It is amazing how much online commerce has advanced, and how quickly it is done so. It was not long ago when online credit card payments were more of a novelty than a useful way to make monetary transactions. Such is the case no longer. Nowadays, online payments are essential. Even when you do most of your commerce in person, not having an online payment center can often be a detriment to your business. I know people who never go shopping unless they can check out the store online first. If they can't get price quotes, a storefront, and excellent product descriptions, they won't go there. Just having the option to process online payments at your store adds to many people's confidence in their perception of your business.

Of course, there are many different ways to set up an online storefront. One of the simplest ways to do it is to simply use PayPal. PayPal payments online have a lot of advantages to them. For one thing, it is a standard format that everyone can use. Rather than having to deal with several different credit cards, checks, and whatever other types of transactions you want, you can use PayPal for everything. Besides that, they handle the security issues for you � a major relief for those of us who don't understand the finer points of encryption.

There are, however, some big disadvantages to doing all of your online payments with PayPal. Of course, PayPal takes a sizable cut out of your profits, but so do credit cards. The difference really lies in the fact that most people don't have PayPal set up. Although a sizable number of Internet consumers do, as a business you ideally wants to open yourself up to people who don't normally make payments online. Some people only make online transactions every once in a while, And these people rarely set-up Pay Pal accounts. It is a big advantage to be able to take online payments from folks like this, particularly if you are not catering to a particularly tech-savvy clinetele.

Of course, you can set up an online storefront and combine the convenience of using PayPal with the unparalleled market available to people who use credit cards. Having someone else handle the technical aspects of your storefront often makes the most sense, particularly if you're a small business. It can even increase your page ranking, inflating it based on the popularity of your host.