Ecommerce and PayPal for your business

Small businesses without a website lose an average £52k a year in potential turnover each*and part of the reason for this is that businesses believe it costs an average of £250 more to make a website transactional **

Ecommerce and Online payments are two areas that a lot of business can become confused by. Most businesses feel they should go online and with nearly 9 million*** adults already shopping online at least once a week they are right.

PayPal makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to start accepting payments online immediately and offers a range of products to suit the needs of your business. From businesses looking to invoice clients online PayPal has email payments to businesses looking for a full checkout solution PayPal offers Website Payments Pro. The PayPal solutions allow you to accept credit and debit cards, bank transfers and PayPal balance, customers don't need a PayPal account to pay you. PayPal can also be added to your website with your existing payment provider if you already take online payments. This allows you access to the 20 Million PayPal account holders in the UK and also allows you to be added to PayPal's online shopping portal PayPal Offers (www.paypal-offers.co.uk). Adding PayPal also offers the ability to increase your sales as 35% of consumers prefer to pay with PayPal.

Cameron McLean, PayPal's General Manager for UK merchant services comments: "We know that consumers are looking to the internet more and more in the current climate, to search out bargains and fully research which businesses they are going to use. Online sales are bucking the high-street street trend and businesses should establish their online presence before they are left behind. Not having a website is like leaving your shop-front boarded up or refusing to tell customers anything about the services you provide. Creating an impressive ‘virtual shop' is the way to stay ahead of the game and having a website can be more cost-effective for your business than a high street presence - and is a key launch pad to business success."

PayPal has partnered with leading ecommerce providers where PayPal is pre-integrated meaning there is no extra cost and no integration required. You can start trading online in hours. To find our more about these partners visit www.paypal.co.uk/partners . PayPal is also working closely with South London Business and Business Link in London amongst other organisations to host a serious of workshops on ecommerce, PayPal and what to consider with online payments. Information on these events can be found by emailing ukpartners@paypal.com

*According to Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Statistics for the UK and Regions 2007 (July 2008) there are 4479655 businesses with 0-9 employees
235,169.41million ÷ 4479655 = 0.0524972146 million

**PayPal and Mr Site research - carried out online by Opinion Matters / Tickbox.net between 01.05.09 and 11.05.09 amongst a nationally representative sample of 401 Workers in Micro Businesses.

*** Population figures are based on the following:

• UK adult population: 48,772,161 [Source: Government Actuary's Dept, 2006-based
  forecast for 2009]
• Adults with internet access: 73.7%: [Source: Experian/nVision research, March 2009]
• Percentage of adults who have shopped online in past 6 months: 47%
  [Source: Experian/nVision research, March 2009]