harryball
07-28-2007, 05:06 PM
I started to put this in the website topic but I realized that's not really what it's about. I know a lot of you guys would love to put up a simple online store and probably think it's way too difficult. Well... go to www.HabitatForBats.org (http://www.HabitatForBats.org) and look at the Bat-eStore... get it? Bat e Store... batty store... oh well.
[I'm really not trying to sell anything here guys, I just feel this is relevant to your efforts and thought you might appreciate the information]
If you like what you see and would like to do it yourself but thought you couldn't, keep reading. I signed up for googlecheckout.com based on a suggestion from Paco I believe but PayPal will work too. Google Checkout is free until Jan 2008 then it's only 2% with a 20 cent transaction fee which still beats PayPal. They direct deposit to your account and don't offer a debit card but I can live with that.
I was referred to www.mercantec.com (http://www.mercantec.com) by a non-botter for a shopping cart system. While you can read about it yourself here is the big view and a few tips. e-commerce express is free. You setup an account and it ties in with google checkout. It will also do PayPal.
This supposes you have your own website but all you need are simple skills, if you can create a gallery to show off your work and cut and paste you can do it. The mercantec site generates the code you need to paste into your website to generate the working buttons and forms and it executes the java code with secure links to them but it all happens on your site. The only trick is if you are using Frontpage or some other graphic web page builder you will need to visit that tabbed page with "html" on it to paste your html code... but you can do it.
Once you have an account with mercantec, work the tabs on the top from left to right and it pretty much guides you through it.
When you create your items don't get all creative with the 300 word description, it's really just a brief description that will later appear on the invoice.
To do what I did I just created the table and put my photos and descriptions in leaving an empty cell for the shopping code. I generated shopping cart buttons and pasted them into the empty table cells. They generate the code, you cut and paste.
I cut and pasted code for the mini shopping cart which is that small table on the upper right that tells you how many items you have in the cart. Then I created a shoppingcart.html page and cut and pasted the full shopping cart html code (again generated by mercantec). I put it in a table and added the "continue shopping" myself.
I've not had an actual sale yet since it JUST went up about 30 minutes ago. I can't speak to the long term stability yet either. I do notice it takes a second to load at times. But everything you see is FREE and it didn't take too much effort.
So... you CAN create a store and offer some of those inexpensive signs or other widgets you make and take credit cards. What have you got to loose? The way I look at it every little bit counts, take every opportunity to sell.
Even if you are not looking for a nationwide audience think how great it would be for the locals not just to visit an online gallery of your work but see how professional you are to have a working online store AND you can take their credit cards for payment!
Robert
EDIT: It is not Paco I need to thank for the ref to googlecheckout but Mayo Pardo, sorry Paco I'm sure I'll find something to thank you for too so consider this an advance :-)
[I'm really not trying to sell anything here guys, I just feel this is relevant to your efforts and thought you might appreciate the information]
If you like what you see and would like to do it yourself but thought you couldn't, keep reading. I signed up for googlecheckout.com based on a suggestion from Paco I believe but PayPal will work too. Google Checkout is free until Jan 2008 then it's only 2% with a 20 cent transaction fee which still beats PayPal. They direct deposit to your account and don't offer a debit card but I can live with that.
I was referred to www.mercantec.com (http://www.mercantec.com) by a non-botter for a shopping cart system. While you can read about it yourself here is the big view and a few tips. e-commerce express is free. You setup an account and it ties in with google checkout. It will also do PayPal.
This supposes you have your own website but all you need are simple skills, if you can create a gallery to show off your work and cut and paste you can do it. The mercantec site generates the code you need to paste into your website to generate the working buttons and forms and it executes the java code with secure links to them but it all happens on your site. The only trick is if you are using Frontpage or some other graphic web page builder you will need to visit that tabbed page with "html" on it to paste your html code... but you can do it.
Once you have an account with mercantec, work the tabs on the top from left to right and it pretty much guides you through it.
When you create your items don't get all creative with the 300 word description, it's really just a brief description that will later appear on the invoice.
To do what I did I just created the table and put my photos and descriptions in leaving an empty cell for the shopping code. I generated shopping cart buttons and pasted them into the empty table cells. They generate the code, you cut and paste.
I cut and pasted code for the mini shopping cart which is that small table on the upper right that tells you how many items you have in the cart. Then I created a shoppingcart.html page and cut and pasted the full shopping cart html code (again generated by mercantec). I put it in a table and added the "continue shopping" myself.
I've not had an actual sale yet since it JUST went up about 30 minutes ago. I can't speak to the long term stability yet either. I do notice it takes a second to load at times. But everything you see is FREE and it didn't take too much effort.
So... you CAN create a store and offer some of those inexpensive signs or other widgets you make and take credit cards. What have you got to loose? The way I look at it every little bit counts, take every opportunity to sell.
Even if you are not looking for a nationwide audience think how great it would be for the locals not just to visit an online gallery of your work but see how professional you are to have a working online store AND you can take their credit cards for payment!
Robert
EDIT: It is not Paco I need to thank for the ref to googlecheckout but Mayo Pardo, sorry Paco I'm sure I'll find something to thank you for too so consider this an advance :-)