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Paypal alternatives |
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The Vertical Project.
Why Increase Your Vertical Leap by 6-12 Inches, When You Can Double It?
Author: Sarah Pearce Paypal alternatives
When I initially opened an online business, I was at a loss as to how I could accept payments. Most customers were still vary of using their credit cards and other financial information online and personal checks took too long to be processed, especially if they were from outside the country. Since most of my online sales were done internationally, I wanted a system that would work quickly, reliably and with the minimum amount of fuss and charges. This was the time I discovered sites like paypal and paypal alternatives.
Now most people would insist that paypal was sufficient to earn a regular income online and to process payments and receipts. But the fact remains that of over 163 or more countries in the world, paypal operates only in 56. Not all of my customers lived in those 56 countries and I needed to find paypal alternatives to process their payments. I did a little bit of online sleuthing and discovered that there were a number of paypal alternatives which processed payments from countries other than those that paypal served. And I gladly opened accounts with all of them and continued to serve my customers.
One of the best paypal alternatives I have found is Storm pay. This site too operates very much like paypal, but it serves a lot more countries. As a paypal alternative it is also cheaper for me to use this service as it charges me very little to receive money when compared to paypal. So I have been using this paypal alternative as my primary account for online transactions. Another paypal alternative I discovered is E-gold. Now this paypal alternative is not exactly a paypal alternative as it uses an altogether different system to process payments. Believe it or not, this online money processing system uses gold as the currency of choice.
Initially, I was a little curious about it and opened an account just to experience the novelty. But over time, it has proved to be an efficient paypal alternative. The thing with the E-gold system is that it converts all your receipts into gold deposits that you can encash at designated centers all over the world. Being a bullion funded and operated account, it does not have many of the restrictions that conventional money funded accounts like paypal have. Also, if you follow the gold prices right and cash your gold at the right time, you stand to make a lot more money in terms of the exchange value that you gain. Now who in their right minds would say no to some extra money, especially when it is all legal?
There are other paypal alternatives as well. They include the likes of moneybookers (a system very similar to paypal) and even one called e-money, where you earn credits for money received, which you can exchange for cash discounts on range of products and services offered by the affiliates of the sites. I find that it is easier for me to transfer some of my receipts to this sort of an account as I can than use the hefty discount to purchase my business essentials. I make money at both ends and remain a savvy and consummate online businessman!
There are many payment systems which are alternatives to paypal. Some paypal alternatives brag that they have a simpler pricing structure. This might be true - paypal is complex and paypal alternatives which just charge a flat fee might make your life easier if you have a business and do many transactions a month. Ideally, many alternatives to paypal are great if you are a super high traffic business, because they will give you a paypal alternative reduced fee for your business, with the understanding that you will be using their services so frequently that they will still make lost of money of your business. So if you are setting up business, it only makes sense to check out a variety of payment systems including paypal alternatives.
Of course, the advantage to paypal over the many paypal alternatives is the degree of name recognition. People are reluctant often to make purchases online, even with payment systems which are supposedly secure, and so paypal alternatives, even if they promise lower rates, might sometimes decrease business. After all, unlike many paypal alternatives, everyone has heard of paypal, and people are much more likely to feel comfortable using a service that they have heard of then one that they haven't.
Of course, one of the popular paypal alternative is simply the electronic check. This system must be one of the cheaper paypal alternatives, because its use is widespread, even though it is much less convenient for the user. In this paypal alternative, you write down your checking number, your routing number, and the check number, and can actually send a check over the internet to the destination. The one thing that makes this one of the least convenient of paypal alternatives is that it can take more than a few days for the bank to cash the check, making it a slow form of payment. Another problem with this paypal alternative is that it involves so much more information than a credit card, which only requires a few numbers.
Other paypal alternatives are probably much better because they offer the same service as paypal, but more cheaply. There are many payment systems, and unfortunately I have not had the time to try out all of the paypal alternatives. But the biggest reason I haven't is this: paypal works just fine for me, and I do not have that many transactions over the internet. However, if I did I would be wise to investigate all of the paypal alternatives.
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