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| The Shopping Cart Dilemma |

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Selling products on the Internet can be
tricky. There are for-fee third-party sites that allow you to sell
products through their systems and a lot of software you can buy or get
for free to use on a website to do the same thing. It's a quandary for
website owners, especially those just starting out:
Which is better? A third-party service
you pay to use or having your own dedicated shopping cart system
installed on your website?
Getting a handle on this question
requires answering two slightly different questions:
- How many products are you going to
sell initially, and how many NEW products will you add to your line
every year?
- Is product sales the primary goal
of a website or is it a secondary consideration?
Now - some examples to help you out:
- Musicians, bands and other performing
artists: Typically will have less than 20 items for sale as a secondary
goal of the site (the primary goal is self-promotion).
- A Bed and Breakfast wanting to augment
their income with a "Gift store," product sales is a secondary
goal of the site (again, the primary goal is site promotion).
- A small basement company with only 1
or 2 current products and the intent of adding an additional product
yearly would use such a cart as a primary goal.
The point being that start-up companies
we have worked with have tried the third-party route and hate them for a
variety of reasons. Here are the top three:
- Cost - Specifically the
on-going cost for the privilege of using a third-party shopping cart
site. If sales are slow, you still have to pay for the use of the
service - just like your light bill.
- Appearance - The basic (entry
level) pages look like junk. Most such services will allow you to
upgrade to a more professional looking presentation (read: more cost),
but even then, they always look like a third-party website.
- Functionality - Depending on
the service, making even a simple change to the price of one item can
be time-consuming. The reality: Our clients want to just get the job
done with the least amount of hassle!
Even though third-party shopping cart
service site do keep their software up-to-date "free of charge"
(those costs are actually built into your subscription fee), a lot
of our clients have experimented with such services and decided -
"It just isn't worth it"
Here's the secret most such services
won't bother to tell you:
Once you have a solid software system
in place to handle online sales, changes are rarely (if ever)
needed.
Enhancements? Sure, those happen all the
time. But changes to the "core code" are rare.
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| MySimpleCart for PayPal |

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Originally
we developed this system as a compromise between our high-end
installations of Zen Cart (an off-shoot of a product called eCommerce)
and other cart systems that, well, come close to our clients
requirements, but "not close enough."
Essentially, I got tired of trying
dinking around with packages that were gross overkill for what was
actually needed.
What visitors see when they look at at
a MySimpleCart page is very much like this
one. (Opens a new
window; close to return here). Play with it... It's live, but the Checkout
process is disabled in this demo version.
As installed, this shopping cart system
also comes with a "backend," with is a geekeze term meaning: A
way to update the cart. Take a look at this program by clicking
here.
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| Features Functions and
Limitations |

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Make
no mistake: MySimpleCart is an entry-level Shopping Cart system
that is intentionally designed to satisfy certain client's limited
needs. It provides:
- Shipping and handling charges based
upon:
- Fixed amount per item (all items
charged the same amount).
- Single charge for the first item
ordered, then a second charge for all additional items.
- A special S&H charge may be
applied individually to each item.
- State tax calculation for a specific
state (determined on installation).
- A clean interface to the website
owner's PayPal Business account.
- Online updates to the contents of
the cart, including product image installation.
- Does not require
"resizing" product images prior to use.
The major things MySimpleCart
does not do from a sales standpoint (at least as of this writing)
are the following:
- Calculate S&H charges for UPS or
USPS. (These are usually flaky even with third-party services and
rarely correct.)
- Categorize products. Actually a way
to categorize products is there, but not finished just yet...
- Automated online order fulfillment
for electronic file distribution. It can, but this requires a
separate website add-on that is not currently packaged with MySimpleCart.
(The reason is that not everyone needs that functionality...)
- Odd items like Gift Certificate
redemption through the cart. (I haven't figured out how to do that -
yet...)
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| PayPal (And some
things people believe to be true - aren't) |

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There is a
lot of outright incorrect information going around about PayPal.
Here's the straight story:
- A visitor does
not have to have a PayPal
account in order to pay for something through their
services (this requirement was dropped when eBay
acquired PayPal in 2002).
- Their fees are
competitive (and often better) than other online
merchant card services. And, yes, it will cost
website owners a small amount per transaction to accept
credit cards. If that's a problem, the business itself
is probably in trouble to begin with.
HirMon & Associates
uses PayPal, and over the past 5 years, we've noticed
it has a lot going for it:
- Accepts virtually every
major credit card for payments, including American
Express with no additional fees.
- Allows our clients to
pay by eCheck
- Interfaces with just
about every major shopping cart system available
(including those we have created in-house for specific
uses).
- It's free and
there is no monthly sales minimums or other arbitrary
criteria surrounding having one of their Business
accounts.
- Since insisting that our
clients use our online payments system to remit their
invoices, neither Jacqueline nor I can remember the last
time we had a "bounced check;" it's impossible.
- At least 80% of our
clients pay online.
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| Website requirements |

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The MySimpleCart for PayPal
website add-on requires that our clients have the following
services available on their existing website prior to
installation:
- PHP version 4.4.4 or
later
- MySQL version 4.1.x or
later
- Permission of the web
host to install and run third-party software
We typically handle
resolution of these items as part of the installation
service for the MySimpleCart for PayPal.
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| Owner Software
Requirements |

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Operation of the MySimpleCart for PayPal
website add-on requires that our clients have the following
software available:
- A web browser, either of
the following are recommended:
- Microsoft
Internet Explorer Version 6.x or later
- Mozilla Firefox Version
2.x.x or later
- Additional software
required:
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| Getting MySimpleCart
installed on your website... |

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As with all HirMon & Associates website software, you cannot buy
MySimpleCart add-on directly and
install-it-yourself.
What you will need:
- A PayPal Business account (not the
Personal or Platinum varieties); there is no charge for
setting up such accounts: they are free.
- A base service fee of $125 for
us to set up the raw system on your website. This fee includes:
- Tailoring the form to change verbiage to fit your
requirements.
- Modification of one (1) existing page on your
website to create a new web page containing the form
and processing system.
- Installation of all software components (3)
- Assistance (if required) with setting up the PayPal
Business account.
- Functionality testing prior to completion.
- An additional programming fee of $100
per hour to complete the work required to do the
fulfillment required, if any (e.g. this is optional).
All work is provided by quote only, and is based on the
client supplying a detailed list of requirements prior to
work being considered.
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