Sell Items Online With PayPal

If you plan to sell items online, you'll have to consider two things:
1) how to get your products in front of buyers, and
2) how to take payment from your customers.
The latter point is usually the most difficult and "scary" for newbies to online business; however there are different solutions to these matters.

You can sell items online on auction sites like eBay, which you can do without a website of your own. To learn more about that option, please review our auction sites page. If you'd rather set up an online store and start selling from your own website, read on, as that's what will be covered here.

To build your own online store you obviously need a website of your own. If you don't have one already, learn here how to create a website. Your website is the place you will present your products to potential buyers - its your storefront.

Online Payment System
The simplest and easiest and most affordable way to take payment when selling things from your website, is using PayPal. You may already be using PayPal when shopping online (millions of people worldwide do); you can just as well use them when selling things online. With PayPal you don't have to set up your website to take payment via credit card (which which will cost you some effort as well as money).

So, your online shopping cart solution will consist of product listings on your website plus PayPal as online payment system.

List Your Items
When you have your website up, you are ready to list your products and build your own, simple shopping cart from which you are going to sell items online. Make a good description of each item with pictures (if applicable), price and as much information as possible. The more the visitors know about your offer, the more inclined they are to buy. Provide information on shipping and return and refund policies as well.

Add Shopping Buttons
The next step is to add a PayPal payment button to each item - either a "Buy Now" button or an "Add to Cart" button. To do that, you need to copy some code that PayPal creates for you, and paste it into the HTML code of your website. You need one code for each item.

Of course you must sign up for an account with PayPal before you can use their system to sell items online. An account is free, though, and so is using their system. They have no set-up or start-up fees. You only pay a small fee when you make a sale on your website and get paid through PayPal.

To create payment buttons, log into your PayPal account, click on Merchant Services, then on the Website Payments Standard link on the left side, and then on the Add to Cart option. (If you sell only one item at a time, choose the Buy Now option.) Enter specific information about each item you are selling, like name, price, color and other available options.

When you are finished, click on Create Button. PayPal then creates the necessary HTML code, using the information you provided. Select and copy this code, and paste it into the HTML code of your web page so that the "Add to Cart" button goes along with the information on that item. See example below.

Description of item #1, picture, price, shipping etc...
Description of item #2, picture, price, shipping etc...
Description of item #3, picture, price, shipping etc...

Note: You can customize the buttons in different ways, even use your own button image.

Tip: Use a table when listing your items, making it easy to align the description and the corresponding button. The table should have two or three columns, one for the description and one for the button, and the third for a picture, if applicable. Then you can have colored background, choose whether or not to hide the borders of the table etc.

You should also put a View Cart button on your web page so customers can view their cart at any time. You create it the same way at PayPal, then copy and paste the code onto your site. You can use the same button (same code) for your entire site.

Accept Credit Cards
Now click on one of the 'Add to Cart' buttons above. The item gets added to the shopping cart (on a PayPal page). Click on another button, and the second item gets added. If you click on the 'Checkout' button, you are taken to PayPal's checkout page and asked to complete the purchase. Here you can choose to pay via your PayPal account, or you can use your debit or credit card.

This way you can easily and cost-free accept credit card payment on your website, which otherwise can be as well expensive as exhausting for an online business newbie just starting to sell items online.

This is the easiest way there is to setting up an online store and start selling products online. In addition it's the most affordable and hassle-free method to sell on internet with an online payment processing system costing you nothing until you earn money!

Expanding Your Business
Using PayPal as described here is the simplest way to building an online store and start selling on internet if you have a relatively low number of items to sell. With higher numbers you may need more sofisticated solutions making it easier to list items and divide your products into categories, as well as keeping control with your stock, offer discounts and other features to help you sell items online.

When you are ready to expand your online store, you can look into PayPal's Website Payments Pro, which offers additional functionality and is supported by most popular shopping carts.

When you are getting even more experienced, there are several other options to develop your online store. Please see our Selling Things Online page for further information.

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