I would like to go an extra step ahead of fulfillment i.e. i don't want to sell through the given shop of fulfillment services. But I still need someone to take care of the printing and shipping for me. I am a web developer graduate and I'm sure I can sell through my website effectively.
What I want to know is, how do you actually do this? What components will I need? Apparently, I need a merchant account, and a printing + shipping service. This is how I think I'll work it out:
- Customer fills up his/her cart with the t-shirts from my website
- Once checkout is done, the customer is taken to my merch account section where he/she can pass on shipping and credit card information
- Once the amount is in my account, I will purchase the custom printed shirts from the printer with MY VISA but with the customer's shipping address
- Finally, I transfer funds from my merchant account back to my VISA/Bank account to recover the costs.
Will that work?
Finally some questions:
- Is it possible to find a printer which prints on demand my custom designs without having to set up shop (i'm sure part of the "base price" in such fulfillment services includes the hosting part of the shop!)? if yes, do you know of any?
- What's a good merchant account provider (don't mention paypal, they don't send cheques to Malta) which will allow me to request a certain amount of money from my shopping cart?
- How about a free, customizable cart which connects automatically with a merchant account provider?
- Finally, if my above scenario could work, I will charge the customer (for example) for $20 but the t-shirt would cost me $15. Will the customer receive his invoice with $15 on it?!
Does anyone do business this way? Or am I just a crazy, lonely guy?
Sorry for the long winded post
Thank you for your time!
What I want to know is, how do you actually do this? What components will I need? Apparently, I need a merchant account, and a printing + shipping service. This is how I think I'll work it out:
- Customer fills up his/her cart with the t-shirts from my website
- Once checkout is done, the customer is taken to my merch account section where he/she can pass on shipping and credit card information
- Once the amount is in my account, I will purchase the custom printed shirts from the printer with MY VISA but with the customer's shipping address
- Finally, I transfer funds from my merchant account back to my VISA/Bank account to recover the costs.
Will that work?
Finally some questions:
- Is it possible to find a printer which prints on demand my custom designs without having to set up shop (i'm sure part of the "base price" in such fulfillment services includes the hosting part of the shop!)? if yes, do you know of any?
- What's a good merchant account provider (don't mention paypal, they don't send cheques to Malta) which will allow me to request a certain amount of money from my shopping cart?
- How about a free, customizable cart which connects automatically with a merchant account provider?
- Finally, if my above scenario could work, I will charge the customer (for example) for $20 but the t-shirt would cost me $15. Will the customer receive his invoice with $15 on it?!
Does anyone do business this way? Or am I just a crazy, lonely guy?
Sorry for the long winded post