Can't I receive payment from a client in cash

[townships]

Why must I have a pay pal account?  Can't the buyer purchase with CASH when the article is picked-up?

[pierrelebel]

Yes, a buyer can pay in cash at time of pickup.

[toby_le_pue]

Cash is allowed for items that are picked up.

[femmefan1946]

The PP account is also useful for eBay to get paid the fees you incur when you sell here. This runs around 9% of the listing, selling, and postage total.

However, any buyer can offer to pay by cash or money order or personal cheque and any seller is allowed to agree if  she feels like it. Or refuse.

The restriction is that sellers must offer an electronically visible form of payment. Paypal is the best known, followed by merchants who hold merchant credit card accounts. There are a few smaller payment companies, but none are cheaper than PP and most are looked on with suspicion by buyers.

[michaelbb2]

I will take cash any day. Once paid for by cash, I mark the payment as made by "other" source. When I do this, ebay shows that the buyer has not completed checkout. I ignore that and archive the sale so it doesnt show up as an incomplete transaction. I'm not sure if the buyer gets harassed by eBay but none of them have said anything.

[femmefan1946]

The important thing here is that YOU as the SELLER cannot ask for payment in any manner that is not electronically visible.

The BUYER can OFFER. The seller can then accept or refuse.

For what it's worth, I occasionally accept an offer to pay by money order. (Nobody offers to mail cash and I won't accept personal cheques). Fewer than half of these ever actually send anything. And those few that do, a handful over the past decade or so since Bidpay and later Paypal became available, have to accept that delivery of the MO takes up to 10 days and with the exception of postal money orders, another 10 days to clear at my bank. Then I will ship.

Paypal is instant. Worth 2.5% any day.