Payment Options for Home Businesses Online
December 3, 2006 by Mary Emma Allen
Many home businesses offer their products and services online and never meet their customers/clients face to face. Payment changes hands by credit/debit card or an online banking service such as PayPal.
In some cases, you can offer customers the option of paying by check or money order but this us much slower because generally you’ll wait for payment before you send the item or perform the service…or at least before you start it. (I used to ask for quilt order payments in 1/3 and sometimes 1/2 increments, which at least would cover the cost of the materials if the customer backed out or cancelled the order.)
Mark, at b5media’s DigitalMoneyWorld.com discusses using credit cards for e-commerce and the fact that more than 90 percdent of online purchases are made by consumers using credit cards. He refers to an interview in Commerce Times for these statistics about online sales.