Teach Me Wednesdays: Don't like PayPal? No prob...I'll take a credit card!

Did you know that you can accept credit card payments through PayPal and your customer doesn't even have to use a PayPal account?

About a month ago, I had a customer convo me and ask if it were possible to pay with a credit card as she did not want to use her PayPal account for this transaction.

I had heard that I could do this through PayPal, so I set to work figuring it out.

Turns out, it's really easy and you can do it too, giving your customers another option to pay.

Here's how:

1. You're going to need to send your customer and updated invoice, so go to your PayPal account and click on "request money". You'll get a screen that looks something like this. (minus the black stripes, those are my sent invoices).

Click on the box labeled "Create an Invoice"

2. This will take you to this screen, which is where you will actually send the invoice. This is the top of the invoice, and if you'd like to make it look nice, you can click "add logo" and put in a picture to be your official logo.

I created a logo in Picasa and exported it. The perfect size is 75x200 pixels.

This is my PayPal logo. Nothing fancy, but it lets the customer know where the invoice is coming from.

3. Once you've filled in the date and invoice number, scroll down to the bottom of the invoice and here's where you'll fill in the important information. The customer's e-mail address, description of the item, price, tax (if applicable) and send the invoice on its way.

 4. Now, this is important, before you send your customer an invoice, send them a convo or e-mail instructing them to open their invoice when they receive it (this is what it will look like in their e-mail), and click the "Pay Now" link, but....

DO NOT sign in to PayPal!!!

Instruct them that after they click the "Pay Now" link, they need to look to the left where it says

"Don't have a PayPal account?"

Here, above the credit card logos they will see a little "Continue" link (red arrow).

If they click on that, it will take them to the appropriate screen where they can manually fill in their credit card information and pay safely and securely through PayPal.



The payment goes directly to your PayPal account (because you sent them the invoice), and they do not have to give you their credit card number or anything like that.

Make sure that in your online shop you have a little snippet in your policies stating that you do take a credit card and set your Etsy account to offer "other" as a payment option.

Instruct your customers to attach a note when they check out that they'd like to pay with a credit card and then you can do the above to send them an invoice.

It's actually very easy and gives you another way to cater to your customers.

Enjoy the day!