What is PayPal?

PayPal provides a way to send money to anyone in the world who has an email address.

But, first you have to register your details (including Credit Card details) with PayPal. As part of this process you decide on a password so that you are the only one who can access your PayPal account.

All this information which is sent to PayPal is sent securely (ie all the data is encrypted) so that even if intercepted by anyone while passing across the Internet, the information cannot be extracted. Only PayPal can decipher the data.

(PayPal uses "SSL security" which is the industry standard way to send sensitive information in a highly encrypted form across the Internet. Virtually all on-line stores and banks use this same system.)

The advantage for the seller (me in this case) is that I don’t have to set up a "Credit Card Payment Gateway" with a bank to be able to accept Credit Card payments. Such a set-up with a bank is not economical for such a moderate volume of transactions.

The advantages for the buyer (you) are:

Ease of payment via Credit Card

Ability to pay in your local currency without paying any bank fees (bank charges for International bank drafts, or currency conversion fees)

You pay no fees to PayPal

No postage costs or postal delivery delays when sending your order and payment to me

You have a record of your payment