Well, a suggestion that was given to me a while ago, was to simply use Paypal, but withdraw the money in it when it reaches a certain limit that you can determine yourself, to avoid sudden Paypal freeze. Most of my online biz colleagues use Paypal and 2CO, and are quite comfortable with them, but just need to be on your guard.
Few good alternative depending on your location, 2checkout, Moneybookers ( international ) worldpay ( UK & international ), ChronoPay ( European countries/UK/ Russia & Germany ), intstabill ( Australia ).
Selling your own digital product? Offer a CD/DVD and have Kunaki.com do fulfillment.Burned,printed,packaged,shipped.Customer pays shipping and handling fee. You upload to Kunaki, customer clicks, order page loads, all automated. Kunaki sends you check minus $1.60 per disk.Every bit as good as a download. Higher perceived value, less returns.Any questions please just go to their site. They explain it better than I can. Good luck, hope you find this helpful. (BTW not an affiliate)
If your customers are in the US, maybe you can ask them to send you a check. That should cut down on the charges.
Moneybooker,alertpay,asianpay,egold,stormpay,iKobo There are many alternatives to Paypal but the best is MoneyBooker i suppose
Epassporte because of no fees except loading your own funds and you can get an ATM card to withdraw cash and use as CC (but without overdraft). Col
I don't think Google Checkout has any fees, at least that was their initial business plan. Go check that out (no pun intended. xP).
It's free for a limited time. Have you got a change to test it? (You must be outside US, aren't you?)
You have answered your own question. Indeed, one doesn't need a Paypal in order to pay you via Paypla. You just have set a payment link or button for them to access and fill the payment form with their credit or debit card details. Only condition is that their card is issued by a country that is supported by Paypal..
Well, I do have an epassporte account but the problem is that the other party needs to also be a epassporte member as only epassporte to epassporte transfers are permitted. It cost $0.25 per transfer which is nice though. The alternative may be Payoneer http://www.payoneer.com/ . It is a Master Debit Card and you can get people to load directly to your card through their VISA or Mastercard. There is however a 3.5% fees to this.
Looks interesting, and the fact that you get a card for withdrawal and online payments makes it an attractive deal. Bad news is that it can only be applied for by US residents from what I see on their website, am I wrong?