Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

Before I left on vacation I mentioned that I was going to start listing my favorite web sites or the sites that are most important to me and what I do. I'm not prioritizing the sites because each one has a different purpose. Today's site is PayPal.

If you've been on the Internet for more than fifteen minutes (or maybe less if you pay attention to your friends when they're talking), you've heard about PayPal. When I first found PayPal I couldn't believe what a great idea it was. From a customer perspective, PayPal is a way to manage online payments. You set up an account, fund it by transferring money into it from a credit card or checking account and then you can purchase goods and services online at zillions of PayPal merchant sites without exposing your personal banking information to those sites.

As a merchant, you can open a PayPal merchant account that allows you to accept payments for your goods and services online without the hassle and the extremely high overhead of a traditional merchant account. In fact there are no upfront fees for opening any type of PayPal account (or there weren't when I started) and the transaction fees for selling online are very small.

I have used my PayPal account for both purposes. I regularly pay for images, domain names, servers, books, cds, etc. online from my PayPal account. I also receive payments through my PayPal account for our services at HopeToAdopt.com.

If you're thinking about setting up a shop of any kind online, you should absolutely consider opening a PayPal merchant account. It's quick, inexpensive and painless. You can be up and running and accepting payments almost immediately and your account or how you use your account can grow with your experience in using it. If you receive payments, you can also request a debit card that you can use anywhere that draws directly from your PayPal balance.

For me, PayPal is an indispensable web site. If it were to disappear I would have to change a lot of the way I currently do business online. If you don't have an account, sign up at PayPal today and get your online business started.