If you sell online and are using Paypal you need to know a few things. If for some reason Paypal places a hold on your account, you might lose the money that you have in your account. This is why it a good idea to try other payment services. There are a few trusted payment processors online and charge less then Paypal. If you do decide to try other services remember that as an eBay seller they might not allow the service you pick. If you have your own web site or sell through other auction sites then using another processor should not be a problem.

The problem with Paypal is that without notice they can freeze your account. If this happens you might not even be able to correct the problem and get back your account. If you read forums about Paypal there are a lot of horror stories. If you can not get back your account and are banned form Paypal you will not be able to sell online. This is why it’s important to have a backup payment system. If one day you can not use Paypal you just change a little code on your site and you are in business again.

There are a few things to keep in mind if you can not use Paypal. The branding of Paypal is very strong and consumers know that if there is a problem that they are protected. If you use another company consumers might be a little shy to place financial information on a site they know nothing about.

There is also the fear that if you do make sales that you can not withdraw your funds. This is why reading reviews and getting information ahead of time can lead you to the right payment processor to work with.

In part two will look at a few alternatives to Paypal.

If you have products to sell online and have been using eBay, you might want to try eCrater.com which is free. The set up of your store is very easy you can even add your own logo. Once you have your store set up and all your items for sale listed, you just need to drive traffic to your store. Since eCrater is not like eBay most shopper will not find you through a search on the site although some people do search on eCraters main page. The site gets indexed by Google so most shoppers will find you by searching on Google or other search engines. If you want even more traffic then you need to do a ppc campaign and drive traffic to your site. An example of this would be, say you spend $100.00 a month on eBay fee’s why not take $50.00 and advertise your top selling item through eCrater. You just need to go to preview mode on eCrater which take you to yor live store. Then you find the product you want to advertise. Once you are on the right product page copy and highlight the url at the top of your browser. In your ppc campaign add this as your destination url. All click will end up on the right product page, make sure to test the link before starting any paid search. Simple free and very easy to use I hope more people start using eCrater they have a great site that does not get as much press as other auction or selling platforms. With some products I sell this has been a great choice. Your eCrater shoppers can pay through Paypal.