What payway you use to accept money?

[willanfei]

For you online business, how do you accept payment?
Especially for international buyer.
Thanks

[marc77]

We accept mainly credit cards for international business. I would say (without having it verified), about 40 % Visa, 40 % MasterCard. The others are AmEx and JCB (but can't remember upon last time this card was used). DinersClub, unfortuantely, is not serving Internet businesses since some years.

A few times we accepted cheque payments and - for large amounts from "high risk" countries - WesternUnion.

How about you, the original poster ? Who asks must also participate :-)

[willanfei]

Never use Paypal?

[marc77]

PayPal ? No. Definitively.

The reasons simply are that at the time we started our business, PayPal had an extraordinary high fee scheme for commercial payments. Also we got merchant contracts relatively easy (compared to what I now here from some people trying to start a business online). And these came with much better conditions :-)

Furthermore PayPal, I don't know exactly, got his banking license in Europe just about two years ago (without a banking license the money isn't secured overall). According my information, they decided for an UK license which is, compared to other European countries' licenses, quite weak. I mean this in the sense of how much of the customers' money is reinsured and how the banking organization must deal with that money (seen risky investments).

And there seems to be much trouble with them anyway (last report I read about was from a dealer of gaming consoles which went into bankruptcy because PayPal froze his account for some months).

Finally, which was another reason to decide against, is, that many dubious businesses are using it; therefore I don't consider a "We accept PayPal" logo not necessarily being a sign of confidence.

So you see, many reasons to decide against PayPal. No doubt, there are people loving to use PayPal (and hate me for this comment ;-) but as long as a business is able to get a real merchant contract, PayPal should be no choice.

Which experiences have you made with PayPal ? Perhaps I just got attended by the negative news only...