Ecommerce Solution

[tohoi]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of building an ecommerce website based on PHP/MySQL, Can anyone give me a suggestion of a good/recommended/(best if possible) e-commerce web hosting company, that are able to host a big ecommerce website like amazon.com. The website of course won't be as big as amazon.com, but I want to have similar features. My budget is around $50/month for hosting.

I am currently hosted with yahoo merchant solution, It's kinda really easy to developed the ecommerce site in yahoo, but I want to move out from yahoo, because in order to build a really nice design and features in yahoo, I need to know RTML which I know nothing about it.

To Wrap up, I need to find a ecommerce web hosting that allow me to freely design my website (front end and back end) while also providing me with their secure shopping cart and merchant account (I prefer not to use my own shopping cart since cart is very important to be secure).

Thank you all for reading and helping me.

[johnroger]

hmm...why not try rackspace.com and go dedicated.

You can try digiSHOP for e-commerce.

[wetdagger]

This exactly the problem I face. I am a web developer who has increased needs for a php/mysql compatible e-commerce solution.

I signed my first client with a Yahoo Merchants Account, not knowing that you could not integrate php/mysql into the store, only the pages outside the store were fine to use php/mysql.

I saw this message and looked up digiShop. It looks great! Has anyone had experience with this solution? Does setting up a paypal merchant account still mean that a customer will have to leave your site to log into paypal to complete a transaction?

Also, is digiShop the best solution for my problem? I don't want to use osCommerce, mainly because I would spend too much time redesigning the site to match a client's site. Not only that, but I did like how easy it was for DigiShop to tie into a merchant.

Thanks!
wd

[carl holloway]

If you were looking for a host, try:

www.globat.com

Carl.

[johnroger]

Whenever you use paypal you have to go to their site for checkout. There are two different ways to do this though. Some take you to paypal everytime you add an item to your cart (very annoying and confusing). The other method is to pass paypal the total (aggregate total method) at the end and checkout through paypal that way (best way). digiSHOP uses the aggregate total method. That is the downside of paypal is that you always have to go to their site at one point. Real-time payment gateways like authorize.net don't require that. They are little more expensive to setup, but they don't require anyone to leave the site you are on to checkout.

Hope this helps,

John

[wetdagger]

Thanks John, that helps out a lot.

Is digiShop the best way to go you think? Also, what would be the setup and monthly fees if I pointed my clients towards authorize.net. I kind of looked at it, but I still am unclear on all the fees that need to be assessed to get an e-commerce site going. With Yahoo, they do everything for you, so I never had to really research all of this.

Thanks again!
wd

[amythepoet]

I'm using edigest.com, they're great!

Amy

you can tell them i sent you!

[carl holloway]

PayPal seems to work fine for me. My checkout page just passes the total price and shipping price accross to PayPal and a return page URL. Once they have paid, they are returned to that URL which adds a record to the database saying that they have paid successfully, ready for a guy from my team to sort out the order...

Carl.

[johnroger]

Happy Holidays wd,

You can use paypal and pay their % or authorize.net, plus merchant account. There fees range from 2.2% per transaction, plus $0.25 transaction. You have something like a minimum of $40/month in fees. The benefits of authorize.net or verisign is that you get to keep the customers on your site, they don't need to have a paypal account. Although paypal is fine in some situations. digiSHOP would be a good fit either way.

[lizzie]

I have had three customers just this month who were unable to use Paypal for various reasons. I myself had a delay of three days when I had to enter a new checking account and wait for Paypal to verify the account. This is a good way to lose customers. Paypal is not the answer for a professional site, it is best suited for eBay since anyone buying on eBay knows they need to have a Paypal account. But it screams amature to have this as the payment method on a site that sells.

[sun818]

> who were unable to use Paypal for various reasons

The exact opposite is true as well. I have a frequently international customer whose new credit card was rejected for a purchase. I think his new card had an expiration that may not have been recognized by the merchant account. In order for him to pay me, he had to sign up for Paypal.

> amateurish

I really think it depends on the merchant and their needs. I know one merchant who uses Paypal exclusively because his setup allows him to download the Paypal history and integrate into his Access database. I also know another merchant who only accepts actual credit cards because his setup is configured for it.

Any eCommerce solution should accomodate actual credit card and Paypal.

[tolachi]

Any eCommerce solution should accomodate actual credit card and Paypal.

Can't remember the last time I purchased something from an e-commerce site where paypal was a payment option. It reeks small time to me. I would only add paypal if you think that your site inspires less trust than paypal and you will actually increase customer confidence by adding it.

[Alkiguy]

"...any e-commerce solution include Paypal"? Hmmm. Does Amazon use accomodate paypal? It may have changed by now, but my perception of Paypal is that it is a strategic partner for porn or other less "mainstream" business ventures. Or, at the least, business ventures that can't afford or that don't take the time to do it right.

[sun818]

> secure shopping cart and merchant account

Tohoi, when using a merchant account, you need to consider whether they include a shopping cart and payment gateway. Some merchant accounts offer do not include a payment gateway (like Authorize.net, Versign, etc) with their service. So, if the rates look good to you, inquire about that. Do you want real-time processing or is offline processing okay? If offline is acceptable, you could sign up for a mail/phone order merchant account which gives you a better rate than Internet merchant account.

> It reeks small time to me.

You make it sound like "small time" is a negative quality. The slogan for this web site is "News and Discussion for the Independent Web Professional". If not independent professions, then just who is the target audience for this web site?

> increase customer confidence by adding it

I offer both because I want to provide customers the flexibility to use a payment method that is most comfortable for them.

> Does Amazon use accomodate paypal?

Alkiguy, you didn't quote me correctly. I'm not sure Tohoi talking about building a site on the scale of Amazon. You look at the smaller sized ecommerce solution like Miva, osCommerce, and ShopSite. They all support Paypal.

[tolachi]

> It reeks small time to me.

You make it sound like "small time" is a negative quality. The slogan for this web site is "News and Discussion for the Independent Web Professional". If not independent professions, then just who is the target audience for this web site?

Sure, paypal is ok if you are a nonprofit trying to get a few web donations. Or if you have a very limited offering (and no competition) like this site. But if you are trying to make your site look as serious and as professional as the corporate sites that many of us compete with it doesn't cut it.

Using Paypal says we couldn't or didn't invest the time to create our own real solution for payment.

The potential to dilute customer confidence is too great. I don't trust paypal because they don't have the best reputation, and I'll trust any website that uses it less because of that.

When you start to enter the checkout process you have already decided what you want and if you get put off by a site it takes about a minute to go and buy the same item somewhere else. Switching costs are very low at this point and I think that everything possible should be done to maximize customer confidence at all points through checkout.

Small time is not always a negative, in fact it can be played to your advantage. There is a sense of intimacy and trust it can engender. But the thought of some techno illiterate manually reentering my cc info into paypal to charge me does a lot to harm that.

Independent Web Professionals are not necessarily small time.

reading further in this forum and I found this...

from: [webmasterworld.com...]

I run a webpage in Sweden where you pay a fee to be able to use the page for a year. I have played around a bit with using Paypal for my credit card payments but not having the forms where you fill in the cc number information etc on my webpage (you get redirected to paypal) combined with all the information in English seems to make alot of potential users afraid to pay.

Paypal has bad connotations.

[sun818]

> maximize customer confidence at all points through checkout.

I prefer using Paypal over credit card because I can control who I give my information to. I've already had my credit card stolen once because a "reputable" online store had their credit card database hacked. It really is a matter of personal preference.

> manually reentering my cc info into paypal to charge me

And this has what to do with Paypal?

For every bad story about Paypal floating around, there are millions of successful transactions that is never mentioned.