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If I start slow and steady..
 

So I've gone through all the steps of setting up a merchant account (MerchantPLUS), but it seems people still love paypal and use that exclusively. If I give in and stick with paypal - and have slow and steady increase in sales - will I be OK, or is it a matter of time before I'm screwed and hit with something requiring my SSN? I'm planning on making a 2nd paypal, and using cartmanager as a buffer between the two.

The long-term goal might be to jump ship with merchantplus and go with 2checkout.com so I can take paypal directly..but that dear little "Paypal accepted" on the ebay auctions is in deep love with all my buyers..just don't want to get screwed in the end (again).

Any advice?

From all the polls and such it seems people here love paypal in the end..
I'm at work, but in the ebay stealth guide I remember after it lists the merchant accounts it has a $29/month alternative that "integrates" into ebay..what was that again, and does it happen to accept paypal?

Using merchants like CCNOW allows you to accept Paypal without actually having a paypal account, so it doesn't matter how much Paypal would like to limit you, they won't be able to.

If your account is not pre 11/2007 then you'll need 3 months and 100 feedbacks before you can use a merchant account. You can either

1) Put in a real paypal address, but put in your auction TO WAIT FOR YOUR INVOICE so they pay through CCNOW. They'll be able to pay through Paypal the same, and if they're too quick and pay via paypal right away, refund them and tell them to resend you the payment through the checkout of your cart manager (whatever it is). If eBAY finds out what you're doing, you'll probably be suspended

2) Use paypal until you satisfy criteria for merchant account linking and hope paypal doesn't hit you with SSN

3) Sell through eBAY.ca using a Canadian paypal account. You don't ever get SSN limitation with Paypal.ca and you can add a US bank account to withdraw your funds to.

Hope this helps