PayPal is a hugely popular financial services site, that was originally designed as a quick and simple way to transfer money online from purchases made from ebay. However it's wider potential was quickly realised and now it is a major player in the online financial services sector and has opened up huge possibilities for making money online. There are many ways in which you can make money using PayPal and we discuss some of these possibilities below.

PayPal Buy it Now Button

PayPal “Buy It Now Button’s” are an effective and simple way to sell products or services via your site. They work in an identical way as on the eBay site, in that an online visitor clicks on the "Buy It Now Button” and they are redirected to a secure PayPal page which will safely allow them to pay via credit/debit card or an existing pay pal account. These button’s are ideal for non technical people who need a quick way to sell safely and securely. All you need to do is to visit the pay pal site and input the price of the product or service you intend to sell, along with a short description. PayPal then creates a HTML code which you simply cut and paste into the appropriate place on your website. The main advantage is that you create a buy it now button in a few seconds and there are no limits to how many buttons you can create.

These “Buy it Now” Buttons are perfect if your site sells one or two products or services and it means that you can accept all types of payment methods without a monthly contract or commitment as PayPal just charge you a flat fee of 2.5% for the transactions. The main drawback is that the "Buy It Now” button is only coded with the details of one specific product or service that you may be offering, so if you have dozens of such items on your site and a customer wants to make multiple purchases then they have to pay for each separately, which can be slow and time consuming. You can also choose to have a donate now button which works in exactly the same way, and is designed to enable you to collect donations from visitors to your non profit making site.

PayPal Shopping Basket

This is a superb tool and turns your site into an online store. Essentially a PayPal shopping basket is a cheap e-commerce solution for your site at a fraction of the cost. With this option you can sell multiple products or services on your site and customers can simply add them to a shopping basket which automatically works out the total as each item is added. This is a superb tool if you are selling multiple items and gives your site a professional appeal. PayPal charge a fee of x for this service. This option contains a shopping basket which redirects customers to a secure PayPal payment section once they are ready to pay and accepts payments using all major payment methods.

PayPal Subscription Service

This service is a great way to make money using PayPal because it allows repeat orders to be automated meaning that customers do not have to keep revisiting your site to renew membership or magazine subscription, as it will automatically charge them until they decide to cancel the subscription. This is great for site owners because they do not have to keep chasing customers of sending out reminders, which can be costly and time consuming. This feature is a great way to make money using pay pal if you have a regular membership charge or offer a subscription service of any description or if you run a fundraising site and want to encourage regular donations.

Here are a few ideas of how to make money with PayPal using these payment features;

1. Create an E-book with some useful information, advice or even a creative story. Use your site to actively sell this to online visitors by providing a short extract and bullet pointing the chapters it covers. The simply place a "Buy It Now” button underneath a picture or image of your book.

2. If you are running an ad free site use a “Donate Now” button to encourage your visitors to make a small donation to keep the site running. This is a great approach if you have a dedicated following. Even better you could consider a subscription service that take a small sum on a regular basis.

3. If you provide a specific service through your site, consider creating a dedicated page which details the varied elements of your service, timescales, commitments and actively sell it to potential visitors. Then include a “Buy it Now “ button at the end.

4. Speak to magazine companies and negotiate contracts to sell their magazines online through your site. Then simply create a site that promotes these directly to people online. Finding a niche market often works best, like female or biking magazines. Use a PayPal subscription button to sell magazine subscriptions to visitors and you will soon start to build up a regular customer base.

5. If the idea of selling individual products or services seems unappealing or you want to build up a multiple product or service portfolio then integrate the PayPal shopping basket into your site to give customers flexibility and convenience. You could sell anything at all from craft cards that you have made to exclusive items that are difficult to find elsewhere.

6. Want to campaign to change something or turn a hobby into a full time job? If so, then why not set up your own charitable organisation and collect donations via a PayPal “Donate Now” button. This will enable you to communicate directly with your grass roots supports and make it easy for them to donate.

7. Refer Others. Another great way to make money online using PayPal is to sign up for their affiliate programme. Once you have a referral code, you can earn money for every new person you refer to the PayPal site, that create a new account. The easiest way to do this is to create a review of the PayPal site and then at the bottom provide a link to the site for people to visit. Insert your referral code into the link and you can start generating a regular referral income. You can also post your referral ID in forums and on social networking sites like face book or my space, where permitted.

8. International Appeal. One of the most attractive ways to make money online using pay pal is the ability to promote your products or services to a global audience, which far exceeds your national boundaries. PayPal opens up what you have to offer to almost all international countries and allows you to accept payments in most currencies, because PayPal convert these transactions for free into your home currency.

Potential Earnings

The potential earnings that you could earn using PayPal are highly variable depending upon the products or services that you are marketing, however we’ve tried to give you a flavour of some figures for some of the suggestions listed above.

e-book - Should you choose to make money using PayPal then most e-books will sell for significantly less than a standard softback or hardback book, because there are less physical publishing costs. In addition you need to take account that any customers may wish to print off you book rather than just download it as a PDF and as such you need to factor in their cost of printing. An average e-book price is likely to be around £4.99. So if you sold 20 of these per month then you could be looking at £99.80. It is unlikely that you will offer just one-book for sale and our suggestion would be to target at least 5 to make your investment in promoting your site worth it. So 5 x £99.80 would mean that you could make £499.00 using PayPal.

Check out some of our other user friendy tutorials and guides to help you earn money online with integrity;

Earn Money Online From Blogging

Earn Money Online With Cashback Shopping Sites

Earn Money Online With Video Sharing Sites

Earn Money Online With Cashback Credit Cards

Earn Money Online With Proofreading

Earn Money Online With Copywriting

Earn Money Online With Revenue Sharing Sites

Earn Money Online With Paid Surveys

Earn Money Online As A Writer

Earn Money As An Online Guide

Earn Money Online Writing Ebooks and Eguides

Earn Money Online With Affiliate Programs