Shopping cart confused

[designhead]

I'm so confused. my site is fairly new. my host is DotEasy.com, which is free, and my shopping cart is PayPal. I haven't had too many orders yet (I think because noone can find me yet through search engines) but I have had some. Today I received an e-mail that said:

I have tried several times to place my order and have been unsuccessful I have already charged to my credit card the extra money from your secure pay service so why can't I place my order?

I then had my sister place an order to try to ascertain the problem. She was successful, but was VERY frustrated with everything it took to get a PayPal account just to place this order.

SO, my question is: Is there a better way than PayPal for a small business that doesn't want large monthly merchant fees and where I wouldn't have to change my site too much???

ANY imput would be greatly appreciated.

[cyanide]

Hi designhead,

Confused? Join the club. It has many members !!

When having an online presence, you need to remember that everything that your website portrays, will speak volumes in more ways than one.
You mentioned having a free webhost, free payment processing with Paypal (free set up / no monthly) ...
What kind of message do you think that tells your visitors ? Well one thing it could tell them is that you can't afford it. So, it sets up a chain-reaction..... If you can't afford it, then business can't be good, if business is not good, why? Is your product not good?

Remember as great as the Internet has become, there are scams abound and people are becoming more savvy.
(sorry for the rant)

Back to Paypal:
Yes, paypal is convenient, well atleast for the merchant, to set up
Yes, paypal is less costly, especially to set up
.... but the biggest problem I've found is having clients leave the site in order to sign-up for Paypal. The last thing you really want, is visitors to leave your site.

There have been some companies pop up offering a similar service, but the way to go IMO, is to sign up for a Merchant Account. And there are many that aren't too expensive. They can be integrated into your site, via a shopping cart or form.

Here's a couple for example:
www.2checkout.com
www.paysystems.com

[designhead]

Thanks for the advise. I checked out those sites and am considering switching to 2checkout.
-Judith

[cyanide]

Hi Judith,

Just make sure you do some homework.
For example, if you are currently using a shopping cart, make sure the processor you choose integrates well with it

[voodooboy]

You know, I use Paypal for credit cards when dealing with design clients. I have yet to have any complaints about the system. I don't quite understand what all the confusion seems to be about Paypal.

[voodooboy]

I just went to the sites referenced above.

Paypal: 2.2% + .30 USD / 3.4% + .55 CAD / FREE Set-up

2Checkout: 5.5% + .45 USD? / $49.00 USD Set-up

Mypaysystems: 3.95% + .35 USD / $49.00 USD Set-up

Looks like Paypal is the best deal.

Paypal also has a "pre-populate" script you can use to help make purchasing easier for you clients.

[Kingsley]

Hi there,

Set up my own site http://www.facepaintingdesigns.co.uk three months ago and did the same as you via paypal for cost reasons etc. I've had a few people unable to understand paypal and some unwilling to sign up. i know the best way would be to go for a merchant account but as you say it costs quite a lot for small or ghrowing businesses. I have recently found a payment portal in the UK called Nochex where you can accept debit cards without having the customer sign up for an account maybe you have the same sort of thing in the US.

Obviously you need a different sort of shopping cart solution to be able to accept paypal and the nochex type system, I've looked intio it and found a relatively cheap one called http://www.PHPcart.co.uk (Uk based) and will let you know how I get on


Cheers

[kjohnson5576]

I agree with ghst. PayPal is just not that tough. I offer a merchant account (2.2% plus $0.25 transaction fee) and PayPal (over $3K per month 2.6% + $.30 transaction fee). I still have a lot of customers that like to use PayPal (about 10%). I've used it myself and really can not figure out what the problem with using it is. It's not that tough if you are just using a credit card. E-checks and bank account information means more information, but it should.

[compusolver]

I've been recommending 2checkout.com for my clients for the past year and a half. We've had good results with them and none of the customer complaints we frequently got through PayPal.

That 5% is a big 'ouch' though. But to go with a 'real' gateway (I'm a dealer for PlugNPay.com) takes a larger setup fee and a monthly charge.

When you figure the lost sales that PayPal costs you, 5% may not be too bad, at least until your sales justify moving to a 'real' gateway.

[tblanning]

more advantages of paypal;

when someone purchases money is instantly availible

if you have paypal debit/credit card you recieve 1.5% back on all your purchases that you make with your card

[TrafficProducer]

PayPal Support Club. Review and helpful links, coding examples, warnings, other shopping cart links, etc. PayPal is a on-link banking system that allows website owners to integrate shopping cart technology into their site. Find out more, includes links to helpful site about PayPal shopping cart technology.

http://www.paypal.ukshoppers.com/index.html

PayPal users have to mess about registering with PayPal this with othe problems with PayPal, see seit above will put users off.

[tmmths]

I agree that Pay Pal can be convienent and inexpensive, IF the user purchasing the product/service has a PayPal account or can understand what the service is and how to open an account.

I currently use both PayPal and 2checkout for my design services (as well as offline payments).

I use the ClickCartPro shopping cart for all of the e commerce sites I build for clients as it is VERY easy to install, integrates with over 29 payment processing services and provides a wonderful, very stable platform not only for the ordering portion of the sites, but for the entire site as well.

[AccessDollars.com]

Hi Everyone,

I have used PayPal but it does require a mindset to accept this ... and that is from someone familiar with computers, eBusiness, etc.

For a novice ... it is quite a change in their mindset and there in lies the "difficulty". If it was a case of following instructions without the discontinuity of leaving and setting up PayPAl account, etc., then it would be easier.

I am trying out a few things before I launch my site "effectively" - right now its slapped together as a working scratch-pad.

If anyone is familiar with iKobo please let me know ... its reliability, etc., etc.,

Regards,

Ken.

[compusolver]

Here's just one of many complaints I received from customers on my pcPricer app back when I used PayPal:

25Jan01 Andrew Schoenwald - Panda Computers

I have downloaded your program and it works very well. I have tryed to register it using paypal, and I have used paypal in the past and it has worked fine. But with yours it will not go through using the same info. paypal is a poor system. I would like to purchase your program but you make it hard to do so. And waiting for the mail is not a option. it takes forever. I have been in the computer field for 15 years. And making it easy is the key. Please inform me when you have better arangement for payments. and please explain extras and what they are

[AccessDollars.com]

Another thing ...

I think PayPAl will be improving based on our inputs, etc.

So ... here, one other thing that proves to be a problem to solve is that I can not remember the PayPal account email site that I had set up as the Account to use as my "PayPal Account" ... site(s), ... Because, screennames, etc., keep changing with time and double dipping, SLAM, charges by some, like in my case by AO... L etc. (who is AO... L? ), ... (with no resolutions) drive us to better pastures ... so if we can have a "wallet" that we can carry with us whereever we may end up at, would help !

Ken.

[elufkin]

Judith

Fist of all some people love PayPal and other hate it. I personally Love It. When I fist started my website I too used the PayPal shopping cart. However, I found many people calling and asking if I would take credit cards over the phone without using PayPal. At the time I couldn’t because I didn’t have a merchant account. I finely decided to look into it further because at that point I knew I was loosing a lot of customers. I designed my own site however I am not good at CGI scripts and that was one thing I loved about PayPal was the button builder. I was able to set up a Free merchant account through Card Service International and my monthly fees all together for statement and gateway are around $49.00. I then tried several shopping cart hosts such as Cart32 however there servers would go down a lot so I quickly started searching again. I finally came upon Link Point Cart http://www.linkpointcart.net . I was able to set up service for Link Point Cart through Card Service International for only $15.00 per month. I was paying Cart32 $29.00. The service is outstanding and very easy to use. Just log into your account and click on button builder and make your add to cart buttons. You can also get reports of sales by credit card type and part numbers very easily. You can also keep offering PayPal because it integrates with PayPal. Also, you do not have to spend a small fortune for a security certificate.

After getting my merchant account and setting up a regular shopping cart I saw business pick up tremendously. It over doubled the first month alone. Also, FYI I found that once I added a Toll Free number for customers to call me at it went up even more. It is my opinion that customers do look at these things and make judgments upon them. My Dad always told me two things. “Nothing in this world worth wild is Free” and “It takes money to make money”. He was right. Starting an internet company is a lot of work. It is not easy and is very time consuming and gets even more so as time goes on. But in my opinion it is worth every bit of it.

Good Luck and hang in there. It's worth it in the end.

Ed
www.lufkinsecurity.com

[Kira Scurro]

as a consumer i prefer using paypal and wish every ecommerce site accepted it. i would much rather have a purchase made thru my paypal account than give my credit card to an unknown site online.

i don't understand about the sign up problems mentioned at paypal. as far as i know, if you don't have an account with them, it doesn't matter. you just use your credit card there as if it was any other ecommerce site. the only thing i know that they ask for other than the normal credit card info is your email address so that they can send a receipt.

i do use paypal with password retrieval for one of my sites, and it is complicated setting the scripts up, but once they're in place the system works fine.

[EJRS.COM]

Here's one you might find useful. Let me know what you think of this. it's only for U.S. residents.
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/fx/home.html/ref=gw_bt_hs/102-3228734-4785736

[sonnie]

Chosing a shopping cart can be an ordeal. I have an account which began by using PayPay. The owner has a local retail business and had been selling some items on eBay. He decided to start a web store, so naturally started off using PayPal. I simply created and linked buttons for his products (60 to 100) pages to PayPal.

However, after receiving quite a few emails requesting other payment options (customers not wanting to create a paypal account) he started a merchant account with Authorize.net linked to his business banking account. I set that up successfully, but only having a PayPal shopping cart, customers were only able to purchase one item at a time with his merchant account.

I set out to find a shopping cart to cover all payment options he wished to offer. PayPal, Merchant Account, Offline, Email Notification, with the following requirements:

Ease of use: Eventually, his employees would be taking care of the site with minimal HTML experience (one has used DreamWeaver) and no scripting experience whatsoever.

One time purchase: Turnkey software that would reside on server.

Static Site Compatible: Site already exists, with product pages, etc. Dynamic capabilities will not be used.

Well, I heard back from just one of many Carts, I had emailed, which the owner purchased. Now most of you know, what I had requested was a pretty tall order. I have successfully set up the cart to process orders for all of the options above, and now working on the details (getting back to static pages from the dynamic cart, changing scripts, setting up buttons for all these *#@$& products, etc.) which is going to take some time.

Anyway, I do feel that offering multiple payment options to customers shows professionalism and provides a sense of security.

But it's a real pain in the posterior.

By the way, on my Wife's site listed below (just getting started) we simply accept PayPal. But that's OK, we don't have much to sell yet anyway.

[richkoi]

Any suggestions on a shopping cart that has an easy to manage inventory?

I work for a plant nursery and we have hundreds of varieties and sizes of plants. Our inventory shifts rapidly and we need shopping cart software that will be easy to update and change without a bunch of html changes...

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Rich

[alienzhavelanded]

I may be wrong, (I'm sure someone will correct me.) but I use PayPal to accept payments, and as far as I know if you're paying with a credit card, you shouldn't have to sign up for anything, you put in the standard purchase info and away it goes. If your users are attempting to pay via a checking account, then they'll have to sign up for PayPal.

Happy coding,
The Martian

[red]

Designhead and Sonnie,
I know what you're going through! I just finished a lengthly post in regards to shopping carts in this thread:
"looking for e-commerce tutor"

I also started out online as an eBay seller several years ago and used only PayPal as my shopping cart. 4 years later, I've got several online stores and a merchant account with AuthorizeNet (which was suggested earlier) as well as PayPal. I find that 15% of my payments come through PayPal, even today.
People are comfortable with it.
Once you take the time to sign up for the account, it's a piece of cake.
I would like you to take a look at my post and read about Miva as a FREE shopping cart solution. It has made my life a lot easier and my websites very professional and extremely capable of handling anything. AuthorizeNet and PayPal plug right into this system and it's free to merchants. You can choose to add third party modules for amazing functionality if you choose to.

As the saying goes.."You never get a second chance to make a first impression" It is as true on the web as it is anywhere else.
You can find affordable solutions when you are a small, struggling-to-grow up business. I was in your shoes and pray you are as fortunate as I have been.

No one (my customers) ever knew that I worked alone in my pajamas and made nearly 250K per year from a 10x10 spare bedroom- I made sure of it. You can be as big as you want to be on the web as long as your site is professional and you offer value, fair prices and excellent customer service & CHOICES. Choice is important whether it be the products you offer or the payment methods you accept.

PayPal is a terrific service but you need to accept credit cards as well in the traditional manner- and you don't have to break the bank to do it.

All the best to you!

[juancito]

Hi,
(Mod edit: no advertising / self-promotion, please)

Finally, let me tell you my take on Paypal. I personnaly dont liek payPal at all and please know I am not saying this to make you use my services. I am sure you are loosing a lot of customers because of PayPal's system and when growing a business you cant afford that. You want tomake sure your customers have a very user friendly interface/shopping cart to make their purchases quick enough where they only need to input their personal info. if I dont make any sense please contact me or anyone in my company about our services.

Sincerely,

Juan A. Martinez

[designhead]

Wow. Thanks so much guys. I love this site. And to think I almost unsubscribed figuring it was just another sales site.

Well, after hearing many of you say you werer happy with PayPal, I think that I might stay with it a while longer. I personally have bought online using PayPal with no problems, which is why I use it on my site. But after that e-mail I received, I became concerned. Then, as I said, I got my sister to order with it, and I listened on the phone while she got madder and more worried as she had to provide more and more info. And this is my sister!!!

But I think for now, I may put up a blurb explaining PayPal to new users (how secure it is and how they can order from other sites easily after the one-time sign-up).

But, I'm also going to be checking out the other options mentioned because I would like to make ordering as painless as possible, of course.[/u]

[designhead]

Here's one you might find useful. Let me know what you think of this. it's only for U.S. residents.
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/fx/home.html/ref=gw_bt_hs/102-3228734-4785736

I didn't like the Amazonb option at all. here is a direct quote from their site:

"Please note that Honor System payments are voluntary. Therefore, a payor may refund himself for any reason and with no questions asked up to 30 days after a payment is made. There is no process by which you may contest a payor-initiated refund. "

Sounds to me like someone could receive an order, keep it, and for no reason at all get a refund. And the merchant has no recourse.

Then in 2 separate paragraphs they say:
"The fee schedule is very simple. For each payment you receive, we will charge $0.15 plus 15% of the total transaction amount."

And then:
"The fee schedule is very simple. The person making a payment is not charged any fees at all. The person receiving a payment is assessed 5% of the total payment per transaction plus $.19.

Now I'm really confused!

[mikeewart]

We started out with PayPal's cart but found too many people either did not trust it or were too confused by the process of creating an account. We migrated to an OS Commerce shopping cart and contined to use PayPal (it has a module that allows the use of PayPal IPN) until we decided to take the plunge and get a merchany account. It cost us $180 for the software to run the cards and the company we went with requires that you generate a min. of $20 a month in fees but with the extra bsiness that we picked up, we easily meet it. Cost is .28 per transaction and 2.8%. The company we host our site on charges us $15 a month and they set up the site for us (we only had to add the items)for $250. We are also able to take phone orders now that we are awy from PayPal. The hardest part is getting up the courage to risk a couple of bucks and take the plunge. I would never go back to PayPal now. We have gotten two to three times more orders a week since we swithched. If anyone has any questions, please let me know.

Mike

[voodooboy]

I am seeing that the biggest complaint is people are confused at setting up an account with PayPal. I really can't understand why. You put in the exact same information on any other site you want to buy something from. Maybe it is the transition from your site to PayPal that is the real issue. (ie. Going to a different site to pay for something on someone else’s site.) That I agree can be a little discouraging.

As I mentioned previously though, PayPal has a "Pre-Population" script. This can be used within your site, just like a formal shopping cart. Then when the user clicks on the "next or Buy Now" button it goes to the PayPal site but pre-populates the online sign-up form. This makes it extremely easy for the user and may remove some of the confusion on accounts.

I reiterate, regardless who you buy from, B&N, Amazon, Toys r' Us or Joe Blow, you still have to create an account of some sort to purchase online. If you make it easy for the user, then PayPal is not the obstacle, maybe your site is.

[dfbfloyd]

We use this free shopping cart which also has a premium cart for $6 a month www.mals-e.com It connects to most payment gateways and you can customize it for a bunch of different things. The only thing I don't like about it is I can't ship by weight I have to use quantity, zone or specify a shipping amount for an individual item. It took me literally 10 minutes to set up and it works flawlessly. We've been using it for about 3 years.

[sonnie]

I may be wrong, (I'm sure someone will correct me.) but I use PayPal to accept payments, and as far as I know if you're paying with a credit card, you shouldn't have to sign up for anything, you put in the standard purchase info and away it goes. If your users are attempting to pay via a checking account, then they'll have to sign up for PayPal.

Happy coding,
The Martian

As far as I know, if a person purchases from you, then they too must have a PayPal account. This is the same whether using a Major Credit Card or Checking Account (Check Card).

[designhead]

..and therein lies the problem: they must create a PayPal account before they can purchase from my site (unless, of course, they already have one). The process seems to scare some people--they fear that they're opening an account that they'll be charged for or something.

[red]

As far as I know, if a person purchases from you, then they too must have a PayPal account. This is the same whether using a Major Credit Card or Checking Account (Check Card).

^^This is correct.

Everyone who signs up for a PayPal account goes through the same steps. The user has the option to use his/her checking account to pay for items or use a credit card or both. The user also can pay with an electronic check.
I only accept payments from PayPal verified buyers. This is important and it means that the users address and banking info has been verified.

[MarsAndBeyond]

Huh?

... 15% of transaction, and what else? Its giving ususry a bad name when you could end up with merchandise and the money back with buyer and on top pay Amazon for the privilege?

===== read the original but here ======= quote =========

And then:
"The fee schedule is very simple. The person making a payment is not charged any fees at all. The person receiving a payment is assessed 5% of the total payment per transaction plus $.19.

Now I'm really confused![/quote]

============= endquote ========

I agree it sounds way out hokey to me. And is that the Amazing Amazon ? Can we order right now from Amazon.com using that wonderful method?

The mind boggles ... when there is a con-artist round every internet corner ... the Amazon warehouses would get emptied in NO time by the "Nigerian Scam" veterans !!!

[sboeko]

I share your frustration. When I started my website 2 years ago, I dove in with both feet and paid large set up fees for a merchant account, only to pay high monthly fees for merchant account and gateway fees. Unfortunately, my sales in the beginning did not cover my monthly fees, or the $3,000.00 I paid to have my site built, and had no control over my own website. I wish I knew then, what I know now. I decided to start from scratch. I built my own website at Citymax.com. Paypal is integrated with their templates, which made for easy shopping cart set up. I too, lose the odd customer, who convey their frustration to me with the whole Paypal process. However, I feel Paypal is easy to use. After reading some replies, I tried 2checkout.com. and now realize I love my Paypal. I find that the most of the people who have real trouble, are customers who actually have credit problems, or are trying to pay from countries where Paypal does not have a payment agreement with. I have also found from previously having a gateway account, that if you accept these credit card payments from countries not accepted by Paypal, that they turn out to be fraudulent orders. I believe in the long run, you are safer with Paypal.

Sandra
giftsforhimorher.com

[Ralyn]

I've had no trouble with paypal.com and like it primarily due to flexability of payment. Before I got my credit card there were a lot of sites that lost my business because they wouldn't accept checks or pay pal.

[gary1245]

I am using Apollo hosting. It gives you a free Miva shopping cart. Plus via Payquake you get Authorize.Net credit card processing for $49/yr plus 3.5% and $.50 per transaction (starter package - prices drop with volume). All this for $20/month.

So far support at Apollo has been very effective.

I thought about PayPal, but my thought is that most internet buyers want the security of a credit card. Also, with PayPal you have to set up the account which could cause the lose of a sale.

[Ralyn]

I looked at Authorize.Net and it looks like the flexability of a customer payment is credit card and you pay extra for check processing no paypal payment option or storm pay. A lot of people use paypal and storm pay for internet purchasing and you lose those people.