This is a great piece on PayPal by Rich Brooks at Flyte New Media.
Many small businesses and entrepreneurs want to take credit cards online, but are put off by the time and capital investment required by a Merchant account, a gateway processor, secure server space, and a security certificate…all tools you need to succeed with e-commerce.
For many of these people I suggest “dipping their toe in the e-commerce ocean” by starting with PayPal. However, there are both good and bad aspects to this popular online payment system.
Read PayPal: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Personally, I find Paypal quite useful to my home based business. However, I am solely utilizing the “buy now” service that is offered and not the shopping carts, etc. I can certainly understand the frustration that abounds and many should be educating themselves with regards to “the bad” and “the ugly” surrounding Paypal. I do disagree, however, with the mention that Paypal is cheesy. I don’t see it that way nor do I feel that a website affliation with Paypal services is somehow amatuer. All in all, my experience with Paypal has been a positive one.