As Ive said many times before, there are strong arguments for and against ebay and paypal.

I use ebay for certain items only. Not because I think I will make a profit on those items, but because I think those items will get plenty of hits and a number of the viewers will be driven to my website as a result. I therefore view the ebay fees as 'advertising'.

Here are some interesting numbers for you.

I have had approx 2,500 unique purchasers through ebay. Probably 100 of those have bought from the website also. I have about 300 customers that have bought from my website but never through ebay. I have about 50 further customers that have bought from me via this board or privately not included in the numbers above.

I use paypal as my credit card processor. I pay the 'middle band' merchant rate. That is as cheap as I could get from any other merchant and with no annual or monthly fees. Buyers without paypal accounts can pay me through paypal also.
My paypal throughput is up to $20k a month and that will often include a couple of $1000+ transactions.

Some of the info posted in an earlier thread is incorrect. A comment in a link that paypal UK is approved by FSA is totally misleading. The FSA governs UK banking and that means paypal has to abide by Consumer Credit and Banking legislation and cannot enforce their own rules. Chargebacks are dealt with the same way as a credit card company. As a 'merchant' I can talk to them directly by phone. The protection limit is $2,500 not $250.