If you are planning to sell stuff on the internet, you need to understand one thing very very clearly:

THE ONLY PURPOSE OF YOUR WEBSITE IS TO SEPARATE THE CONSUMER FROM HIS MONEY. ALL OTHER CONCERNS ARE SECONDARY.

Anything you put on your website that doesn't do that should be relegated to an unused corner, out of the way.

Have a look at Seamlyne.com, my business (the link will open in a new window). At an average screen resolution, there is little on the screen that doesn't have a direct impact on sales except for the [Home] button.The consumer is at most three or four mouse-clicks away from selecting a product, and the path to make that happen is clear.

Now, that last point is important, too. PayPal is popular, but traditional credit cards have trust and market share already built in. PayPal has also experienced some legal troubles and lost the trust of many of its customers (myself included.)

What I've found is that accepting credit cards has increased our volume, but more than that the size of individual orders has increased. Would you like to know more?

Having credibility on the web...