When I decided to set up my online Tarot reading services, I didn’t know of anyone else around me who was offering them online. Most people I knew of in India simply listed their services and asked people to get in touch to set up personal, face-to-face appointments. My approach was different. Like most international Tarot readers, I wanted the entire experience to be purely online – right from reading about the services, to payments, and delivery of the Tarot readings.

As I was doing my research for the various ways in which I could deliver this service, one of the main things I needed to figure out was the logistics of it – namely, how to collect payments! As I looked at the various popular options available in India, the thing that struck me was the high monthly fees that most of the payment gateways charged. For someone just starting out, with no idea about how these sessions would be received and what kind of revenues I could expect, a monthly fixed fee made absolutely no sense.

Added to it was the fact that integrating these gateways was really complicated. Since I was bootstrapping my website and doing everything myself, and since I am not a coder or software geek, I thought that my dream would remain just that – a dream.

But as I continued to do my research, I decided to take a look at PayPal. As one of the largest and most trusted payment processors internationally, I figured I couldn’t bury my dream until I at least gave the site a look. I had used PayPal often to make international purchases and found the user experience to be excellent, but I always assumed that their business services would be on the expensive side. But that was not the case! I was delighted to see that they had a service specially for freelancers – PayPal.Me. No monthly fees and a fixed per transaction fees – I almost couldn’t believe my eyes!Continue reading→