Ok, so I understand ebay fees...but paypal is a bit more difficult.

It says I can accept payments but not through debit or credit cards...so what would that leave me? Direct bank transfers? I mean, I know I have that set up but I doubt many other people do.

What do I do if someone doesnt have it set up and they pay through a credit/debit card? Does that mean I need to set up a Premeire account in which I have to pay to get money? It says those are for businesses....and Im just trying to sell some stuff to gain some cahs and I am in no way a business....

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, what you guys do for yourselves that sell stuff on ebay would be great so I can compare what you guys do to what I should. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, your standard paypal account allows to you send money for free (by any method: bank, credit/debit, etc.) and receive money for free only if it's by direct bank transfer.

In order to allow buyers to pay you by any means of their choice (read: debit/credit cards), you would need to upgrade your account. With the upgraded account, you still send money for free, but any incoming funds (no matter the source type) is charged the fee (about 4%, I think). Besides the constant feeing when buyers pay you via Paypal, you don't pay anything for the upgraded account.

It's all a "cost of business" thing, and I think it's generally accepted that you should upgrade your account if you plan on doing much ebay selling. You likely loose about 10% once you calculate the listing fee, final value fee and paypal fee. You could always not upgrade your account and make special mention in all your ebay descriptions that paypal payments can only be made by direct account transfer. But that doesn't really make you the easiest seller to buy from, IMO.

I see, so even if they direct bank transfer the money when I have the upgraded account, I still get charged? So couldn't I make another account and if they have direct bank transfer, then I can have them use my original account and if not, then I can have them use the upgraded account?

Once u've upgraded your Paypal account to Premiere account, ALL incoming payments will be charged for about 3.5%-4% fees...

Yes that idea of yours is recommended but u can only assign 1 bank account for 1 Paypal account. If u would like to setup 2 different Paypal accounts, you would have to have 2 different bank accounts as well... Sucks ain't it?? :|

Paypal are blood suckers, another reason I don't use them to accept payment.

The reason paypal is popular is mainly due to the buyer side demand i.e. no buyer fees even if paying by credit card. The only buyer fees ever inccured is for international transactions, where paypal also charges an FX spread of around 2.5-3%.

Not trying to advertise anything but personally, I've had good experiences with moneybooker.com. The fees are lower for both parties and it has a very good seller protection policy. The downside is that buyers are not too willing to use it.

Just noticed that on my personal paypal account (opposed to my ebay linked one that can accept CC payments), there were some fees being taken out which usually doesn't happen. It was only on some of them though.

I looked up the current fee structure, and it seems the CC payments are still at the normal rate, but they now apply that fee to all 'goods and services' transactions regardless of pay type. So if you use PP to send money, make sure you choose it as a personal payment if you plan on using an instant or bank transfer. Otherwise, they'll start hacking extra fees out of you.

that personal payment thing has been on there for months. It was a way for them to appease the masses who were tired of getting pounded for personal things and so on. Funny thing was, there was ZERO mention of it. No emails, no header posts on the site, just popped up one day on the payment tab. I stumbled on to it and had to read and find out. Very sneaky of them if you ask me. Most people still don't know.

Suppose that's good for the pro account, but I've been getting hammered for all of the things I thought should have been without charges on my regular account. Guess there's no point having two accounts now.

Yeah, it does seem to be both a nice addition and something introduced without much fanfare. At least it provides a bit of clarification for people sending money - once they select the Personal type of payment. It even clarifies that you need to pay using a bank account in order to avoid recipient fees. Also, thought it was kinda cool that it also mentioned the sender has the option to pay the fees themselves if they still want to pay via credit card.

I love it and I will use it when I can for sure, but they could have mentioned it somewhere I think.

Only applies to domestic payments with bank transfer or paypal balance. Cards still get hit and international is like 2.5% or what limits that government applies.