What is PayPal and how does it work?, is a question often asked by the e-commerce uninitiated. Since it’s a twofold question it deserves a twofold answer. So, let’s deal with, What is PayPal? but first Who is PayPal. PayPal payment gateway is an e-commerce business, providing merchant services, accepting credit cards online, facilitating money transfers and payment processing for purchases made on the Internet. PayPal has offices scattered globally and is wholly owned by eBay.com. PayPal, is also the name of the service they provide which is essentially global money transfer from B2B, or C2B. Pay Pal or sometimes Paypal seems to be used interchangeably on the Internet, however it is written as PayPal.
Paypal works as an intermediary between buyer and seller, accepting payment from buyer’s PayPal account and transfers the money to the seller's PayPal account. Buyers can upload funds from their
credit or debit cards into their PayPal account and conversely sellers can download the funds from his PayPal account into
debit or credit card. The precondition is that both parties must have a verified PayPal account.
A PayPal account can only be created on the PayPal Website. So type the http://www.paypal.com URL directly into your browser and make absolutely certain that you don't type palpay, patpal or paypak. Alternatively click
HERE to go to the PayPal Website. You'd be surprised to see how many thousands of surfers type pay pal, palpay, payoal, paypsl, payapl, paypay, paypla, aypal, patpal, peypal, paypak or even paybal by inadvertently hitting the adjacent key of the letters that spells PayPal. So, when you arrive on the on PayPal home page, click on the sign up button next to the blue login button in the top right hand corner. On the
PayPal account registration page, select
Personal Account or
Business Account, then choose the country you live in. Complete the form on the
PayPal Account Sign Up page, then click
Sign Up. The following images is just a preview of what you'll see when you sign up for a PayPal account.
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| PayPal landing Page |
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| PayPal Sign Up Page |
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| PayPal Personal / Business selection age |
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| PayPal Get started Page |
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| PayPal Personal Account Page |
Creating a PayPal account is a two step process. Sign up and Verification. To do this you need have your
credit or debit card at hand because you need to transfer money online into your new PayPal account. This is a very small amount, something like 2 dollars which PayPal will refund. It is just PayPal checking your credentials and the credibility of your account as actual and physical with a trusted banking institution.
The first step, complete the online questionnaire and transfer the requisite 2 dollars into your newly created paypal account then log off. The second step is to get the bank statement from your bank that reflects the 2 dollar transfer into your newly created PayPal account. Login to your newly created PayPal account and type in the code/pin-number associated with said payment. PayPal will then activate your PayPal account as verified. Sending money via PayPal can now commence and you accept credit cards online if you website is PayPal enabled. The following image is what you will see when your PayPal account is verified.
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| PayPal Verified Page |
The image below is the PayPal Business Account Sign Up page which is slightly different from the personal page. However this is what you'll see, should you wish to create a business account.
