Back in the 'old days' of eBay, getting payment for the item was entirely left up to sellers: you had to choose your payment service, sign up for it and then send links to your buyers. Now, though, eBay handle most of the complexities of payment for you with their checkout.
How Do I Offer the Checkout?
The checkout will be offered to your buyers automatically. When they win an item, eBay send them an email with a 'Pay Now' button that takes them to the checkout, and they can also access it through their My eBay page.
It is in step 4 of the 'Sell Your Item' process, the payment and shipping step, that you can choose which kinds of payment you want to accept through the checkout and which you don't.
PayPal: You should be accepting PayPal. You might want to click 'Edit Preferences', however, to either select or de-select the 'tell buyers I prefer PayPal payments' box - you don't want to tell people you love PayPal when you only tolerate it. If you're selling Buy it Now items, you can also tick the box to require immediate PayPal payment for them.
Money orders and cheques: tick these boxes if you want to accept the more 'traditional' payment methods. Your address will be revealed to your buyers so that they can post the payment to you - you should make sure eBay have the correct address.
You may also tick credit cards to accept, which you should do if you have your own merchant account or an account at somewhere like NoChex that you'd like to use.
It's also worth writing any instructions that might be needed in the box on this page, such as who to make cheques out to or a warning that international non-PayPal payments might take a long time.
What Happens When Buyers Use It?
Once you've set the checkout up on your items, buyers will be able to choose which way they would like to pay you out of the options available, and eBay's checkout will take them through the process step-by-step. This will save you the trouble of having to explain things.
When the buyer pays or agrees how to pay, eBay will send you an item letting you know what happened. If might tell you that the money is now in your PayPal account and you should send the item, or it might say that they've put a cheque in the post. Remember to wait for payments to clear before you send anything.
That's it - the role of the checkout is over. You just configure the checkout; it's the buyer who deals with it the most. You might have noticed, though, that you can configure the checkout differently for different items. This is sometimes worth doing if you some of the items you sell are worth more than others, and you'd prefer not to accept PayPal for the highly-valued ones, for example.
By now, you might be a little sick of going through the 'Sell Your Item' screens each time you want to list something. The next email will show you how to use eBay's automated listing tools.
About the Author
Kirsten Hawkins is an Ebay and internet auction enthusiast from Nashville, TN. Visit http://www.auctionseller411.com/ for more great tips on how to make the most from Ebay and other online auctions.