Thousands of bidders worry about Internet fraud. Several studies by eBay and Yahoo have positively concluded that accepting credit cards will increase your auction bids anywhere from 100% to 300%. This is even more true on web site sales, where accepting credit cards can boost sales over 500%!

Setting up a merchant credit card account can cost between $195 to $425 in set-up fees and anywhere from 2.5% to 7.5% per transaction.

Fortunately, Paypal offers an elegant solution (Join PayPal Free). There are no set-up fees and transaction costs are 2.2% or less. Here is an important tip: Some buyers don’t know what Paypal is, or how it works. Place a PayPal logo on all your auctions and a link to PayPal in emails to your successful bidders.

In your auction, place a line of text above the PayPal logo that says: “To pay with a credit card, click on the PayPal logo below.” Do the same in your email to winning bidders. Use a statement such as: “If you would like to pay by credit card, click on the link below to register and pay securely using Paypal.” Then place your PayPal referral link after your signature.

If you have a web site (most successful auction sellers do), instead of setting up a merchant credit card account, you can now use PayPal’s Web Accept to take credit card orders on your web site. Connect to PayPal’s “Web Tools” link, and type in the product, pricing and shipping info. Then copy/paste the html code onto your web page. You now have a credit card shopping cart for each individual product.