Ah... the big four means of payment. Which are right for you as an ebay seller? Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Let's review some of them, shall we? I'll start in the same order as the title, then first mention some of the advantages, verses some of the disadvantages.
Checks:
The advantages are obvious: you don't have to pay a fee on accepting a check. It's also a nice feeling walking out to the mailbox and opening it up to see five envelopes from five buyers, with five different checks.
Disadvantages: Checks are only as fast as the post office can get them to you. Sure, a buyer could overnight you a check, but who's going to do that? No one. So, there's a time delay.
Second, what happens if the buyer wrote you a bad check? You could call the issuing bank and ask if there are funds in that sellers' checking account to cover the check, but that's no guarantee that the funds will be there two days later when your bank tries to collect on the amount from the buyers' bank. If you deposit a check in to your checking account, and it bounces, your bank may try to collect on the bounced check fee from YOU! Call your bank and ask them who is responsible for a bounced check fee when you try to deposit a bad check from a buyer, you.... or the buyer?
Checks really are a bad rap, pretty much all the way around. The only real benefit to you is avoiding the paypal fee, which, in and of itself, really isn't all that much. The paypal fee is far less than what ebay is charging you!
There are a couple rare cases when I will accept a personal check. I do my primary banking at Fifth Third Bank here in Cincinnati. Fifth Third, like many major banks across the US, have branches all over, and their territory encompasses numerous states. If a buyer tells me that he wishes to write a check drawn on a Fifth Third account (or drawn on any other account associated with a bank than I have an account with), I will accept it. Then, it's a simple matter of walking in to a Fifth Third bank, for example, and cashing the check. If the check is no good, obviously it's not going to get cashed, and I will not have incurred any fees. The problem is depositing checks drawn on ANY other bank other than one with which I do business. Those are the ones I can't cash, and would otherwise be forced to deposit- and take the risks of the check being worthless.
If the check turns out to be worthless and un-cashable, I am not out a whole lot. I've only lost the time it took me to drive to the bank and back and stand in line, and the nice thing about Fifth Third banks is that they're conveniently located in many of the Kroger grocery stores I visit regularly. So, even if I did waste a trip to the bank trying to cash a worthless check, I still will make the best of it and at least grab a gallon of milk and a few other things I am low on since I'm already at the store as it is.
Besides, I can use my time standing in line at the bank productively by checking my emails on my cell phone, and seeing if I've sold anything or if I have any buyer questions since the last time I checked in. And to top it all off, even if I can't cash a worthless check, I can still hit the ATM and pull some funds out of my business checking account ('funds' are my way of calling the money I've made from the things I've sold, and have transferred from my paypal account to my business checking account), and deposit them in to my personal checking account.
See how I've really got this time management thing worked out? Use every trip, and every moment to your advantage like I do!
There are a couple rare cases when I will accept a personal check. I do my primary banking at Fifth Third Bank here in Cincinnati. Fifth Third, like many major banks across the US, have branches all over, and their territory encompasses numerous states. If a buyer tells me that he wishes to write a check drawn on a Fifth Third account (or drawn on any other account associated with a bank than I have an account with), I will accept it. Then, it's a simple matter of walking in to a Fifth Third bank, for example, and cashing the check. If the check is no good, obviously it's not going to get cashed, and I will not have incurred any fees. The problem is depositing checks drawn on ANY other bank other than one with which I do business. Those are the ones I can't cash, and would otherwise be forced to deposit- and take the risks of the check being worthless.
If the check turns out to be worthless and un-cashable, I am not out a whole lot. I've only lost the time it took me to drive to the bank and back and stand in line, and the nice thing about Fifth Third banks is that they're conveniently located in many of the Kroger grocery stores I visit regularly. So, even if I did waste a trip to the bank trying to cash a worthless check, I still will make the best of it and at least grab a gallon of milk and a few other things I am low on since I'm already at the store as it is.
Besides, I can use my time standing in line at the bank productively by checking my emails on my cell phone, and seeing if I've sold anything or if I have any buyer questions since the last time I checked in. And to top it all off, even if I can't cash a worthless check, I can still hit the ATM and pull some funds out of my business checking account ('funds' are my way of calling the money I've made from the things I've sold, and have transferred from my paypal account to my business checking account), and deposit them in to my personal checking account.
See how I've really got this time management thing worked out? Use every trip, and every moment to your advantage like I do!
Money Orders (MOs):
Same advantages and disadvantages as with checks. If you decide you want to accept MOs, or have a buyer who is begging and pleading with you to accept a check or MO, I'd say accept the MO. One advantage to MOs is that the buyer pretty much has to go to someplace like a post office or a bank and actually hand money over the counter to get a MO. So, the money is there.... somewhere.
If I have a buyer who wants to send me a check or MO, I insist upon a post office MO. Here's why: First, there are plenty of post offices around. There shouldn't be too much of an issue for your buyer to locate a post office to buy a MO, then to buy a 44 cent stamp and mail you the MO right there at the post office. Second, when the MO arrives, I simply drive to my local PO and cash the MO. Third, the PO is going to tell me right there on the spot whether the MO is good or not. I don't need to take it to my bank and deposit it when the PO is going to do its' part and verify it right then and there in front of me before they cash it.
Sounds like a lot of alphabet soup, doesn't it? For me, POMO's are pretty much all I will accept outside of paypal. One more reason for accepting POMOs is that I pretty much make a trip to the PO anyways to drop off boxes at least once every other day. It's not like a trip to the closest PO (about a mile away) is any big trouble for me, especially when I'm there several times a week as it is.
Cash:
I never accept cash from a buyer, unless it from a local buyer who wants to meet me in person and pick up the item personally to save on shipping costs. In such cases, which are fairly rare, I make the buyer sign a note that he picked up the item from me and that he inspected it on site before paying for it and driving off. This should cover your behind should he try to tell you later that "Hey! This item isn't as described!"
I have a few other stipulation that I make such local pick-up buyers follow to save me time and headaches. I covered them in my blog entitled "Help! A buyer is trying to scam me!"
About the only advantages to a cash payment is the immediacy of the payment, and the fee avoidance. But there is a downside: what if the buyer hands you a counterfeit $20, $50 or $100. Are you going to know it's counterfeit? Are you going to check it with one of those detector pens? Your call.
Paypal:
OK, the advantages: Paypal is immediate. You get your payment immediately. You can even sell something on craigslist, for example, and get paid through paypal. That's how commonplace paypal is. Another advantage: paypal is going to have a record of the transaction. If you follow paypal's guidelines for selling, paypal is going to back you up if anything goes wrong in the transaction. This is called the Seller Protection program. A third benefit is that you can easily print USPS and UPS postage from your paypal account, for free. No need to take all your packages to the post office or UPS and stand in lines and pay for postage at either place. And you'll likely get a discount for paying for your postage online rather than going to a post office. And forth, if you ever need to refund a buyer a payment for any reason, or even a partial refund, it can easily be done through paypal. No need to write out a check to a buyer for a refund.
There are probably more advantages, but these are just what I've thought of off the top of my head.
The disadvantages are few. I can only think of two. First is the paypal fee. You will never get out of paying a paypal fee. And, although you get paid immediately, in order to access your funds free of fees, you'll have to opt for an ACH transfer of funds from your paypal account to your linked checking account- a process that takes anywhere from 2 - 4 business days.
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