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Selling a new invention to the world...suggestions on shopping carts and cc processing?

msoffab — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:46:35 -0800

Selling a new invention to the world online...suggestions on shopping carts and cc processing? I am redoing my friends website for a new invention...it's a bottle opener for screw cap wine bottles.

I am in the process of redoing the site and I want to know your suggestions on payment processing for a single item like this. PayPal is ok or we could sign up for a regular merchant account and gateway. As far as rates, I have a cc processor/merchant account, so I care about gateway and ecommerce fees on top of my cc processor's rates.

I am looking for a dead simple solution like shopify or something that can easily be created to handle the ecommerce as well as allow for static pages (ie press, video demonstrations, about us, contact, etc). It would be nice to have some type of backend for supporting order status, shipping, receipts, etc. But no one feature would be a deal breaker for me. It should be 2-3 clicks before they click 'place order'

Eventually, we would like to setup landing pages how shamwow does it. They have a single page that is optimized for conversions (probably using A/B testing) and allows for the customer to place an order on the same page. Any suggestions for this?

Bonus question: would this change if I had 1-3 products to sell? I got another buddy who is inventing something and there are a couple indirect products he is selling related to it. I am hoping to use the same dead simple system on there too.

Thanks for reading that long and drawn out question :)

What was this table/cart used for?

secretsecret — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:18:15 -0800

Can anyone identify this antique table/cart? It's raised and lowered using a crank. At first I thought it was an old gurney or casket dolly, but it's not long enough to be either.

http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/ohwhocaresman/photo.jpg

Point A to Point Oh Dear God

notquitemaryann — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:10:53 -0800

Do you have your very own (non-pilfered) shopping cart? I may be selling my car soon, and need a liveable way of lugging groceries. It's not a long haul, but I live at the top of a hill and the grocery store is at the bottom. After carrying a 40lb bag of cat litter back to my place the other day, it became apparent that I need a little help. I'm clueless as to what's out there in the world of personal shopping carts, and more importantly how well they function in practice. In order of importance, my priorities are:

- Price
- How smoothly it rolls and how well it turns
- Bulkiness/portability when not in use- once I get it back to the apartment, there are stairs to negotiate, and I will occasionally have to take it on the bus
- How ridiculous I will look dragging it around

On an average biweekly trip, I tend to buy the equivalent of one of a well-packed over-the-arm generic shopping basket or 2-3 plastic bags, plus a 20lb bag of litter. Although it is not much, just carrying it in a normal, non-rolling basket/bag is not an option due to serious back/neck issues. I don't have a bike, or I'd just buy a basket for it.

Back-friendly carrying products?

Bardolph — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:42:34 -0800

My mom has back problems, but insists on line-drying her wash, which means lugging a heavy laundry basket out to the line almost daily. What sort of cart, basket or carrier can I purchase that would help her schlep the wet clothes more easily? Difficulty: must be compatible with stairs. Bending over is also somewhat problematic for her, so ideally this would be loadable/unloadable at waist height or higher. Basically, a small waist-high cart able to be pulled up a half-flight of stairs and over about 20 yards of grass would be ideal, but I'd also love to hear about easy-carry baskets or carriers, if such things exist. Thanks in advance for any/all suggestions for solutions here!

Help a pack mule become more efficient!

spinturtle — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:40:08 -0800

Every year for a few days I transform into a pack mule hauling a good deal of camping gear over hilly, wood chipped paths for nearly a mile. I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years and am looking change things up a bit. What is the perfect people-powered vehicle for this? I’ve used your typical hand truck/dollies but the small wheels run into trouble on wood chip paths; items fall off (even if more than adequately strapped down with bungee cords); limited load capacity.
The past few years I’ve been using a heavy duty garden cart with a great deal of success but I’m tired of pulling – it becomes rather taxing on the shoulders after a couple of hills with a full load. I’d like to find something that can be pushed but is a better load handler than a standard hand truck. I’m considering a game cart. The larger wheels lead me to believe balance would be good and they should make it easy to navigate the paths.

Here are some necessary details. Typical cargo will be Rubbermaid bins, coolers, collapsible chairs (think the ones in a bag), large tents, and the miscellaneous cases of your favorite beverage. The loads have substantial weight, so the collapsible wire cart that my nana uses for small errands won't cut it.

So, great hive mind, does anyone have any pros/cons of the game cart idea or is there something way cooler that I’m completely missing out on? I’m certainly strong enough to bear the pack mule work, and even take pride in it, but I’m ready for a change.

disclaimer: This question was actually written by my gf, but it seemed easier to post in first person voice. I just don't want anyone getting the idea that *I* might be capable of such pack-mulage.

Seeking a A System for Selling Videos A La Cart

dbarefoot — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:58:06 -0800

I'm working on a new project that has some particular requirements for selling video online. * We need to sell online videos (of, say, 20 to 30 minutes in length). They’ll be viewable online, behind a some kind of password protection, or available for download as well (again, with password protection).
* Users will choose from a menu of videos, add them to a cart, pay for them and then get access (through streamed videos, downloads or both) only to those videos.
* Ideally this happens within our own site, or something we can tweak to look something like our own site.

No, it's not for pr0n.

I checked out some courseware systems, but they’re really about delivering structured multi-part classes. I’m also aware of E-Junkie. They’re a good option for downloadables, but don’t offer flash-based video for viewing only.

I’m happy to pay for a turn-key solution, assuming it doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount of money. That’s preferable, actually, to messing around with Drupal or whatever.

I found these two previous questions, but they weren't particularly fruitful. All suggestions welcome.

Most popular E-Commerce/shopping cart software suites?

rinogo — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:10:38 -0800

What are the most popular E-Commerce/shopping cart software suites? Specifically, I'd like to know user-base size (or at least market share percentages). For example, I know that osCommerce is a popular E-Commerce solution. I'd like to know how many web sites are running osCommerce, or at least how much market share osCommerce has. I'd like this list to include both hosted and unhosted solutions.

Hosted solutions are those that don't need to be installed on a web server. They 'run' off of the service provider's servers. Examples of hosted solutions include: Yahoo Merchant, goEmerchant, GoDaddy, etc.

Unhosted solutions are those that need to be installed on a vendor's web server. The vendor must secure web hosting and install the software to their web host. Examples of unhosted solutions include: Zen Cart, osCommerce, Joomla, Shop Script, Ubercart, etc.

Can someone please help me find some data on this market? It seems like a question that would be asked over and over again - I'm surprised that it't not easier to find an answer to this question.

P.S. Please note that I've already found one extensive report on this topic, but it is outdated and its accuracy is questionable.

E-commerce orders for a gift list

Kirklander — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:11:40 -0800

Question about setting up a Web shopping cart that would send a list of orders to a list of different addresses. My client owns a winery, which currently ships out individual orders using the Nexternal e-commerce software.

He'd like to set up a system so that, for the holidays, a business could send bottles of wine to a list of dozens of clients at different addresses.
If possible, he'd like them to be able to copy a list from an Excel spreadsheet, paste it into the Web site, and have it talk to Nexternal to put in a single order for all those people.

Was wondering if anyone knows an easy way to do this. Open to switching to Zen Cart or another system. Any help much appreciated. Difficulty level: I'm pretty good with PHP and stuff, but new to shopping carts.

Help me find a great cart!

moof — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:06:35 -0800

Kids are growing up. When I take the empty stroller to the supermarket I'm getting the "why is crazy lady shopping with empty stroller" looks. I'm looking for city-friendly, grocery-friendly shopping/laundry cart that has a little more pizazz than the old foldable standby (like this one). What's the coolest shopping cart for non-SUV moms who still walk to the store? Bonus points for extra cargo storage (for things like tissues, wallet, keys) and cup holders!

Need a SUPER simple online shopping cart.

bink — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:21:55 -0800

Looking for a very simple cart solution for a very simple business. I'm setting up a shopping cart for a small business that sells one (1) product. I need a shopping cart that will automatically calculate tax, shipping to all around the world, and, most importantly, will be DIRT SIMPLE for the people who fill the orders. Is there anything that's simpler than PayPal?

In the past, we've used PayPal but those emails sometimes get lost, the shipping charges weren't always right, and the people in the company had difficulty dealing with them. I think they ended up printing out every email and doing shipping labels, record-keeping, etc. by hand in a paper notebook. It needs to be easy for an over-60 technophobe to deal with.

They would like for customers to be able to send checks or money orders as well; I set up a Mal's E cart but getting two emails for every transaction was too confusing.

The ideal program would send a very simple notification email that the order's been placed (and paid for, if so) and would make it really simple for them to print a mailing label and add the buyer's info to a database. Oh, and it needs to work on a Mac!

Free would be nice, of course, but I think they're willing to pay a bit for something that will really work.

What do I need to know to my high end retail sales site off the ground?

JJ Jenkins — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:46:32 -0800

What are the best books/sites for learning the necessary web design and dev tools for an e-commerce site? I have a decent graphic and web design background, but I haven't used it in nine years or so, which means I never quite grasped CSS.

What books/sites/languages can you recommend so that I can design and build a website for direct sales? I will be selling very few (3-5) products that come in several colors. I want to be able to add to them, but I will hire a firm once the number gets too high, so right now it doesn't need to have a complicated database to accommodate high volume of inventory. This is a fashion product so I want the design to be cute and stylish, but easy for customers to navigate and buy products.

My thoughts are to use something like Dreamweaver for design and then program in the e-commerce parts myself. (Do people still even use the term e-commerce?)

I basically need it to look very high end and have a shopping cart with multiple payment and shipping options. I'm confident I can do this myself and have been thoroughly unimpressed with the web pros I've tried to work with. I think I can figure it out on my own for less money and time. However, I don't want to pore through textbooks and do tutorials on things that are unnecessary to get this site off the ground.

Also, I'd like to design and program regular emailings to alert my customer base of new products and availability.

I hope this is specific enough to make sense. Thanks!

What shopping cart software should I set up?

amtho — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:04:15 -0800

Best starting point for e-commerce / shopping cart software? I'm a competent Perl programmer with background in several other languages, who wants to create a decidedly minimalist-looking web site shopping cart for a client. I expect to hack Perl or PHP code, but would like to hack things that are designed to be hacked. Anyone tried CRE Loaded? Other recommendations? Other places to ask? The old system, heavily modified from an open-source Perl code base, probably should go; I'm pretty confident I can figure out PHP enough to customize something that isn't actively getting in my way (have modified WordPress successfully) -- but what code to start from?

I'm willing to pay a little. I want to install it on my own server space. I'm very picky about design and usability, so I'll want to change the front end of anything (that I've seen available) substantially. And oh, I'll probably want the back end to integrate with our existing payment handling system (Mal's, in case anyone knows/cares), but I can write that code myself if needed.

Specific changes I'd want:
- ability for people to purchase without having to "create an account";
- will keep track of shopping cart contents even if cookies not enabled (i.e., can keep cart ID in URLs if no cookies available)
- URL's that are sensible words instead of automatically-assigned numbers (maybe called "search engine friendly"?)
- ability to completely customize the layout of the home page and other pages, including product listings - this includes HTML, not just changes to CSS.

I've read some similar questions in AskMe, and this one is almost exactly me, though it's from 2006. I'm interested in CubeCart and SquirrelCart, which it recommends, but one option that I'd particularly looked at some years ago is a version of OSCommerce called CRE Loaded -- anyone know that one?

If there's a good resource out there in the world, book or web site, that will give a good survey of available software with my particular concerns in mind, or if there's a better forum you know of for this kind of question, I'd love to hear about it.

Help me find a rolling cart for an LCD TV

uvaleg — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:07:59 -0800

Where in the world do you get a (reasonably priced) rolling cart for a flat screen tv? I work in a medical center and we just purchased a 32" LCD TV for our Pediatric HIV program. The TV will be used with a Wii, and most of the time it will be in the clinic, but sometimes we'll want to transport it around the hospital for the kids to use it when their moms are at meetings or if they end up staying here. I have searched online for a rolling cart to put the LCD on, but everything I've found is several thousand dollars. The carts for old school TVs are a couple hundred max.

Can anyone suggest companies that I should contact for this? I have done the google search, but am hoping someone here has experience buying this sort of thing and can make a recommendation. I tried calling the purchasing folks both with the hospital and the university where I work to see who they've used, but of course neither of them called me back. I'm on a short time frame here, as the grant funds we'll be using to purchase said cart need to be spent by next Tuesday.

Help me get a 93' Club Car working...

itheearl — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:00:21 -0800

My dumbass friend bought a well-used golf cart. Without a charger. or working batteries. Help us get it running. One of my college-age friends is notoriously bad with money, always making crazy impulse purchases - never thinking about total cost of ownership.

Anyway, he bought a 93' club car, a 36 volt V-Glide. (it matches the wiring diagram at http://www.lvssales.com/Cart/88-03_vglidecoil_36v.php )

According to the previous owner the cart "was working", but the batteries were dead and there is no charger.

From what I've read online, leaving lead acid batteries fully discharged for an extended period of time is a very bad thing.
To further ensure that the batteries were dead, my friends pulled them out, charged the 6-volt batteries one by one with a 12-volt car battery charger, and then re-installed them without paying any attention to the positive and negative markings on the batteries.
Not only that, but they didn't even manage to hook them up in series.

At this point, I stepped in and got everything properly installed again. We can crawl forward a few feet or hear the reverse buzzer.

My friend wants to, and probably will, replace the batteries and buy a lift kit (!?) for the cart. Since he already has a fairly large car battery charger, he's convinced that he doesnt need to go out and spend a few hundred dollars on a 36-volt charger - he will just find some way to hook the 12-volt charger up to the charge plug on the golf cart.

So I guess my question is, is there some magical cheap way to charge the batteries in series that won't damage them?
If not, help me convince my friend that this is going to ruin his batteries.

Also, charger recommendations would be appreciated.
It would have to be relatively cheap, but also bear in mind that my friend will probably never do any maintenance on the batteries - so something that can be left plugged in all the time may be in order. Perhaps something with a built-in float charger? Would just using a 36v float charger work if he didnt discharge the batteries too far?

Can I "own" PayPal transactions?

subpixel — Mon, 21 May 2007 17:03:06 -0800

Can I develop a shopping cart that allows people to pay via PayPal but keeps the transaction on my site? What I thought I had seen, but can't find, is an example where:

1) customer adds item to cart + hits checkout
2) customer is asked to login to a paypal screen
3) customer completes order at store domain (the cart has captured the paypal account info above)

Got To Delete Them Freakin All

jeribus — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:18:39 -0800

How to reset completely one of them new fangled game carts. Befuddled SNES user ahead inside. So, the kiddo got a hand me down Pokemon Mystery Dungreon Red Rescue Team gameboy advance cartridge from a cousin.

(and yes, he is also being steered towards more RPG based FF type games and is about to start Chrono Trigger soon).

But!

It apparently has a something called Wonder Mail. which apparently opens more missions or such. Via a complex code that is entered.

He deleted the old saved game, but can't access the already used Wonder Mail games.

Me, in my old console thinking popped the cartridge open and expected to find a battery I could remove. Since I have memories of losing saved games to an aging batteries.

No such luck!

Time has moved on!

Is there a way to restore a cart to a factory new sort of state any more?

Grocery store line etiquette

marble — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 05:08:39 -0800

Grocery store line etiquette - when someone abandons their cart to go get an additional item, do they forfeit their place in line? I was in the store the other day, and in all the "lots of items" checkout lanes there were several people with their baskets jam-packed full of groceries. I hate the store and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I spied a lane where there was an abandoned cart (with nothing behind it), and figuring that it was fair to go in front of this person, sort of put my cart in a merging position between that cart and the one in front.

Well, the bitch came back, and I sort of made an effort to see if she was cool with the situation, and she absolutely insisted she was entitled to her former place in line, and I should get the fuck out of the way, basically. (No, no outright insults or curses were exchanged). I got rather pissed off (so was she at this point), and though I yielded and headed for another checkout line (because basically I am a wuss), I made a few snotty comments to her as I left.

I did say that since she had abandoned her cart, she should lose her place, but she wasn't buying it. Was I in the right, or was she? There was no one behind her for her to sort of clear it with before she ran off.

In the future in such a situation, I think I'd just move the person's cart back and put myself straight in line, thus putting the onus on them to make a big issue of going around me to "reclaim" their spot, and I'd probably stand up for my position more, since I think it would be more defensible. I wouldn't do this if there were people behind me though, and I'm unable to articulate why exactly.

And I must say I did get some smug satisfaction after I found a much shorter line later on, so I got out of there before she did. HA! So it worked out after all, but I'm curious about the general principle just the same.

If it makes any difference, she came back with eggs, which I know are on the farthest side of the store, so she was gone quite a while - this wasn't just a quick dash or something.

What's the easiest shopping cart app to set-up/configure/use?

jbickers — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 14:23:24 -0800

What's the best/easiest open-source e-commerce program? I'm helping a buddy set up a web store, and I need a great open-source shopping cart app. And it needs to be reeeeeaaally easy to configure - gotta set this up quick, with a minimal amount of tweaking.

Several years ago, I set up one for another friend using OSCommerce. That felt like pulling teeth - poor documentation, lots of trial and error. I looked at Zen Cart at the time, and it looked a lot better, but I don't know how well those products have evolved. PHP is preferred, because of my familiarity with it.

Are there better choices out there? Looking for a cart app that's as easy to set up and run as Wordpress is for blogging. The guy's got between 50 and 100 items, pretty simple stuff - any thoughts? (He's already got credit card acceptance abilities, but again, easy will trump sophisticated in this instance.)

PHP shopping cart

toby\flat2 — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 17:16:58 -0800

I'm looking for a PHP based shopping cart system that is easy to install, easy to explain to the person adding items to the backend and works with UK-based CC handlers. Any recommendations?

Cheap photographers shopping cart

andrewzipp — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 07:12:40 -0800

I'm looking for an online shopping cart that is free (or very cheap) and could handle sessions of wedding and event photos. I would be adding a couple hundred new "items" at once, which I think would make most shopping carts not work. Right now I've got a ASP file that builds a gallery from pictures in folders, and in a frame to the side I've got a basic email form. Like this: http://www.bisigimpactgroup.com/clients/bb21/orderform/

It's primitive, and unsecured, but it's easy to create new catalogs of images. I get so few orders that I don't really need much automation is the order processing part, but I would like something that added up a total and submitted their credit card information securely.

Can anyone recommend a user based shopping cart?

jackofsaxons — Fri, 20 May 2005 08:56:34 -0800

I'd like to setup a webstore/portal script for local bands to sell their merchandise on. Can anyone recommend a solution? I'd prefer it to be LAMP based if possible.

Catalina Golf Carts

luriete — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:21:59 -0800

The About.com page says that golf cart rentals on Catalina Island go for about $30 plus an hour. Is this right? So a couple hour tour of the botanical gardens and Avalon would cost me over $100? For some reason this seems a little high to me. I remember when I was a kid it was about $25 for the afternoon, but that was years ago. Anyone been to Avalon recently who can remember the rate?

Shopping cart question

onekat — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:07:01 -0800

My friend has a skateboard shop he runs out of his garage. He has an online shopping cart set up but the person who did it disappeared and left no documentation. He want to update the cart but has no idea how to find out which cart he uses or where to go to find a control panel. Is there an easy way to tell which service he uses?