I am in the process of setting up a website to sell prints on line. I intend to sell unmounted, mounted and framed pictures in the hope of raising some cash for some new gear.
I intend to keep the number of pictures on the site limited and will be listing mine, and a few camera club members art for sale.
Does anyone have any experience of Paypal and receiving payments via that system?
Yes, what would you like to know?
Yup...
With paypal, they take a percentage of the sale - and you can either set it up so that the buyer pays, or the seller pays, or both.
There's a free account, which only allows you to accept payments from people who put money into their own paypal accounts, or a "merchant" account, which allows people to pay via credit cards. That being said, they take a hefty percentage for using the merchant account facility...
I have a merchant account, and I made the mistake of offering paypal payment when I listed my PDA for auction on ebay. For a $630 item, I think the fees came close to $30.... ouch!
I think long term, and if you're successful, it would probably be more cost effective to get a credit card processing machine from one of the banks and process them yourself...
StudioJ Wrote:Yes, what would you like to know?
Just wanted to hear of general experiences, anything to watch out for etc.
Thanks for the tips ST.
Unfortunately the same thing goes with banks, a lot of vendors charge a 2% surcharge and wear the other 2% the bank charges so its close enough to 5% the same as Paypal.
I've never had any problems with Paypal, the majority of mine has been non-photo related sales via E-Bay where I'd highly recommend you use an escroe company such as their own Square Trade. A bit irrelevant for photos sorry!
For sales you can just as easily make a form on your site and when people submit orders you can get back to them and ask for a direct deposit (bank transfer?) and then send out their print thus eliminating the middle man.