Shopping Carts seem to be on the mind today!
I am helping a friend out with a website for her new business. The products are customizable, so we need the ability for the customer to select several options (using a form) such as Ribbon Color, Fabric Design, Size, etc. (more options than the typical). I am envisioning a form for each core product (shirt, belt, bag, etc.) and then several drop-down boxes for choosing options. Ideally this would all be hosted on my friend's website, not externally. Then, the customer would click "add to cart" and they would be taken off-site to the shopping cart system and could choose to "checkout now" or "continue shopping" (in which case they would be taken back to my friend's site with the option of adding more stuff to the cart, of course). Basically, the only thing we would have to assign is a price to each core product (all prices are static for the core products, the custom options are included at no additional cost) and pass that price onto the shopping cart. My friend would need to receive the info via e-mail notifying her of what to create for this customer.
Is PayPal's "Website Payments Standard" a good option for this sort of thing? My friend purchased the GoDaddy shopping cart, but that is just awful -- it takes you to a completely different site (where the shopping cart is hosted) and makes it impossible to return to the real site to choose more options! You are basically stuck on the shopping cart site and all products are there in this template that doesn't look anything like my friend's site.
It looks like the costs are strictly based on how much you sell... 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Seems high, but there are no other fees AT ALL, so I don't know how that compares to others.
Anyway, let me know if you have any experience with this cart, or if you have other suggestions. I am definitely looking to purchase something, as I do not have the knowledge of security to do this myself.
Thanks!!
Jenny
I am helping a friend out with a website for her new business. The products are customizable, so we need the ability for the customer to select several options (using a form) such as Ribbon Color, Fabric Design, Size, etc. (more options than the typical). I am envisioning a form for each core product (shirt, belt, bag, etc.) and then several drop-down boxes for choosing options. Ideally this would all be hosted on my friend's website, not externally. Then, the customer would click "add to cart" and they would be taken off-site to the shopping cart system and could choose to "checkout now" or "continue shopping" (in which case they would be taken back to my friend's site with the option of adding more stuff to the cart, of course). Basically, the only thing we would have to assign is a price to each core product (all prices are static for the core products, the custom options are included at no additional cost) and pass that price onto the shopping cart. My friend would need to receive the info via e-mail notifying her of what to create for this customer.
Is PayPal's "Website Payments Standard" a good option for this sort of thing? My friend purchased the GoDaddy shopping cart, but that is just awful -- it takes you to a completely different site (where the shopping cart is hosted) and makes it impossible to return to the real site to choose more options! You are basically stuck on the shopping cart site and all products are there in this template that doesn't look anything like my friend's site.
It looks like the costs are strictly based on how much you sell... 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Seems high, but there are no other fees AT ALL, so I don't know how that compares to others.
Anyway, let me know if you have any experience with this cart, or if you have other suggestions. I am definitely looking to purchase something, as I do not have the knowledge of security to do this myself.
Thanks!!
Jenny