Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ecommerce and store

How do I get US-address-only items delivered to Australia?

katala — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:22:10 -0800

Can anyone please recommend a reputable mail-forwarding service for someone living in Australia who wants to buy from US-only stores? Hi MeFites, I need to buy some items (headbands of all things!) which I can only find on US store websites and they will only ship to a US address (no international shipping provided).

Can anyone please recommend a good mail-forwarding service who I can have my items shipped to, and then they will ship them to me in Australia?

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give!

Katala

Personal experience with payment processors that offer very simple transaction processing?

odinsdream — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:22:25 -0800

Personal experience with payment processors that offer very simple on-site credit card entry and the ability to sell digital goods (i.e., license codes, subscriptions, etc.). I'd like customers to enter the bare minimum of payment information. I'd like to accept credit-card payments on my website. I can already do this with Paypal or Google Checkout, but they are more complex than I'd prefer for this particular venture. Features I'd like include:

Bare minimum of data entry. I've purchased from sites that require only the credit card number and an expiration date. Examples include paying for a new account on Shopify, or paying for a checked bag on Delta and US Airways. I don't need to collect names, shipping information, or anything else for this product. It's a very inexpensive virtual good, which is why I'd like to make the customer payment experience as painless and hassle-free as possible.

Entry of data on my site, or at least visually similar enough to appear to be my site. Examples include Panic Software, Shopify, Delta, and US Airways.*

Able to process digital goods that are unique to each customer. Panic Software is a good example here. Immediately after you pay you get the product unlock code, which is unique to that transaction. I want this to be completely automatic. Out of the box Google Checkout doesn't seem to work for this. With their API it looks like it could work, but they don't meet my other requirements.

Do you have personal experience with payment processors that meet most or all of these requirements?

* Note on PCI compliance: This requirement is really a visual thing. The actual HTML form doesn't need to come from my server. I'm not interested in actually storing the credit card data - I'd still like it to go directly to the payment processor without passing through me. I just want the customer to have a seamless experience of not appearing to leave my site.

How to combine multiple physical shops and an online catalog within one website

web-goddess — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:12:54 -0800

Can you think of any examples of a retailer that has both a chain of physical stores and a "shop online" section? I've been helping out a friend who owns a knitting store with his website, and now that he's expanding I think we need to rethink the way his site works. I'm just wondering how other people organise things like stock levels when more than one physical location is involved. The existing setup we have is that there is one physical bricks-and-mortar, and orders for the "online shop" are filled from there. Customers know that the stock levels shown on the website are what is physically present in the Sydney store. Now we're going to throw a couple more shops into the mix. The orders will still be filled out of the main Sydney store though, so I'm unsure whether to show multiple stock levels, just the Sydney level (along with a disclaimer), or a combined stock level (again with a disclaimer).

Also, there are plenty of mega-retail chains where the site is just all about the online catalog and the list of locations is relegated to a link in the corner. This business is a lot smaller than that, and we'd like to emphasize the character of the individual shops. The only good example I can find is Tessuti Fabrics. They make it clear in their online catalog that the stock levels only refer to one of their locations.

So, can anybody think of any similar examples? I'd like to see how other people tackle the issue.

(Incidentally, I wasn't sure whether to list this under "computers & internet" or "shopping." I'm guessing the "computers" folks might be more useful in terms of the UI issues.)

Who did Office Depot go to set up an online storefront?

cha4 — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:40:00 -0800

I've been tasked with finding an e-commerce consulting company to help guide us (we are a wing of a fortune 500 company) through the entire e-commerce process. Not so much creating it necessarily, but more guidance/consulting. My google-fu is yielding all fluff. Ideally, looking for "Company X helped Barnes & Noble switch to an online storefront" type of info, so I can back up any suggestions I might be able to make.

Standalone shopping cart with Amazon-like referral system?

Wild_Eep — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 17:18:36 -0800

Anyone know a shopping cart with an Amazon.com-like referral system? I'm building a website with an online store for a publishing company and they'd like to be able to offer some sort of referral compensation (a small percentage of a referred sale) to people who refer buying customers.

Amazon has this kind of system. You sign up with amazon, and embed your secret ID number in an amazon url for an item. If people click on the link and buy the item, you get a small percentage of that sale. When your total of referral payments gets above some arbitrary amount (like $20, for instance), you can have a check cut to you, or get a gift certificate for the store.

I'm currently interested in using ZenCart, but I don't know if they have this type of thing available, or if there's a plug-in.

Perhaps there are other meta-websites that would allow me to add this kind of service on top of an existing shopping-cart site?

Is there some obvious solution that I'm oblivious to?

Looking for a PHP e-commerce store and a decent SSL certificate

spinko — Fri, 05 May 2006 15:32:36 -0800

Looking for a PHP e-commerce store and a decent SSL certificate Right the story goes, I used to do everything in ASP. I now have a dedicated php Linux server and I want to move all my new clients to it.

Im currently using CandyPress (www.candypress.com) ASP store, which does a great job. I need to find a similar store in PHP (no OScommerce). Regarding prices the cheaper the better. Ill need to be able to customise the look and feel to meet my design.

Jizo (www.jizo.co.uk) looked like my cup of tea but its still in beta. Does anyone know any similar ones what do the same or close too.

My dedicated server doesnt have a SSL certificate, do you know any cheap ones that work well. I got a quote of $20 from my other developer but that was with his asp host.

Im moving everything to PHP because I have found that Windows servers are more expensive in the long run.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Paging Herbert Kornfeld - ecommerce with purchase orders

Wild_Eep — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:27:28 -0800

Is there an open-source ecommerce store system that has built-in support for purchase orders? You see, I was all set to just use ZenCart, when the client informed me that the first 3 interested customers he has all want to pay with a PO.

Personally, I'd rather just tell the potential customers to go find a credit card, as writing/testing/debugging/shipping/maintaining a bolted-on PO system seems like a lot of effort. Then there's the additional 'back-office' administration of dealing with the purchase orders, collections, etc. Seems like a hassle that could grow unwieldy.

So, is there a LAMP-compatible e-commerce system that supports customers paying with a purchase order instead of a credit card?

We're looking for a good online store system that is easy to setup and cheap to run.

trbrts — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:23:29 -0800

So after 25 years in the computer biz, my dad goes out and buys an organic cattle farm in central Virginia. Now, he's buying a slaughterhouse and is starting his own brand of organic, grass fed, really tasty beef. So, he needs an online store. We're looking for a good online store system that is easy to setup and cheap to run. I've set up Yahoo Stores before, is there anything better out there? What are your experiences in out of the box online commerce solutions?