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What is a PayPal Business Account?

10 min read

PayPal is one of the most well-known payment processing platforms in the ecommerce space. If you are new to ecommerce or have multiple ecommerce businesses you may want to set up a PayPal business account to take advantage of many benefits. PayPal will provide your customers a great checkout experience and provide you an easy way to receive payments and access to tools to grow your business.

There are some great benefits here to anyone in the ecommerce space. This article will cover some common questions you may have if you are wondering if a PayPal business account is the right payment processing service for you.

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What is the Difference Between Your Personal PayPal and Business PayPal Accounts?

A PayPal personal account is ideal for shopping online, or sending or receiving money from friends or family for low transaction fees. You can use your personal account for either personal or business transactions, but the personal account does have some limitations when using it for business transactions.

If you are planning on selling products either on eBay or your own website you can accept a debit card, credit card, or bank account payment for a low transaction fee with your PayPal personal account. While a personal PayPal account is great for casual sellers, if you want to accept payments and grow your ecommerce business then you want to consider a PayPal business account.

PayPal business account is the best option if you want to accept payments through PayPal. There is no fee for setting up your PayPal business account. You can integrate multiple payment options into your checkout page, set up subscriptions, and gain access to inside reports to see how your business is growing. As you grow your company you can allow up to 200 employees limited access to your account. If you are thinking about using PayPal to receive payments for your business a PayPal business account is what you will need.

Are There Any Fees for Accepting Transactions?

If you decide to open a PayPal business account there are some transaction fees you need to be aware of. There is no fee to set up a PayPal business account, currently, PayPal charges 2.9% of the transaction amount plus 30¢ per transaction. Starting August 2, 2021, PayPal is increasing the transaction fees to 3.49% of the transaction amount plus 49¢ per transaction for payments using PayPal. Online credit card payments are subject to a 2.59% charge and 49¢ per transaction fee.

What Payment Options Does PayPal Allow You to Offer to Your Customers?

PayPal offers many options for your customers to complete their transactions in your store. You are not limited to only taking payment in full for products or services that you want to sell in your ecommerce business. These options include: Buy now pay later, subscriptions, and brick and mortar payments.

Pay later options

PayPal offers a buy now pay later option, so your customers can get what they want and worry about the payments later. PayPal offers two pay later options. The first allows customers to pay in four installments and the second one gives your customer a revolving line of credit from PayPal. Those who integrated the pay later option into their checkout process saw a 56% increase in their average order value. The pay later options can easily be added to your checkout page and will not cost you anything to add these payment options to your store.

Subscriptions

A great way to gain returning customers is by offering a subscription option. In 2018, a study showed that 15% of online shoppers have subscribed to at least one ecommerce service in that year alone. A PayPal business account can help you manage your subscription services.

PayPal allows you to offer customizable discounted trial periods to help increase your conversion rates. You can customize the billing cycles to the way you want them to be. There are no additional setup or monthly fees associated with the subscriptions. The subscriptions are subject to the normal transaction fees and will only be taken out when you get paid.

Brick and mortar

PayPal has options for any ecommerce business that may have any physical store presence. PayPal gives you plenty of options to take payments in person so you can easily integrate your in-person sales with your online sales.

PayPal offers a point of sale (POS) option that allows you to have access to a card chip and swipe reader in addition to other options for in-person sales. A PayPal business account can be great for the ease of integration with physical points of sale. You can purchase a card reader for about $25 or you can get a QR code to display for customers to scan. When you receive payments through a QR code the transaction fees are significantly lower than the transaction fees you see online, any purchase above $10.00 will be subject to a 1.90% for the transaction plus 10¢ per transaction.

What Separates a PayPal Business Account from Other Payment Processing Platforms?

PayPal offers additional features that can help you scale your business, including: insights and optimizations, cart recovery, store cash, and two business loan options.

Insights and Optimizations can help you understand your customers and how they are interacting with your store. Tools like this are crucial when you are first starting out. If you are not having initial success, having a PayPal business account and using it to pinpoint your weak points could save you from making unnecessary changes and make you profitable sooner.

A cart recovery tool is a great way to stay engaged with customers who showed interest in your store. If a customer leaves items in their cart without making the purchase, PayPal has a tool that will send them a cart abandonment notification. This is a great way to increase your conversion rates.

Store cash is another way to keep your customers returning to your store. You can use store cash to promote your products and give a discount to customers. PayPal can also send emails on your behalf featuring your store cash offers. You can use store cash offers to either recover customers who have left your store before making a purchase or you can use a store cash offer on past customers to get them to return to your store. PayPal will track how successful your store cash offers are by providing insight into the number of offers redeemed and your sales recovery rate.

A PayPal business account gives you access to capital to help grow your business. You can take advantage of PayPal’s working capital or PayPal business loan options. A PayPal working capital is based on your PayPal account history and the loan does not require a credit check. They are fixed fee loans that can help you grow your business quickly without much risk. A PayPal business loan is a term-based loan that allows you to set up automatic weekly payments that come straight from your bank account.

Is a PayPal Business Account the Only Ecommerce Platform You Need?

A PayPal business account is great for accepting payments. But this works best when integrated with other ecommerce platforms. PayPal can seamlessly integrate with an ecommerce solution like Ecwid. Having great tools can help you succeed in growing and scaling your ecommerce business. With Ecwid you can sell on your own website, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and more. If you already have a PayPal business account you can sync your PayPal business account with your Ecwid account. Your product and customer data will be imported directly into your new website.

Then what? Well, then you’re ready to sell.

 

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About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.

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