The 6th and Final Post in the Business on a Budget Series
In this day and age, everyone takes credit cards. If you are a small business and are not currently accepting credit card payments, you are probably missing out on a bunch of sales.
This post may contain affiliate links meaning I may receive a small commission from purchases made. See my Disclosures page for more info.
The good news is, Paypal makes taking credit card payments super easy, and affordable!
When I first started my business, I was taking orders primarily through Facebook. Someone would message me and say hey how much for a snowman hat? I would tell them $15 (my prices were pretty low at this point) and that id have it ready in a couple days.
Usually, at this point, I would finish the beanie and the customer would never message me back and I would keep the newly made custom beanie forever. This would leave anyone feeling very discouraged, but especially someone who is just starting out!
Benefits of using Paypal
- Makes you look more professional and your business more legit.
- Allows you to take payment at the time the order is placed.
- Helps keep you organized.
- Allows you to take credit card payments for in-person sales (like at a craft fair).
- If you request a PayPal debit card, you can have instant access to your funds.
- Paypal.me links to make making online purchases easy and convenient for your customers. (The can also include their shipping address here which is good for orders you will need to ship)
From what I can tell, there are a couple different ways you can use PayPal for your business but we are only going to talk about
The Paypal Here App– This is the best solution for taking in-person payments like at a festival, pop up shop, or craft fair. You can take credit cards, cash or check and run them all through the same app. You can also send invoices through the PayPal here app.
You will need a Paypal business account to sign up for a Paypal Here account.
Paypal.me Link- Paypal’s way of giving you a URL you can easily share for receiving payments.
The Paypal Here App
The Paypal Here
- List Items- Listing all your items is a great way to stay organized. Whenever you need to make a sale you can search by category or by title, choose the correct product, and finish out the sale. It also comes in handy if you have a helper at your market, they can be confident they are using the right prices for your items.
- See sales reports by date- This is great if you want to compare your sales from two different markets, see your sales history by month and also at the end of the year when you are trying to get everything ready for tax season.
- Charge tax or apply discounts as needed- You can set your PayPal Here app to automatically charge the sales tax required by your area. You can also apply a discount code if you wanted to give a customer a discount or if you are running a sale.
- Link it to your bank account and/or request a Paypal business debit card. Having a Paypal Business Debit Card is super convenient because you can have immediate access to your funds!
- Set your own return policy and custom thank you message to be sent to your customers after a purchase. The thank you message is a great way to show off your good customer service skills.
- Calculate change-due with cash transactions- so you don’t look like me, counting on my fingers ????
Read my full review
Get Started with Paypal Here
The first thing you need to do is make a Paypal Business account, then download the app. Get the Paypal here app in the Apple Store or Google Play Store.
It’s been a couple weeks since I downloaded the app, but if I’m remembering correctly, I had to wait a few days before I was approved.
Once you’re approved, log into the Paypal Here app, and it will ask you if you want to get a card reader. You are going to want to get one because the fees are cheaper when you physically swipe a card vs manually typing in the numbers.
Now you can start setting up shop!
I will be going through the process on my Iphone 8+, it may look different on an android device, or an Ipad.
Tap the 3 lines in the upper left corner, this will open up a menu where you can navigate to all parts of the app!
If you tap on your business name, you will be taken to the Business Info page where you can add/edit any information you want to be saved.
This is also where you can add a return policy and create a custom thank you message.
Directly below your business name is the “New Sale” tab. This will take you back to the first screen you saw. You have three options for this screen
- The number pad- where you can start typing in the price of the product that’s being purchased or type in the item name.
- The calculator- where you can start typing in and adding up multiple items.
- The list- where you can search by your listed products
Directly under “New Sale” is the “Sales Activity” tab. On this page you can
- See your Paypal Balance
- Transfer Funds to your linked bank account
- View your sales history
- View your sales reports- You can choose Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly or Specify Date
- Recent Activity- If you click on an email under recent activity you can see all the information about that order.
Next down the list is “Item Catalog”. You will see two choices, Item, and Options.
On my iPad, I have three choices- Item, Categories, and Options. I’m not sure why Categories isn’t showing up on my phone’s app. I also have the categories option on the desktop version.
“Items” is where all your products are listed. “Categories” divides all your products up by which categories you put them in (like beanies, patterns etc.). “Options” is where your add-ons will be. For me, it’s my Southern Style Bow.
Click on “items” to see your products and click on the “+” in the top right corner to add a new product.
How to add a new product
Tip: If you prefer to work on a desktop vs a mobile device, you can add items to your Paypal here account through the desktop version of
After you click the “+” in the top right corner, you will be taken to this page.
You can add a photo of your product, product name, price, type of price (I’m not sure what the other options are for, I just use fixed price), tax, variations, options, and if you scroll down you should see a spot to add a barcode.
Both Variations and Options let you set custom prices.
Let’s say someone ordered a child size Claire Bun Beanie (both my adult and child sizes are the same price but let’s just say, for the sake of the example, they’re different) with a matching Southern Style Bow.
I would set 2 variations, an adult size at $25.00 and a child size at $20.00.
Then when a customer wants to purchase a Claire Bun Beanie I can select the appropriate size, and the price will be automatically adjusted.
I would add the bow add-on, for $5.00, under the options section.
Now when I go to check out my customer, I will choose Claire Bun Beanie from my items list, select child size in the variations and add the bow in the options. My total will automatically be calculated to $25.00.
After “Item Catalog”, the next tab is “Card Readers”
Here you will find video tutorials showing you how to set up the different card reader options, read some Frequently Asked Questions about card readers and order any additional card readers you may want.
You will go to this tab when you are ready to connect your card reader. Just plug it in, click “find and connect to reader”, then select “Paypal Audio Reader ” from the options list (my list just had the one card reader option available)
I had to do this part on my iPad because my card reader is the kind that goes into a headphone jack and my iPhone 8+ doesn’t have the headphone jack. I would need to get an adapter to use the card reader on my iPhone.
Next on the tabs list is “Settings”
This is where you can
- Set the tax percentage for your area
- Turn on/off the option to add a tip
- Turn the option to offer a discount code off/on
- Add a printer or cash drawer
- Choose if you want to require a customer signature for purchases under $50 (Paypal automatically requires purchases of $50 or more to need a customer signature)
- Set up any User Management accounts – If you have employees you can give each one a unique login and password to make sales through the app.
The last two tabs are “Support and Help” where you can contact customer service, send feedback, Learn more about Paypal here and view the Legal Agreement and the “Have a new reader” tab where you can connect your card reader.
How to take a payment
Click on the “New Sale” tab, select your product from the items list, set the quantity and choose any variations or options, then click done.
Repeat for multiple items.
Click “Charge” at the top of the screen when all products being purchased have been added.
Then you will see something like this.
If you have a card reader connected it will say “Swipe card when ready”
If you select cash, it will take you to a screen to input the amount of cash received and then automatically calculate the change due. – I personally love that bit ????.
If you click check, it will ask you to record the check number. Then last, if you click Invoice, you can email the customer an invoice so they can pay it later.
Now let’s talk fees.
Paypal does not charge any monthly fee or membership fee for using the app. Here is a breakdown of their “Clear, simple pricing “
Here is an example of each type of payment processing for comparison. This is how much money you would make after each type of fee was taking for a $100.00 purchase.
You can see, physically swiping the card is the cheapest option.
Paypal.me
A PayPal.me link is Paypal’s way of giving you a URL you can easily share for receiving payments.
In my opinion, creating and sending invoices to your customers would be more professional than sending them to your Paypal.me link.
It’s perfect for more informal orders (like close friends and family) though!
To create your Paypal.me link visit Paypal.me. Click on “create Paypal.me link” then log into your Paypal business account when prompted.
You do not have to have a Paypal business account to create a Paypal.me link.
Ideally, you will be able to make your Paypal.me link paypal.me/yourbusienssname. If that is taken already, try to think of something that will be easy to remember, easy to say and easy to spell.
You want to create as little confusion as possible so your customers can easily send you payment!
Once you have created your
Here you can add an image for your profile, location, personal message and a cover photo.
450px by 250px works great for cover photo dimensions.
If you need help setting up your Paypal.me link, here is a great YouTube tutorial by Techademics.
If you are interested in learning more ways to utilize Paypal for your business, I would definitely play around on the Paypal website and read about all the different business tools PayPal provides.
One of the tools I am constantly using Paypal for is the shipping label tool! I have this post from last year, How to Ship from Home Using Paypal, showing you how to print shipping labels through paypal.
While researching for this post, I found that you can also get to the shipping label page directly from your activity page of your business account!
Here is an easy tutorial for how to print shipping labels from your account activity.
How do I create and print shipping labels using PayPal?
As I learn more about using Paypal for a small business, I will add more tutorial posts to my blog! Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you won’t miss a post!
Good luck using the Paypal Here App to organize your business finances and also start taking credit card payments! Please leave any questions in the comments or shoot me an email, I am more than happy to help!
❤️Ashley