Payal - Upgrading to a Premium Account - Charges Help please!!

bertiebassett_3

Hi

Am new to selling on Ebay and am only trying to sell off a few cheaper baby items/similar. Just had my first credit card payment and am now caught by having to upgrade to a premium paypal account to accept payments and didn't (stupidly) realise that this would incur additional charges of 20p per any payment made to my paypal account with the additional 3.4%. (I'd unwillingly accept this for the credit card payments but for bank/paypal funded - not too happy!!).

Anyone know of anyway of avoiding this - I know I am new to this but this is crazy on top of the ebay charges and for such low sale/value items. Is there a way that I can keep my personal account and therefore not incur charges for bank/paypal funded payments and have credit card payments made a different/cheaper way (or should I request that no credit card payments - payments via cheque?). Any advice etc much appreciated by this selling novice.

Many thanks!!
Nina

heatherw_01

They only way to accept credit cards via paypal is to have a premiere account which always inccurs these charges.

Ebay want you to be able to accept credit cards if you offer paypal, which means having a premiere account.

masonic

You could try writing a grovelling e-mail to the sender asking them if they would consider funding the payment from their bank account or by means other than paypal if you return the original payment. Of course, they do not have to do this, but you might get lucky. I think you have the option to downgrade your account again (ONCE only) after accepting the payment if not.

If you want to carry on using a basic paypal account, you would need to not tick the paypal box in the payments accepted part of your future listings, and mention in the listing itself that you also accept non-card payments by paypal.

frugglewump

Paypal will allow you to downgrade your account back to the basic version, but they only allow this *once* per account. If you do this and leave paypal in your auctions it's nearly 100% likely you'll get someone sending a creditcard funded payment again.

It's really a question of whether or not you want to allow overseas buyers in your auctions as most uk buyers will probably be ok with cheque or postal order as the only payment allowed.

masonic

frugglewump wrote:

It's really a question of whether or not you want to allow overseas buyers in your auctions as most uk buyers will probably be ok with cheque or postal order as the only payment allowed.

I don't know what has led you to that assumption, but I think there are plenty of UK buyers who will not pay by cheque or PO, myself included.

soolin

masonic wrote:

I don't know what has led you to that assumption, but I think there are plenty of UK buyers who will not pay by cheque or PO, myself included.

Gosh masonic I'm going to have to stop saying 'I agree' all the time after your posts, but I do.

I would never buy on ebay without using paypal, not even for a £5 item. It is also my experience that most buyers prefer paypal and in my own case I only get one or two percent of buyers who choose to send a cheque or do a bank transfer.

On the last 5p day I experimented again with selling off some very low cost items without offering paypal, and it was a disaster. One of the sales has resulted in my first NPB for months and months and I've only just got another payment in today after several weeks.

Soo

odowdchr

I agree with the above. Over the last few years I've stopped accepting cheques altogether, it was getting to the stage where I was groaning when somebody wanted to send a cheque for a few quid...then you'd have to wait for it, go to the bank, wait for it to clear before posting..... just not worth it anymore.
I also found that some cheque payers were likely to take up to 2 weeks to pay, and in some cases change their minds about buying and just forget all about you.
I take Postal Orders, just in case somebody can't get a credit card for some reason.

Paypal's come on leaps and bounds...i was narked about the fees a few years ago, but the speed in turnover makes up for that now, if the seller's as quick with the postage. The other week (as a buyer) I paid for an item at 2pm and received it in the post the next morning at 8am. You just can't beat that.

frugglewump

masonic wrote:

I don't know what has led you to that assumption, but I think there are plenty of UK buyers who will not pay by cheque or PO, myself included.

Yeah. Ok - hands up to the over generalisation.

What I was trying to get at is that it isn't true to say "remove paypal and you won't sell anything at all". This is something i was told over & over at the beginning. Since the OP didn't want to take CC funded paypal it is simpler to remove it than hope the buyers will read any auction notice about funding variants as they pay.

lemming64

I am afraid you will have to live with the fees like the rest of us unless you will only accept cheque or bank transfer payment but you will find you get less bidders along that route.

You just have to live with it if you sell on ebay, sorry.

masonic

frugglewump wrote:

Since the OP didn't want to take CC funded paypal it is simpler to remove it than hope the buyers will read any auction notice about funding variants as they pay.

Perhaps I should clarify what I wrote on the subject of taking non-card funded paypal: the whole point is not to accept paypal, but to add a line to your auctions saying that you can accept such payments at your discretion. That way, people who do not read it are not even aware that paypal payments are accepted in any form. I'll be the first to admit it is not as good as accepting paypal properly, but it is better than not accepting it at all.

Jellicle

Have a read of this thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=95135

- it may answer a few of your questions.