PayPal issues

The problem with PayPal in my opinion:

eBay effectively force you to accept PayPal payments by their extensive advertising of PayPal and their buyer protection schemes. The majority of the free days now have PayPal as a requirement too.

A personal PayPal account is free to receive payments but how long can you keep a personal PayPal account before they effectively force you to upgrade to the fee-paying Premier/Business account?

They do this by only allowing you to accept a small number of credit card transactions each year (5 from memory).

No problem, you think, I just won't accept credit card transactions. Wrong! According to eBay/PayPal rules you must accept all forms of PayPal-accepted payment types if you list PayPal as a payment option.

Ok, so looks like you will have to upgrade to a Premier/Business account after all. So you will just advertise a small surcharge for PayPal payments. Wrong again! Another eBay/PayPal rule violation.

See my other blog entry, "The real cost of selling on eBay", for how much PayPal fees impact on selling low cost items on eBay.