When selling something, the most important thing a seller must consider is how he or she shall be paid. This is a very risky decision since a lot of fraudulent activities in eBay involve payment. Selling on Ebay is a great way of making extra money.

PAYPAL

This is the most common way of paying a seller on eBay.

PayPal is an online business that facilitates the transaction of transferring a monetary amount between a merchant account and an online buyer. Because it is electronic, it is basically a paperless transaction.

It was in October 2002 when PayPal was purchased by eBay. Before, PayPal was just a choice of most eBay users, whether it's a buyer or a seller. The other choices that time involves eBay's subordinate, BillPoint.

However, due to a relative percentage of PayPal, being the most widely used mode of payment by almost fifty percent of eBay buyers and sellers, eBay had eventually phased out BillPoint and concentrate more on PayPal.

Right now, there is another company that is in the same line of business like PayPal. This competitor is known as BidPay. There had been reports that a number of eBay buyers and sellers resort to this kind of payment scheme.

ESCROW

For high-priced items, eBay recommends that the method of payment should be with an eBay approved escrow service like the one that can be found at www.escrow.com

Buyers and sellers should take note that there are fake escrow companies lurking in eBay. Hence, it's important to detect if the escrow company that the buyer and the seller deals with is approved by eBay.

EBay recommends that sellers, as well as buyers, should only contact eBay approved escrow companies like escrow.com for Canada, U'.S., and U.K. eBay users; escrowaustralia.com.au for eBay users in Australia; escrow-europia.com for eBay users in Spain and Italy; ebay.iloxx.de for German eBay users; and tripledeal.com for eBay users in France, Netherlands, and Belgium.

EBay strongly warns its buyers and sellers not to do transaction concerning wire transfers like the Western Union. This is a very unsafe mode of payment because it does not guarantee the concerned person that the process will be smooth.

So, it's best for every seller and buyer on eBay to opt for the mentioned payment methods so as to be sure of an honest and reliable business transaction. Besides, eBay will protect the sellers and buyers if the transactions were made under these approved eBay mode of payment.

eBay is adding a new service for online traders which will let sellers add Skype functions including free internet voice calls and instant messaging to their listings across a range of categories.