What is the advantage of using Paypal on your ecommerce site?

[Candi]

And the disadvantages. This would be a starter up business, and I am a beginner. Is Pay pal the way to go?

[Krzysko]

You can start up your business without Pay Pal but pay pal is very good choice for you and for your customers. Everyone can feel secure with pay pal. go to the www.paypal.com and read more about it.

[just \"JR\"]

Not many disadvantages...
The only difficulty is to "verify" your account once you go ove 2500€ transactions: proof of address, bank account and credit card are needed. Once verified, no problem whatsoever...
PayPal is world-wide known, is very easy to integrate to any site, charge much less than any other bank, transfer funds instantly (which banks do not), is secure, is free to set-up (none of the other payment gateway is)...
Use it as "single payment" gateway (that is, don't use their "shopping cart", too complex and impractical), and call them with just "total to pay", and integration can be completed in a few minutes at coding.
Get "Easy PayPal Integration" free script at http://www.web2coders.com and set-it up now!

[Kate B]

I have an online business and I was asked by paypal to no longer use them for the type of product I sell. If you have a controversial product I would not use them. They can keep percentage of your sales if you don't have a perfect credit. Hold you funds if someone says they did not receive an item. If you ship use delivery confirmation with no exceptions.
Fees are outrages. Even Google Checkout is better.
But I am sure that there are others that are good.

[jakobmartin]

You can start up your business without Pay Pal but pay pal is very good choice for you and for your customers. Everyone can feel secure with pay pal. go to the www.paypal.

[jakobmartin]

The only difficulty is to "verify" your account once you go ove 2500€ transactions: proof of address, bank account and credit card are needed. Once verified, no problem whatsoever...