What will I need to get started?

[Sparkie]

I'm looking to e-commerce enable a couple of sites I'm working on and I need to know what steps I should go through to get things going.

Basically here's what I'm looking for:

Two shopping carts (for two different sites) that allow around 20 items each and are very customizable.

The shopping carts should allow clients to download the product online after they have purchased it and their credit card has been verified.

Now...what do I really need in order to add these to my sites?

I wouldn't mind if there were a 3rd party transaction company involved (paypal, clickbank, etc.) but as far as I know, none of them offer these types of services (especially the download-after-payment service). If there's a script that will do it for me, that would be fine too...and then I'd need to hire a programmer

Please help me get started

[LiveTronix]

Yep,

Regsoft.com is made for that. They will even allow custom algorythem codes to be entered in - they are great but 10% or 3$ is quite high. I can voche for them they've successfully send me a couple checks already and overall i'm pleased with there service and support.

[tehtarik]

Sparkie,
2Checkout.com can do download after payment. Checkout their demo online.

I think ClickBank can do that too but I dunno how.
I've bought a few eBooks through ClickBank before and it's download after payment.

[hurtdidit]

You could try a DansieCart/PayPal combination perhaps...and if you are thinking of doing more than two eventually, I would suggest the Mall version, which allows unlimited carts.

www.dansie.net is the site (ugly, I know, but the product is great and in use by several ISPs).

[Mail-Benefit.com]

You will be swomped with advice and companys fighting for your business. See you at the top!

Matthew Taylor

[jaiem]

Ditto on Dansie.

3rd party carts and payment gateways work but they also look "unprofessional". That is, when your site links out to someplace else for ordering and CC info it can look amateurish. Some people aren't comfortable with entering thier billing info into a site other than the site the are ordering from.

Find a host that offers the Dansie cart (mall version, meaning multi-users work off one copy at the host's site). Cheaper than getting it yourself.

[Sparkie]

Well..I already have a host that I'm quite happy with. They offer a shopping cart, but its limitd in its functions.

If anyone here uses 2Checkout.com, do they allow you to customize the shopping cart that they offer (the free PERL script one?)

[phanie12.geo]

Sparkie,

Check out www.digibuy.com . Don't know if this is what you are looking for, since it takes visitors off site to do the transaction, but it can't get much easier than that for downloadable products.

[hurtdidit]

2checkout's been really buggy lately, don't know what their problem's been (they blame it on the network, but that's sort of a generic response if you ask me!). Anyhow, their cart, just like most freebie carts, really is lame. Seriously, get yourself a cgi or PHP solution. If you can't afford DansieCart, search through some of the low-cost and free scripts out there; they are almost always going to be better than the 3rd party solution, plus you own it so if you decide to change payment processing, you don't have to start over from scratch.

[Sparkie]

Bleh. I'm tired of messing with 2Checkout and Revecom.

Off to the trading post to see if I can get some customized work done

[Omair Haroon]

ClickBank.com rules.. I have been using it for a year or so. They have great service and also offer download-after-payment.


-Omair