sepa or paypal?

kerosene

I am growing shamrock for St Patricks Day and I will be sending samples to irish pubs throughout the uk and europe in January. The shamrocks will come with a plastic holder with the name of the pub on it.

What do others advise would be the most convenient and transparent method of payment for both me and my potential customers. I have no business set up, I will need to use my personal bank account, this year is like a trial to seek out potential demand.

jimmii

Either is fine PayPal works out more expensive if just using your own bank account keep proper records do set up a separate account I'd you decide to roll it out on a larger scale though makes it a lot easier to manage.

kerosene

My preferred method of payment would be sepa, but I dont want it to look like a scam, or a fly by night operation. I realise it will take time to build up a customer base and next year should be easier when I have a facebook page and hopefully pics/posts etc of satisified customers, I was wondering would paypal give more credibility or peace of mind for new customers.

elastico

kerosene wrote: »

My preferred method of payment would be sepa, but I dont want it to look like a scam, or a fly by night operation. I realise it will take time to build up a customer base and next year should be easier when I have a facebook page and hopefully pics/posts etc of satisified customers, I was wondering would paypal give more credibility or peace of mind for new customers.

Firstly SEPA is AFAIK no good in the UK or anywhere else outside the SEPA area so you can't use that exclusively.

Secondly its not your preferred method of payment that counts but what your customers preffered method.

Some people will have money in a paypal account, others in the bank etc.

You can also look at something like stripe, which enables you to take card payments over the phone.

kerosene

It is possible to send money by sepa to the UK, so I presume it is possible to use it to send money from the UK. Il probably offer both payment options, im just not that familiar with paypal. The stripe system looks interesting also, Ive a couple of months to get organised, so ive time to research all options.

delahuntv

elastico wrote: »

.

Some people will have money in a paypal account, others in the bank etc.

You don't need a paypal account to pay by paypal.

For the OP - I'm assuming this will be a once off or once a year purchase for nearly all potential customers.

Credit card via Paypal (or paypal account if they have one) or Creditcard and you set up a virtual terminal are really the only 2 options.

Very few will go to the hassle of setting up a sepa payment for a small one off purchase.

hfallada

SEPA is just the name of the EU directive, that all IBAN and BIC were to be standardised across the Eurozone. Every bank account now has the same IBAN and BIC length regardless of it the bank account is German or Irish. The clearing of interbank transactions are now done on an European level AFAIK. SEPA is nothing but a fancy name for standardised IBAN and BIC for Eurozone transactions. If you send money to German using a standard bank transaction, its a few cents. Paypal will be a percentage which is significantly more than a bank transfer

OP use a bank account. It will be free for a new business. Where as Paypal or Stripe will eat into your margin.

delahuntv

hfallada wrote: »

SEPA is just the name of the EU directive, that all IBAN and BIC were to be standardised across the Eurozone. Every bank account now has the same IBAN and BIC length regardless of it the bank account is German or Irish. The clearing of interbank transactions are now done on an European level AFAIK. SEPA is nothing but a fancy name for standardised IBAN and BIC for Eurozone transactions. If you send money to German using a standard bank transaction, its a few cents. Paypal will be a percentage which is significantly more than a bank transfer

OP use a bank account. It will be free for a new business. Where as Paypal or Stripe will eat into your margin.

if I were a potential customer of the op and I was told that for a one off relatively small purchase that I could only pay by direct bank transfer, I'd decline the offer.

kerosene

Ive used sepa to transfer money between ireland and the uk, it is very straight forward I can do it from my phone without signing up to anything. I will offer both services I think some potential customers feel they have more security with the paypal option. I only have a small window of opportunity to capitalise on potential sales, though I would be confident of repeat annual business, so the more options for customers the better.
Reading about paypal recently though, I would be concerned about some of the limits on transactions they set on new customers, though thats probably a new thread altogether.