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tribecat · March 2nd, 2006

Hi, I have decided to intitailly use paypal for my t-shirt site. While it wasn't my first choice for a lot of reasons I choose to use it to save a little money up front. I've got a few questions for anyone using paypal to process shirt sales; Have you found it easy to use and have your customers been satisfied with it?

Also, my web site designer said he needs full access to my paypal account to set up my site. I do have a merchant account with paypal and I am a bit hesitant to give someone I don't really know access to my paypal merchant site. I guess my question is, what kind of access does he need to set up the paypal cart on my site? I thought he could just link to it using the email address I use for that account. Could someone help me to understand this a bit more... I really appreciate it.

Thanks so much. This is a great place for t-shirt lovers!

rabid · March 2nd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by tribecat


	Hi, I have decided to intitailly use paypal for my t-shirt site. While it wasn't my first choice for a lot of reasons I choose to use it to save a little money up front. I've got a few questions for anyone using paypal to process shirt sales; Have you found it easy to use and have your customers been satisfied with it? Also, my web site designer said he needs full access to my paypal account to set up my site. I do have a merchant account with paypal and I am a bit hesitant to give someone I don't really know access to my paypal merchant site. I guess my question is, what kind of access does he need to set up the paypal cart on my site? I thought he could just link to it using the email address I use for that account. Could someone help me to understand this a bit more... I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. This is a great place for t-shirt lovers!

What cart are you using? And what kind of account do you have with Paypal, Website Payments Standard or Pro?

B.

Rodney · March 2nd, 2006

Someone will need to login to your PayPal account and create the buy now/add to cart buttons for your shopping cart pages.

These are only generated through the PayPal interface once logged in. If you don't feel comfortable giving out that information to your developer, you can create the necessary buttons yourself and send him the resulting HTML code (or hire a developer you can trust

)

With PayPal as the ONLY shopping option, you will find customers that don't mind it at all and are happy that you accept paypal and you will find customers that specifcally won't shop at your site because they don't like PayPal for their own reasons that may have nothing at all to do with your company.

I don't like the functionality of the PayPal cart (how it pops open a separate window when you add a product to the shopping cart), but it wouldn't stop me from buying a t-shirt I like when I see one. That's probably because I'm a t-shirt junkie though, I don't know if all customers will have the same patience.

You can accept PayPal and still use a free shopping cart option like oscommerce, zen-cart, cubecart. That way you'll still have a better shopping cart functionality (no popups) and be able to upgrade to other payment options easily later down the road.

Also, If you use a shopping cart option like the ones I mentioned, you also wouldn't have to give your developer access to your PayPal account. Then all they would need is your paypal email address to plugin to the shopping cart application and the shopping cart would handle the rest.

tribecat · March 2nd, 2006

Hi Brian, it's a regular merchant account, guess that would be standard.

tribecat · March 2nd, 2006

Hi Rodney, I have to tell you that I am not a fan of paypal. Whenever I have sold items on ebay I simply won't accept paypal, only check or money order. They are a bit to avaricious and difficult to work with. This approach, however, just doesn't work for t-shirt sales which are often impulse purchases.

Sadly, I am pretty much at the mercy of otheres when it comes to being conversant with programming and having a fluid understanding of what is involved. This is my first foray into ecommerce and I know I'm going to make mistakes but I'm sure hoping to keep that to a minimum in terms of time and expense. Can you give me a bit of direction insofar as exploring some of the other options you mentioned... or is it as simple as going on the appropriate web sites?

I am happily pleased to have discovered this site and its wealth of friendly and helpful kindred souls... it's really great.
Thanks,
Tribecat

Rodney · March 2nd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by tribecat


	Hi Rodney, I have to tell you that I am not a fan of paypal. Whenever I have sold items on ebay I simply won't accept paypal, only check or money order. They are a bit to avaricious and difficult to work with.

I haven't had the same experience, but what you just wrote is exactly what I was talking about

Some people just don't like PayPal, so if they see that as your *only* option, they may just choose not to buy. I don't think this is a "large" portion of buyers though.

Quote:


	Sadly, I am pretty much at the mercy of otheres when it comes to being conversant with programming and having a fluid understanding of what is involved.

You never have to be at the mercy of programmers. You always have a choice. And educating yourself (in places like this) as to what those choices are is a good way to take back some of that control

Having a programmer do the work is not a bad thing, but being able to explain to them what you need and knowing what you don't need will help to make sure you aren't getting taken advantage of by the developer. Hopefully we can help you out with that

Quote:


	This is my first foray into ecommerce and I know I'm going to make mistakes but I'm sure hoping to keep that to a minimum in terms of time and expense.

I've made quite a few in my years doing this. I *try* to remind myself to think of them as "learning experiences"

Quote:


	Can you give me a bit of direction insofar as exploring some of the other options you mentioned... or is it as simple as going on the appropriate web sites?

The basics of it is: if you have a domain name and a web host, then that webhost most likely offers you to ability to use php/mysql scripts on your account.

Free shopping carts like zen-cart, oscommerce, cubecart, etc can just be installed on your web hosting account and then you can manage your products and orders through their online interface. Most t-shirt sites use a shopping cart of some type. I've seen many that use oscommerce, but the others can be equally as good.

To figure out which one you think will work best for you, you could just visit the different shopping cart product websites:

zen-cart: http://www.zen-cart.com
oscommerce: http://www.oscommerce.com/ (or http://creloaded.com/ is a nicely bundled version of oscommerce)
cubecart: http://www.cubecart.com/site/home/

Quote:


	I am happily pleased to have discovered this site and its wealth of friendly and helpful kindred souls... it's really great. Thanks, Tribecat

Happy to have you and be able to help.

identityburn · March 2nd, 2006

Doesn't standard paypal accept credit cards even without having a paypal account? I thought I read that on their site. You do still have the new window thing, but I didn't think they had to sign up for an account anymore.

Rodney · March 2nd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by identityburn


	Doesn't standard paypal accept credit cards even without having a paypal account? I thought I read that on their site. You do still have the new window thing, but I didn't think they had to sign up for an account anymore.

Yes, that's true. But that's not what I was referencing above

Some people just don't like PayPal (regardless of whether they have signup for an account or not when checking out). So if they see PayPal as their only option, they just won't buy.

The converse is sometimes true as well. Some people are more likely to buy if they see PayPal as an option during checkout. That means they don't have to pull out their credit card number or worry about a merchant that they don't know getting their cc details.

Comin'OutSwingin · March 2nd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	You can accept PayPal and still use a free shopping cart option like oscommerce, zen-cart, cubecart. That way you'll still have a better shopping cart functionality (no popups) and be able to upgrade to other payment options easily later down the road.

Rodney, are you saying that it's possible to use the standard Paypal as a payment option, but use a shopping cart such as oscommerce, and not have a new window pop up?

Rodney · March 3rd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comin'OutSwingin


	Rodney, are you saying that it's possible to use the standard Paypal as a payment option, but use a shopping cart such as oscommerce, and not have a new window pop up?

That's correct

Shopping carts like oscommerce,zen-cart, etc allow you to specify which payment methods you will accept (check, credit cards, paypal, 2checkout, etc)

You can turn each payment method on or off.

So you can set it up so that your only payment method is PayPal.

How it works then is that users would shop around your site using the oscommerce shopping cart with no popup windows, and when they are ready to checkout, they enter their billing/shipping address and then select a method of payment (PayPal). Then they are transferred to the PayPal website to complete their payment and after they pay via PayPal, they are then transferred back to your shopping cart and you get notification from your shopping cart and from PayPal of the order and payment.

Hope this helps

Any other questions, just let me know.

Comin'OutSwingin · March 3rd, 2006

Thanks, Rodney.

What about when they are transferred to the Paypal site...are you able to put your logo and site colors there so it at least "looks" somewhat like they are connected to your site?

Rodney · March 3rd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comin'OutSwingin


	Thanks, Rodney. What about when they are transferred to the Paypal site...are you able to put your logo and site colors there so it at least "looks" somewhat like they are connected to your site?

Yep, you can add your logo to the top header of the PayPal site when they are transferred to make their payment. You used to be able to edit the colors a bit, but I don't know if you still can.

That's one of the benefits of having a real merchant account though. The shopper never has to leave your site because the transaction is handled by your secure server and the payment gateway.

PayPal offers a "real" merchant account now (called PayPal Payments Pro), but there are some weird usage restrictions with it (like you can't use other payment options and you have to have their logo somewhere near or something like that).

Comin'OutSwingin · March 3rd, 2006

I was thinking about going with a "true" merchant account, but I think I'm going to start out with the paypal until I'm able to drive some traffic to the site (hopefully, I will be done with it soon!).

Thanks, again.

P.S. This is my 300th post! I am now a T-SHIRT MASTER!!!

I hope to fill this position well and continue to bring dignity and respect to the t-shirt masters all over the world.

Rodney · March 3rd, 2006

Congrats T-Shirt Master! Remember to only use your powers for good and not evil

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