I've sold over 500,000 products on eBay during the last six years. Lately, I've heard some serious arguments about what payment methods sellers should accept and why. Let me tell you from my experience what you should do. Sellers should accept PayPal, Money Orders, Personal Checks, and have their own merchant accounts (for more advanced sellers). In order, here is how my customers pay me: 86% PayPal 10% Mercant Account with Visa/MasterCard, American Express and Discover 4% Check or Money Order 1% Cash I've heard from people marketing "How To Sell on eBay" guides that a paypal account is not needed. That's certainly not what my customers demand. Why the Merchant Account? Because some people simply don't prefer to use PayPal. Also, it's a great back-up in case something ever happens to my PayPal account. I can always take an electonic payment. Last, if you don't accept checks or money orders, you can count on your final bid amounts to be down 5-10%. Darn if I really understand why people want to pay with paper checks or money orders, but they do, and even though it takes some time to process, it really helps my business. How do I pay when shopping? PayPal, baby.