Notionet

If you are a serious internet user, you may find yourself in a position where you are needed to pay for a product or service online.

First we are going to look at payment options that are provided by most merchant websites.

• Cash on deliverly. This is when you pay for goods or services by cash when they are delivered on your doorstep or a pickup point.
• Credit card. It involves paying using a debit or credit card. This could be master, visa or any other card. For this method, you will have to enter your card details on the checkout part of your shopping.
• Mobile payment. You pay using your mobile payment service provider. In some cases the merchant site will provide you with a paybill number or business number  while sometimes you only need to enter the password to your mobile payment account.
• Online payment. This is when the merchant website uses online payment gateways to collect payments from clients. For this method you only need to enter your login details to your online payment account. If it has sufficient funds, the right amount will be automatically deducted from the account to pay for the product you intend to buy.

ONLINE PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

They are many but we will look at the commonly used ones.

Paypal

Paypal is a US based online payment method. It claims to have been chosen by many online stores than the number of pigeons in New York city (4,000,000).

19 million merchant sites accept payment via paypal. Thats a big number enough to tell anyone that creating a paypal account will not be a waste of time.

Considering that paypal is global, makes it a convinient option while choosing an online payment method

Creating a paypal account

Creating a paypal account will not take you more than 10 minutes.It is free! You get to choose between two options.

• Personal. For individuals who aim to recieve or make payments online
• Business. For merchants who aim to collect payments online.

To create an account with paypal, visit paypal’s website and choose one of the above choices.

Create a paypal account

Mpesa

Mpesa is a Kenyan based mobile payment method. Today popullar online stores like Amazon accepts payments via mpesa.

By using the “Lipa na Mpesa” option one can pay for goods and services provided online via a paybill number.

Creating an Mpesa account

To use the mpesa service, you have to be using the safaricom line. By purchasing and activating a safaricom simcard the Mpesa account is auttomatically created.

Learn more

Connecting mpesa with paypal

You can transfer money from paypal to mpesa and mpesa to paypal using the ” Paypal Mobile Money Service” service. To access the service visit the paypal mobile money website.

Paypal to mpesa

Credit card

Cards are global payment methods. Some are visa while others are master cards.

How to get a card

Most cards are provided by financial institutions i.e. banks. To get a card visit the customer care section of any bank issuing credit/debit cards.In some banks they are free while in some it might cost you around $5.

If you are in kenya, you can try;

• Equity bank
• Nic bank
• Kcb