Happy New Year, and thanks for looking. I haven’t used ebay to sell anything in about 4 years, and the process seems to have changed a little bit, especially in regards to Paypal.
Does a seller NEED to have a Premier Paypal account? Or is it just a racket?
What about the Checkout service? Is it worth using?
Last question, I’ve seen some sellers using a nifty service where the buyer enters their zip code, and then shipping for that particular item is automatically calculated. How do I set that up? And again, is it worth it?
No, you don’t need to use PayPal at all if you don’t want. eBay owns PayPal now, though, so they’ll try to push it on you at every opportunity.
I think Checkout is only for people who are accepting payment via PayPal, so it should be moot for you.
I think those services are provided by FedEx and UPS, not eBay. I’ve never used them, though, since I usually send stuff via USPS and make an average guestimate with their shipping calculator, and round stuff up a buck or two, and say “Buyer pays $7.00 for shipping anywhere in the US” in my auction.
You can accept payment through PayPal with a free personal account, however you cannot accept credit card payments with that type of account. A personal account can only take payment from a PayPal balance, or a bank transfer. I am not positive about this, but I think personal accounts have a $100 per month transaction limit if you are a seller.
A Premier account will let you accept credit card payments, but it will take fees from the transaction. It may be worth it if you have a lot of stuff to sell - the more varied types of payment you accept often translates to higher/more bids. The fees aren’t too bad, they are certainly cheaper than setting up a merchant card account.