Seriously, guys?
I am going to be generous and assume that none of you have ever worked retail or run a business before finding eBay.
Let's start with "eBay only allows Paypal payments". Not true. The seller cannot demand payment by a non-electronically viewable method, but those methods include a couple of similar payment companies and the seller's own merchant credit card account.
The buyer is always allowed to offer alternative payment.
It is the BUYER's who want to pay by PP. It is immediate, if they back it with a credit card. It is free to the buyer, unlike money orders and cheques. And the buyer's payment is protected against scammers.
In our business (35 years B&M and over 20 online with eBay and others) (this is one of seven eBay IDs). our online customers prefer Paypal over giving us their cc information by phone, email or fax. This includes several who have been buying from us, directily from our website or our public auctions for years and are still using PP.
Selling fees run around 9-10% of the money your buyer sends. That's pretty decent compared to other retail business costs. Of your margin is less than 10%, you are selling the wrong thing to the wrong customer. My margins on low priced items is about 90-100% (Buy for a dollar, sell for $10)/. My time (at 17 cents a minute, Ontario minimum wage), packaging costs (around 35 cents) and insurance (maybe a penny), double that dollar. I'm not getting rich, but I do have a nice pension fund.
