[artsyguys]

There is no substitute for a real merchant account, and you will see additional sales for every payment option you have. There are online shoppers who buy enough that they want to avoid inputting their credit card information every time they make a purchase. So if they can pay through their paypal account, google checkout, or amazon account, they will do it. It's a much faster transaction. Also, they give you the terms that will qualify for guaranteeing that payment and that there will not be any chargebacks. That is a big plus especially if you want to sell outside the U.S. Paypal is international, and if you accept payment through Paypal and ship to a "confirmed" shipping address they guarantee that payment. It's similar on amazon payments and google checkout. That is a great benefit - also buyers are able to use more means of payment, such as echecks, than they normally would with a simple merchant account.

Paypal is there for buyers who really want to use it. Nobody is going to register at paypal to make a purchase. But it is a far easier checkout. All you have to do is enter your paypal id and password and if it's express checkout, then all the information is there and you just say yes - buy it.

Paypal pro is must a merchant account. It has a virtual terminal which allows you to authorize and charge credit cards you may take in person or on the phone. It's $30 a month but it includes discover and amex, and normally you pay extra directly to those cards on a merchant account. However it does not process echecks. Normal paypal processes echecks for paypal buyers. And it does not have a phone authorization function, whereas most other gateways do have this function such as authorize.net.

I have noticed in ten years of online sales that every payment method will produce additional sales. Not many people use echecks but some still don't have debit or credit cards. They are a lot better than taking physical checks and waiting for them to clear. Amex alone is now about 40% of our sales on one storefront and most people just do not think about Amex but it's the most common business card out there and many people buy with their business credit cards.

Paypal express checkout will definitely increase sales. It's fast for buyers. People who prefer to pay with amazon, google checkout or paypal - will actually shop for stores that offer those methods, and all three providers have lists for them to look over. Google puts google checkout icons on their google adwords ads if that seller provides google checkout.

There are fees for all of these, but amazon, google checkout and paypal have no monthly costs and the big bonus is that they guarantee payment and you don't have to worry about fraud protection.

Many people deride these paypal, google checkout and amazon buy-it-now buttons on an item page, but when a buyer can just click one button and get out of that store and finalize a purchase in ten seconds completely securely, it's a big incentive to buy. The check out process - CREATES CART ABANDONMENTS.

So every time you ask the buyer to do something extra it adds risk that he is going to leave before he finalizes the purchase. So for anyone that has a small number of items, I always recommend to go ahead and create those buy-it-now buttons right on the item pages. But you still need a merchant account and the big four credit cards to maximize your sales.