How to receive and send money from PayPal account in Africa
For years now, PayPal has solidified itself as the payment system of
choice for anyone doing business on the Internet. When people first
started doing business over the Internet, you would have thought that
some sort of convenient credit-card payment system would have been the
system of choice. However, the collective greediness of the major credit
card processors created a gap online, where businesses without a lot of
available cash flow needed an inexpensive way to offer potential online
customers with a fast and convenient way to pay for things online.
The Ebay craze really fueled this. The need for a cheap and
convenient payment system was fed by the millions of transactions taking
place on Ebay, where most sellers had very little expendable cash to
pay for a credit card payment system, and most buyers only had a bank
account and credit cards to pay with – and most were very wary of typing
in their credit card information over the Internet, with so many cases
of credit card numbers getting hacked on the Internet.
Enter PayPal, a system where both buyer and seller simply set up a safe and secure account
that can be fed with funds from a bank account, and where the only
thing required for monetary transactions on the Internet is an email
address. This middle-man of financial transactions was the perfect
solution, providing sellers with one of the easiest ways to accept
payments on the Internet, and with sellers a “safe-zone” of transactions
where they could simply use their email address to make a purchase, and
leave the credit card numbers safely tucked away.
With the growth of PayPal, came a greater number of methods sellers
can use to accept payments online. Not too long ago, Tim discussed how businesses can make use of PayPal,
but in this article, I’d like to take that a step further and show you
all of the different ways that you can actually accept payments from
people.
How to Set Up a Paypal Account for Receiving Payments
Sending payments using PayPal is easy, and you can even send out mass payments now. For years, the most common way to receive
payments on PayPal (in fact it’s still the most common way) is simply
to request a payment from someone. Usually, this won’t be required if
you’re using a system like Ebay, where the request for payment is an
automated part of the process, and where buyers usually just pay for the
products immediately upon winning the auction.
Requesting Payments
However, if you’re working for clients or you have a friend that owes
you some money, you can quickly send them a request, which will issue
an email from PayPal asking them to submit payment immediately, and
providing a convenient link where they can send you the dough with just a
few clicks.
The request process gives you a chance to type a quick note that will
also be a part of that reminder email. This is one of the fastest and
most convenient ways to get payments from someone via PayPal.
Of course, if you run a business or a contracting service, issuing
simple requests like this isn’t very professional. If you’re going to be
expecting payments from the same clients every month, it’s much more
professional to issue monthly invoices, and PayPal can help you there
as well.
Under the “Request Money” tab, just click on the “Create Invoice”
link, and you’ll have the option to issue invoice details, including how
many days you’ll allow the client to take to send in payment, an
itemized list, and even an automated invoice number for your records.
There are even several invoice templates available for you to choose
from.
These are the two most common ways to receive money from people, and
these methods have been available in some form or another since PayPal
was founded. However, these days, PayPal provides many more options for
you to offer your customers and clients for sending you the money that
you’re owed.
Setting Up Recurring Payments and Other Payment Options
One feature I’ve always liked once PayPal started
offering it was the ability to place a payment button right on your
website. I described how to do this when I wrote about offering online
tech support with
One thing I just noticed is now available in addition to just
offering a “Buy Now” button is that PayPal now offers a list of buttons
you can use, including subscriptions, automatic billing (very nice for
website or newsletter subscriptions), or even an installment plan for
large purchases.
I love the ability to allow clients or readers to set up a
subscription right from a button on your site. This is sure to increase
conversion rates, since making the purchase process streamlined and easy
always encourages people to move forward with the transaction.
Depending which type of button you choose to embed on your site, the
options that are available in the PayPal wizard will change to be
applicable to that button type.
You can even have PayPal send your customers to customized pages on
your own site either after the payment is completed (to thank them and
help them continue to other parts of your website), or if they cancel
(to encourage them to proceed with the purchase).
Installing the button is wicked easy, and it doesn’t take any expert
level programming skill. At the end of the PayPal button-creation
wizard, you’ll be provided a form code that you can embed on any page of
your site where you want to place the button.
Here’s what the newsletter subscription button looks like once it was
embedded on my own blog. What’s cool is that it gives the customers the
option to use credit cards rather than their PayPal account if that’s
the option they choose – because PayPal accepts credit cards as part of
its payment options.
The latest innovative way that PayPal now offers to accept payments
from people is the ultra cool “PayPal Here” app that’s now available for
iPhone or Android. All you have to do on PayPal is select this option
under Merchant Services, and type your mobile number in the field to get
a text message with the link to install the “PayPal Here” app.
This app, believe it or not, will let you accept credit card payments
to your PayPal account with nothing more than your iPhone or Android,
and a little credit card reader device that PayPal will send you for
free once you sign up for the service. Unlike other payment systems
small businesses have to use, this service requires absolutely no
monthly service fee. You simply pay the per-transaction service charge
of 2.7 to 3.5 percent (slightly higher in some countries), and you’re
good to go. If I had a small business and wanted to keep my overhead
costs down, but still offer customers the convenience of credit cards,
this is definitely the way I would go, no doubt about it.
So those are all of the many ways how to set up a Paypal account to
receive payments from just about anyone, anywhere in the world. All you
have to do is figure out exactly how you intend to conduct your
business, and then choose the solution that’s right for you.
Have you ever used any of PayPal’s services to receive payments?
Which methods do you prefer? Share your thoughts and experiences in the
comments section below!