Comments on: Podcast 55: Ecommerce 101

By: PDshop

PDshop — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:51:50 +0000

PayPal's 3 new services are getting more support from shopping cart software vendors, so getting started is easier than ever... pretty soon between google checkout and paypal you wont' need a merchant account.

By: Eric Anderson

Eric Anderson — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:55:00 +0000

No worries, Ben - I totally understand. Merchant accounts are one area where many people become confused. PayPal Website Payments services are pretty popular now mostly because of the flat rate fee structure. Many businesses are tired of being fee'd at every turn.

By: Ben Tupper

Ben Tupper — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 06:01:45 +0000

Cool… glad you followed up! Thanks for making the post and clarifying.
As I stated, I wasn’t trying to dog you out, but just wanted to let other designer/developers know what I had found in my own experience setting up my first e-commerce package for a client’s site.
Thanks for the info. I enjoyed your interview on the Boagworld show!

By: Eric Anderson

Eric Anderson — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 01:37:42 +0000

@Ben Tupper -
The segment of the show you are referring to was comparing using a payment gateway vs. using straight PayPal Payments (no gateway used). This may not have been made crystal clear – what can I say, it was a conversation, not a presentation.
You are correct, PayPal has three separate merchant gateway products that behave just like any other gateway – pay with credit card – no PayPal account necessary. They are Website Payments Standard, Website Payments Pro and the PayFlow Gateway (recently purchased from VeriSign).

By: Ben Tupper

Ben Tupper — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:21:57 +0000

In this episode the guests made mention of using Paypal with your ecommerce system but they made a mistake as far as I can tell.
They said that for people to pay for stuff they’re going to buy from any website where the transactions are handled by Paypal that the buyer has to have a Paypal account.
That is false. We set up an ecommerce site for a client earlier this year and used Paypal to handle the transactions as the payment gateway.
Anyone can buy items from the website using their credit card and they do not have to have a PayPal account to do so.
If you have a PayPal account you can use it to pay, but you can also use a credit card and never have to sign-up for nor have a PayPal account to complete your purchase.
Dunno if they were mistaken or misunderstood or if they were just guessing, but they are wrong and I just wanted to point it out. Not to make them look bad, but just to let other web designers know the correct information since using PayPal is an easy and inexpensive way to integrate the necessary payment gateway step into your ecommerce system.

By: dMac

dMac — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:46:33 +0000

Good show.
I’m working on an eCommerce site for a friend and found the comments and insight by the “pros” to be very interesting.
I hope you keep these kinds of interviews on the “shed – jewel”… ;-)

By: Grant Mc

Grant Mc — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:31:54 +0000

You discuss the Google you tube news and well Google made over 2 billion profit as soon as they got it! They done this by the shares and stocks going up to over 4 billion! Thought i would mention that but great podcast once again!

By: Ryan Townsend

Ryan Townsend — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:48:15 +0000

Just to let people know Mozilla have annouced Firefox 2 will be released tomorrow.