't think it does is recurring invoices, although I could be wrong as I haven't looked at it lately.
According to me, PayPal is the best when it comes to making online transactions. Apart from PayPal, you could use other options such as Alert Pay, Liberty Reserve, Netteller etc.
I don't use any of them I just mentioned. I am satisfied using PayPal for my online transactions.
It was relatively easy to integrate into her bespoke site cart design and we've never had any problems until recently where on some orders it seems to only 'take' for the first item of an order and so misses off the post and pack charge.
Bit of a nuisance - we've informed Paypal and they are looking into.
On the plus side, many associate Paypal with Ebay and are comfortable using it to pay for goods online.
The high st banks set up charges and 'requirements' still put us off going down that route at the moment.
We dropped PayPal as a payment option from our martial arts shop several months ago and the business has continued to grow at a good rate.
The reason we dropped it? In the space of a week we had six customers initiate a chargeback within days of placing their orders for reasons ranging from 'hadn't received their order within 2 days' to 'had changed mind and wanted their money back'.
PayPal allow consumers to infringe on UK Distance Selling Regulations and put the retailer at a massive disadvantage. You will find that the vast majority of major retailers do not offer PayPal and for very good reasons.
What other options are their for taking payments online, without having all those messy time consuming and costly merchant accounts?
We take some payments via paypal, and are looking at alternatives, looking at perhaps £300 a month in total sales, so not enough to warrant huge ecommerce systems.
What do other people use?
No it is not. There is the following which are the most used and great paypal alternatives:
Try Paypoint.net (our neighbours in the office buildings).
Just a note - I spoke with a guy from PayPoint a while ago, about possibly integrating their solution into our eCommerce platform and he was very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable.
Although I haven't reviewed the technical aspects of their solution yet, they are certainly easy to talk to - and not "pushy" like many other payment companies, so that alone makes them worth a go in my book!
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