E-commerce Site Assistance

[Ann.ie]

Hi All,

Super new here and my apologies if this is the wrong place to post this but would really appreciate any advice you could offer me.

Have set up e-commerce sites before but on a very small scale (ie. 1-3 paypal 'buy it now' type buttons on a site for document dowloads etc) but have now been asked for a quote on a full online shop (approx 100 'physical' products). I've been caught out underquoting on the time needed to set up static or cms sites in the early days but think I pretty much have my time quoted properly for those kinds of sites now.

Ideally if anyone could offer any advice on things that they found time-consuming in setting up this kind of site that I might not have considered ie. how detailed product information is, images not being supplied digitally (I would normally charge at an hourly rate separate from the contract for information/images not provided in a digital content).

Basically any pitfalls I should watch out for before quoting this project to avoid me losing alot of time and money! Thanks a million in advance.

Ann

 

[mneylon]

Have you chosen a shopping cart?

Does the client have a merchant account?

Is the client selling tangible or intangible products?

 

[Ann.ie]

Apologies,

Have you chosen a shopping cart?

Will either be Zen Cart (have read alot of the documentation and think I should be able to handle it) or will be Wordpress with e-commerce plugin (client won't confirm if he wants cms yet!)

Does the client have a merchant account?
Assuming you mean paypal merchant account or similar? Client nothing set up at present

Is the client selling tangible or intangible products?
Is selling flooring tiles so will be tangible, will have to take into account delivery costs in shopping cart etc.

Hope this info helps- just wondering how others break-down these kind of projects. Thanks again

 

[mneylon]

Well the questions I'm asking are the ones you need to be asking

Merchant account ie. with a bank

Paypal does not count

A proper shopping cart can probably handle a lot of the shipping calculations etc.,

Most will support Paypal, but if you want to take Laser AND save on fees they'll need a merchant account from their bank

They might already have one for their physical shop?

 

[Ann.ie]

ahhhh... brain freeze dumb moment ...!

So I shouldn't really use paypal as the main processor, would need to use realex or similar to ensure they could take Laser payments (and this is surely a more professional approach for an irish based company)... starting to feel out of my depth already

Will go read up some more, thank you for your reply and guidance - lots to research for me... gotta love the learning curve in this profession, time to grab another bull by the horns!

 

[mneylon]

Paypal = easy to implement, but costly (fees) unless your volume is very high, no support for Laser, users need an account (though you can sort of bypass that)

Realex = different types of implementation - fees vary depending on volume, but they have plans to suit most merchants


Both Realex and Paypal are available for most commonly used shopping carts

 

[MOH]

Only started looking at them lately, but Moneybookers seem to support Laser at some level. I'm not clear on whether it's only for uploading funds to your
"wallet", or whether you can actually accept laser payments directly. Might be worth a look though.

edit:
A quick google for "moneybookers laser" turned up some negative review on webpayments.ie, but also a couple of options - feepay.ie (seems to be an interface to realex, €1.25 + bank charges (e.g. 17c) per transaction) and Netbanx (£20 per month, 1.9% + 45p per debit card transaction)

 

[realexpayments]

Hi Ann,

Keith here from Realex Payments, Business Development. The setup of an account now with Realex Payments has been simplified over the past few months.

The two key components are :
- The setup of an e-commerce Merchant Service agreement with your bank. These are available from all of the major banks in Ireland and the UK.
- The setup of an online payment account with a payment service provider. The new RealPay package with Realex is now a very cost effective solution for new merchants looking to setup online for the first time.

We would have a range of shopping carts with plug-ins available on them for your use. Some of these carts are even free to download and can be a cost-effective way of getting your site up and running.

All major card types and currencies are supported by Realex with Lasers treated as a standard transaction.

For further information for setting up an account for the first time, please visit our website.

Thanks,

Keith

 

[mneylon]

We would have a range of shopping carts with plug-ins available on them for your use. Some of these carts are even free to download and can be a cost-effective way of getting your site up and running.

Keith

Is there a list of supported shopping carts available?

Where is there info on RealPay?

Thanks

Michele

 

[davedave]

The list of support shopping carts is available on the realex site here and details of RealPay are here

 

[Ann.ie]

Thank you everyone for your help and advice on this one- Might be back to you for some more on this topic in the future! The Realex site is great for info, thanks a mil again

Ann