Hello everyone, I am still in the infant stages of trying to get a Web site up (I am mostly afraid of not spending my $$ as wisely as possible) and as part of that I am so confused on who offers the most reasonable "shopping carts" and or "merchant accounts". It starts to get so confusing when they start listing fees, percents per transactions, no fees (but there is) and on and on.

I have spent a lot of time searching sites on the web trying to see if there was a common company that small businesses seem to use, but that hasn't helped. I know I have received comments from Web designers in the past (but I don't think I can afford a designer - I am looking at starting with Go Daddy Website Tonight!) but when you start looking at adding this and adding that - I start to glaze over with all the costs involved.

We will be starting off with selling only (2) items (which are handmade) to a very specific niche initially. Would PayPal be enough to get started until we added more products or do you gage it by sales volume?

It is the fees that seem to get you - but I need to find the best options to start out with that won't eat up our profit margin. Plus do you have to have a "shopping cart" in additional to PayPal? I guess I am also confused with the whole "check out" process.

Any and all suggestions are welcome and NEEDED NOW!

Sandie

Sandie...

If you're just starting out PayPal will probably be your best bet. It's easy to deal with, people are familiar with it and trust it. The costs might be a little bit higher and that's only a might because you don't know yet what your account will look like. It's all based on volume with number of invoices, average dollars per invoice etc. factored into the equation.

Track your credit card costs monthly and then after a year or so begin shopping your processing around for a better rate. Starting out as you are, most would quote you their highest rate...a year from now, that might be a much different story.
Good luck
Denny

Denny

Thank you Denny, I appreciate your quick response. The information is a lot to sift through and your response really boils it all down.

What is your thoughts regarding adding a shopping cart to our site? It is challenging for me to see the benefits of the additional cost when our customers will probably only be buying 1 item and in rare cases 2. If we don't go with a "shopping cart" right away, will that cost us in "customers"? We are really an organic company targeting other families much like ourselves. It is my hope that they would be more forgiving if we don't start out with ALL the bells & whistles. Am I just being naive?

Sandie

Hi Sandie,

PayPal actually has an integrated shopping cart system. It's not fancy, in that it doesn't manage inventory and whatnot, but it is robust and like Denny said, it will be familiar to the millions of PayPal account holders.

After setting up a PayPal account, you'll see links in the profile for setting up Buy Now buttons, donation buttons, etc. Keep an eye out for buttons that will add items to the shopping cart, and beware of the buttons that send a customer straight to PayPal with only the one item purchased.

Best part is, there's nothing special to install for the shopping cart feature. The necessary commands are all built into the buttons.

If you need more encouragement to use PayPal, here's a short post I wrote on the many reasons I prefer it and suggest it to businesses who are starting out:

http://bigbrightbulb.com/work-the-web/7-reasons-why-i-heart-paypal

Hope this helps!
Crystal


Crystal
Digital Curator
http://bigbrightbulb.com
Advice, ideas, answers, and inspiration for the smallest businesses with the smallest budgets

WOW Crystal, this is GREAT NEWS! I guess I hadn't dug deep enough into PayPal and the services they provide. Plus you always get mixed reviews.

With the advice from both you and Denny, I feel much more confident in getting our business started on the Web. And I like the idea that it can always be changed down the road.

Thank you,

Sandie

Glad I could help!

And PayPal's Help is pretty darned good, but clicking around and seeing what's possible works better for me. Either way, there's a lot to see, and no way to catch it all at first glance.

There are definitely mixed reviews about PayPal (and other payment processors), but like I mentioned in the comments on my post...if 1 million PayPal users are mad at them, that's less than 1.2% of their customer base.

One more thing, be sure to get the account verified via your bank account to lift the cap/ceiling on how much money you can receive from the site. This is how PayPal keeps the initial sign-up process easy, but limits how much new account holders could defraud. It's an extra step, but not meant to discourage honest people (like you!).

Crystal
Digital Curator
http://bigbrightbulb.com
Advice, ideas, answers, and inspiration for the smallest businesses with the smallest budgets

Great tips Crystal.

I have a PayPal account that I set up when I was buying a lot on eBay and also got the account "verified" in case we wanted to sell as well.

If I understand it correctly, I now need to set up a "business" account which I guess they manage differently - right? Otherwise, I would just use the account I currently have with PayPal.

I will be calling them tomorrow to work through all of this. You and Denny have given me some great information that will also prove helpful now in asking them better questions.

Again, thank you! I love IdeaCafe!

Sandie

Yup, you'll want to do a business account for certain. Here are the benefits, straight from PayPal's Help file:

"Personal accounts are for individual use only and have limited access to PayPal's features. For those with a high transaction volume or aneed to accept credit or debit cards, Premier and Business accounts offer the following premium services:

* All the core features of a Personal account
* Unlimited credit or debit card payment acceptance
* Recurring payments
* PayPal Debit Card
* Mass Payment
* PayPal Shops
* Customizable Transaction History Logs
* 7-day-a-week toll-free customer service
* Multi-user access
* Ability to do business under a corporate or group name

For more information about PayPal solutions and benefits, see the PayPal Merchant Services and Auction Tools sections."

Definitely worth the effort...

Crystal
Digital Curator
http://bigbrightbulb.com
Advice, ideas, answers, and inspiration for the smallest businesses with the smallest budgets

Excellent ideas - I will let you know how it goes.

I enjoyed visitng your site by the way, as recommended by you a couple posts back.

I am sure others will benefit from all the information you have shared with me as well.

Stay tuned, and thank you!

Sandie

Sandie-

Paypal is a great option and all you need is their basic set up. They try to sell you on their Business Merchant stuff but you REALL do not need it. The basic will get you what you need despite what anyone tells you.

Also, if you're selling handmade items, you may want to take a look at craftersbuzz.com for advertising. You could also take a look at etsy.com - they charge but I know there are a lot of crafters on there.

Good luck!

~~~~

http://pagebuzz.com - Small Business Website Hosting. $19.99 per month, no up sells, no contracts, no surprises. Shopping cart, photo galleries, drag and drop editors, graphics, specialized programming for car dealers, real estate agents, and others.

Thank you for your comments. I am finding more confidence with each post. It is great to have this forum with such vast experiences shared so openly.

I also appreciate the web site recommendations - I will definitely check them out.

Thank you,

Sandie

Hi Sandie,

I have an online business www.sweetiepiebaby.com and I am hosting it through a company called merchant moms. I pay 17.99 for web hosting and the software is user-friendly and they have a great support system by way of forums! I have used go daddy's website builder and it wasn't very user-friendly at all and I think the costs are too high.

As for the design, merchant moms has a list of template designers that you can purchase pre-made templates from. They install and you just work on adding products to your site.

You can take a look at my site and trust me when I say I spend no more than 17.99 a month for my service. And this includes taking payments from customers and everything. Feel free to e-mail me with anymore questions.

Cameo Hoey
Sweetie Pie Baby Boutique
www.sweetiepiebaby.com
cameo@sweetiepiebaby.com

Thank you Cameo. I will definitely look into it further and I really like your site. I wish they had sites like yours when my children were born . . . 15 years ago!

Again, thank you - I appreciate all the feedback.

Sandie

Thank

And it's no problem. I know how hard it is in making these decisions! The best of luck and let me know if you have any other questions.

Cameo D. Hoey
Sweetie Pie Baby Boutique
www.sweetiepiebaby.com
cameo@sweetiepiebaby.com