**Apologies if this isn’t the proper place to put this request**
Looking for help in putting up an e-commerce function on the direct-to-consumer website. Does anybody have any experience with this?
I was about to pick up authorize.net for the credit merchant clearing service but apparently I also need a shopping cart provider (i.e. miva, oscommerce). This is way over my head. I’m good with the HTML scripting but I have no idea how to drop in a full-service e-commerce engine into your typical $20/month web host provider.
I don’t know what I need to do to keep all the functionality (product review, shopping cart, clearance) integrated within my site’s framework. Help!!!!
Thanks in advance.
I do this stuff for a living
Sam,
I do this kind of stuff for a living, as does Paul. I have some input for you, but I don’t have time right now as Kelly, Justin’s wife, is sitting in my living room right now and needs to get to her hotel.
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Matthew P. Barnson
I do, indeed.
I have more than a little experience with this sort of thing. My recomendation, if you are more than little techincal is to check out PayPal’s developer support. PayPal is a widely accepted web standard for accepting credit cards. Even more is that, if properly implimented, their services can handle almost every part of the e-commerce experience. Feel free to send me an email sometime (Matt has my email address. I don’t post it to try to minimize spam) and we can chat more about what you’re looking to do if you like.
Figure out what problems you want to solve
OK, with an e-commerce site, really, you want to solve one problem at a time. The whole “accepting credit cards” thing is really the first thing you should solve, and you should actually solve it in “meatspace”.
Get yourself a merchant account with someone who is knowledgeable about electronic commerce, but don’t make it an “e-commerce exclusive” deal. Just enough setup to be able to have your own machine is really where you start. When you are initially accepting payments, it’s perfectly acceptable to not bother with the whole “shopping cart” thing and all that jazz. Just have someone fill out an HTML form (over SSL, of course) with their important info, and if you have few enough products, you can just have checkboxes on the form for what products they want. You can store that information to a text file on your ISP’s box (preferably, a text file encrypted with gnupg or something), and then just retrieve it on a daily basis. Make your order in meatspace, accepting the cards on a manual slider if you need to. Problem solved.
Now, if you get talking electronic delivery, that becomes a whole other ballgame.
If you are decided that you really want the whole integrated shopping cart, instant checkout, electronic delivery wazoo, your life becomes more interesting, along the lines of “form follows function”. There are a thousand different ways to manage it, and it really boils down to you picking what it is you want to do, then once you’ve decided the features you want, either picking up an off-the-shelf provider, rolling your own, or something in between. There are some quite good, completely free shopping-cart apps that run fine on commercial hosting providers. But it’s important to understand what it is you really want to get out of it, here and now, before you leap off picking which one you’re going to use.
You’re going to have to live with the repercussions of your choice. It’s much easier to talk in person or over the phone about some of the options, though. Give me a buzz Saturday, let’s work something out.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Appropriateness…
Oh, and Sam, if you have front-page posting privileges at barnson.org, I trust you not to post anything inappropriate 🙂 It’s a good topic. I have a few products I’ve worked with that I might post…
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Matthew P. Barnson
I came to the right place
Yeah, yeah, form follows function. I like that. 🙂
That’s why I wanted to speak with experts before I leaped and purchased stuff I didn’t understand or didn’t need.
I think I’m going to start with the credit merchant account first and then slowly move into integrated online fulfillment/clearance.
I’ll give you a ring on Saturday to discuss.
Sammy G
Merchant Account
The trouble with a merchant account is that your transactions become almost unbearably expensive. If you plan to only accept payments online (as opposed to point of sale) then PayPal could not be easier to set up for basic product sales. Once you set up the account with PayPal you simply make a simple form that includes hidden fields with your product information. The form submits to PayPal’s site and they handle everything about the transaction. Yes, you pay per transaction fees but they are very reasonable. Much more reasonable than any online merchant account I’ve seen. It also allows users to use any credit card even in foriegn currencies as well as online checks. Down the line you can add more advanced functionality to your site like a database driven product pages, shopping carts, automatic book keeping, etc. But for now if you have a limited number of products to sell you can start with static pages without too much trouble. I just think it’s too simple and elegant a solution to overlook.
Finally doing this
Finally getting around to setting up a PayPal merchant account, using their Virtual Terminal. 3.5 years later and it’s still simple and cheap, compared to the competition. Plus, nothing needed except a web browser. Meanwhile, funds sitting idle in an account earns interest.
Sam