eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 4: Letting PayPal Help You Manage the Money

In This Chapter

• Understanding the PayPal system
• Deciding which account is best for you
• Seeing how PayPal protects you
• Uncovering your payment history

In the early days of online auctions, eBay transactions were an iffy proposition. You would send a check to your trading partner, wait for the check to clear, and then wait for the item to arrive, all of which seemed interminable. There was little feedback in the beginning, so it was difficult to separate the good sellers from the bad. The most widely accepted form of payment was the money order, but that wasn't as reliable as a check since you had no way to know when the money order cleared. Yet, in our small (but growing) community, we weren't afraid to send money orders to strangers. Heck, some sellers even shipped merchandise before they received payment! Things were a lot simpler, if riskier, in the old days.

Now that eBay is a huge, global marketplace, having a secure and reliable method for accepting (and making) payments for your eBay transactions is crucial. PayPal fits the bill, and it has a great track record. See the nearby sidebar, “From x.com to PayPal . . . what a story!” for a brief look at PayPal's origin and the foundation of its position as a trusted method of exchanging money.

If you've read any of my other books, you know that I've been a huge fan of PayPal from the beginning. PayPal is one of the safest and least-expensive ways for an online seller to accept ...