# Is PayPal running the show for your shop?



## ShadowDragon (Aug 6, 2006)

I've decided to use PayPal's shopping cart for my entire t-shirt online store and I was wondering... amounst the fancy `intergrated paypal' shopping cart software in use, is there anyone who has just simply used paypal's whole 'add to cart' and 'checkout' buttons soley alone as a means to run the entire shopping cart and check out process?

Id love to hear anyone's thoughts or ideas on this as well as a show of hands from people who have!


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## Dave G (Aug 7, 2006)

I'm going to use paypal's shopping cart. I think it will work well for now.

Dave


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## skulltshirts (Mar 30, 2006)

I used paypal on my old website for 3 years. I never had any problems with them. They were my only option for payment, but i feel that you should give as many options as possible for your custormers.


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## ShadowDragon (Aug 6, 2006)

Hrm, 

So on your old site three years ago I assume this is when you first started out in e commerce? Did you get many customers happily buying through the checkout?

I know paypal accepts credit card payments or paypal transfers today, I dunno if they did back then.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

I don't think it's a good idea to use PayPal's shopping cart because it has some serious usability issues.

When people add something to your shopping cart, it opens a popup window to show them their shopping cart. That's not the normal way a shopping cart should work and a lot of people don't like pop up windows.

Also, it can be a bit limiting on calculating shipping charges and managing multiple orders.

There's also the fact that some people just don't like to pay via PayPal for whatever reason. So having a paypal only option might turn off some customers.

There are some good, free shopping carts out there that you can use that will help you manage your orders and grow as your store grows. One that I particularly like is www.cubecart.com (sometimes webhosts have a way of installing this for you at the push of a button). These shopping carts easily integrate with PayPal during the checkout.

If PayPal is your only option of accepting online payments, then it's definitely better than nothing (and it's a good option to have even if you do have other payment methods), but I really think that you'll get better conversions on your site with your own shopping cart hosted on your site.

Just my two bits though


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

Rodney said:


> I don't think it's a good idea to use PayPal's shopping cart because it has some serious usability issues.


Yep. I don't use it because there's no built-in "discount" feature. You can't give someone a coupon or a discount code, in addition to many other things. I use PayPal as a CC processor, but not their shopping cart.


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## ShadowDragon (Aug 6, 2006)

Anyones two bits is always highly valued input and thats the best thing I like about this t-shirt forum.

I have had cubecart referred to me before but I did not realise some webhosts may possibly install it at `the push of a button' so to speak.

I dont suppose you know of any off chance? Or does anyone else who is reading this thread?

In any case, I have decided to accept money orders if need be or cheques that can be cashed at australian banks (due to me being in australia of course), but those orders wont be going out until such payments clear.

And HOPEFULLY if the site does reasonably okayish, then ill invest some money into setting up a proper shopping cart system.

Ah the joys of starting up a business on a shoe string, lol


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## entropycc.com (Aug 7, 2006)

I agree with some of the other posters as far as "stay away from the paypal shopping cart"

I currently use the paypal cart on my site and have noticed the usability issue that Rodney referred to. I also noticed that many customers are still put off by the fact that it is Paypal. I guess they associate it with ebay, and scoff the idea that you can't process credit cards on your own.

Right now I am looking at processing credit cards directly from my website. It isn't much (if at all) more expensive than paypal, but the threat of theft always looms. 

I didn't know that you could use paypal without their cart system though, I'll have to check that out.


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

Oh, you can also check out http://www.oscommerce.com shopping cart. It's free, but you need a bit of technical knowledge to modify it. Out of the box, it has 99% of the features you need. Best of luck!


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> I dont suppose you know of any off chance?


I think lunarpages might. Look for any host that offers "cpanel" (or better yet, "fantastico") as the way that customers manage their hosting account.

cpanel usually comes bundled with free shopping cart software that can be installed with a couple of clicks.


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