If you use PayPal as a payment method you will know how frustrating it can be to get at the funds. We take payment online via PayPal (and will soon have a virtual terminal in place to do it over the phone) and some transactions are in the hundreds of pounds range - we pay the fees and it's convenient for our customers who prefer this method of payment. However, it can take over a week to transfer the funds into our business account so we were interested in the PayPal Top Up Card. This is a prepaid VISA card which can be topped up using a PayPal balance or a bank transfer via PayPal. Finally, we can take a payment from a customer on PayPal, nip round to the cash machine, take out the cash and plop it in the bank account - no waiting, no cheque clearance, and it can be used for buying stuff online for sites that don't take PayPal etc. If you use PayPal to take payments (and remember that our e-commerce solutions all link to PayPal at no extra charge) I recommend that you open one of these accounts - you never know when you need to get at a customer payment quickly and this is ideal.
For more information visit www.paypal.co.uk/topupcard and for a demonstration of one of our electronic commerce solutions please visit www.thebiginternetshop.com/bigshop. If you would like to find out more about online payments and online shopping in the North East please get in touch via the blog or our web site at www.ladybirdinternet.com