to PayPal or not to PayPal ....

simple, cheap online shopping solution required

[webmate]

Hi, just came across this forum and been having a look around and it looks informative and useful.

I'm designing a website for a client who wants a cheap, simple online shopping solution - the blokes business is new and I guess this is going to be a 'test the online shopping waters' type website. Having looked at some of the options and figuring the number of items for sale is not great so thought would go for paypal shopping cart as the simplest cheapest solution.

I'm fairly new to this as a webmaster so thought I'd check in with some experts for some suggetions/comments ...

p.s. Ive checked other postings on the forum and looked at the net and see a huge number of options all with upsides and downsides. Bit confused I must admit :)

Anyway, cheers for any info/feedback

[Brett_Tabke]

start here [google.com].

[webmate]

Thanks Brett. Been looking about and got some further info. Paypal seems - understandably perhaps - a bit limited on customization. There are a couple of things I can't find info on:

1) shipping costs. For instance, I'd like to have perhaps 3 different shipping costs based on 1) UK 2) EU 3) International, or similar. Is there a way to do this?

2) although I've looked I can't make out what the difference between business account and premier account really is.

3)it seems to say that visa, mastercard etc credit cards are accepted to pay with. Does this mean DEBIT cards too?

Anyway, any help appreciated in pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks

[pbreit]

[paypaldev.org...]

[pbreit]

Setting up that shipping would be a bit cumbersome with the PayPal cart. Youd may need to create a separate Add to Cat button for each geography.

Business and Premier are nearly identical in features and fees. Business lets you have a business name and multi-user account access.

PayPall accepts pretty much any V/MC/Amex/Disc card, debit or credit, as well as Switch, Solo and bank transfers.

[rossH]

webmate

are you going with Paypal because you want a shopping cart or because your client doesn't want to get a merchant account yet?

For a quick and dirty bolt-on shopping cart I use americart - I like them for exactly what you're doing, the client who wants to test the water, without too much upfront investment.

They take paypal if that's the only payment method your client wants to use, also checks, and Authorize net for real time.

I have one I'm building right now where the client doesn't need real-time CC authorization, and she has her offline setup already, so americart sends an email every sale with a link to their secure webpage with the purchase info, and she swipes the card in her store, as it were, then ships out.

I don't know the paypal cart features (never used it, used their payment service of course), but the forum suggests your shipping requirements will be ill-met by their cart.

fwiw

[amznVibe]

I use paypal on several sites with variable shipping available to 30 different countries. Very powerful, and very easy. The trick is to use Paypal's "cart upload" feature instead of using their cart directly. Manage the items on your site directly using cookies, etc. and then pass everything at the end to PayPal. (This technique is also much faster and seamless than constantly bopping over to their cart and back).

If you develop this technique, you can eventually use any method for final checkout and payment, including the forthcoming Amazon payment system, or any other 3rd party merchant service.

[webmate]

Thanks all for your very helpful input.