# Shopping Cart Vs. PayPal



## WOLFBUNNY (Aug 3, 2008)

What's the difference? Doeesn't a cart thru ecommerce still take a cut like paypal? Can you use Zen Cart without SSL? GoDaddy seems to charge a lot for a merchant account with SSL? Confused???


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## mike.le07 (Jan 25, 2008)

It depends on what kind of cart you get, and other variables. But mainly, people choose to use a cart vs. paypal because paypal doesn't give as much as a professional presentation as a cart. If you are interested in charging credit cards, start looking for merchant accounts and the percentages visa, mastercard, and other cc's charge. They are also called payment gateways.


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## WOLFBUNNY (Aug 3, 2008)

mike.le07 said:


> It depends on what kind of cart you get, and other variables. But mainly, people choose to use a cart vs. paypal because paypal doesn't give as much as a professional presentation as a cart. If you are interested in charging credit cards, start looking for merchant accounts and the percentages visa, mastercard, and other cc's charge. They are also called payment gateways.


Who do you recommend for payment gateways.....I'm using Zen Cart right now....


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

WOLFBUNNY said:


> What's the difference?


A shopping cart will handle inventory management, sales, coupons, options, order history, etc. etc. - PayPal won't do most of that.



WOLFBUNNY said:


> Doeesn't a cart thru ecommerce still take a cut like paypal?


No, only the merchant account (which might even be PayPal).



WOLFBUNNY said:


> Can you use Zen Cart without SSL?


Yes, if you hand off the payment transaction to a secure site.


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## queerrep (Jul 18, 2006)

WOLFBUNNY said:


> Who do you recommend for payment gateways.....I'm using Zen Cart right now....


I recommend Authorize.net and their module is already installed with ZenCart.


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

The boys at Big Cartel Bringing the Art to the Cart have been very great to me.
It uses paypal, you can customize it if you know what your doing, and it's cheap.


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## BigSexyJohn (May 22, 2008)

All payment gateways charge fees but some charge more than others. Some offer better service. I have a friend using Worldpay which he thinks is great, but I thought they charged far to much. Another friend uses eWay in Australia and for that market to much again. Personally for the small amount I sell online Paypal is satisfactory....but I am not recommending them.


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## lewiswharf (Oct 1, 2008)

There is nothing wrong with PayPal Website Payments Standard. If you prefer to integrate everything you'll need to make sure you get 4 things in addition to a shopping cart:

1. A merchant account.
2. A payment gateway.
3. SSL certificate.
4. PCI compliant hosting.

People don't realize the cost to obtain all of these things and often skip 4. Visa and MasterCard agreements incorporate PCI compliance. If you were not compliant and your website was breached you would be responsible for all financial damages (unauthorized purchases, reissuing cards to those compromised etc.).


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