Re: online store

A third option we looked into for a site and didn't quite use, was paypal pro. Paypal pro give you the ease of paypal credit card checkout combined with compatible open source store engines. So, basically, when you set up your qualifying store on your server and configure it, you would choose to use paypal pro as your checkout system.

Installing a store on your site can be a pain if you don't know all about apache, php, whatever. UNLESS you use a company like lunarpages.com to host the site. They have a control panel for installing pre configured free scripts which include blogs, stores, etc. They do all the configuring of the directories, php, etc. Once the store script is installed you'd login as an admin and set up your products, adjust the visual template, and setup the credit card checkout system. For a paypal compatible one, you would choose paypal pro and enter your user info I assume.

We never got that far, but that's what I gathered from the research I did. So... go to paypal and checkout paypal pro. They'll have a list of compatible shopping carts. Go to lunarpages or the host of your choice and see if they have any easy install shopping cart scripts that you like that are listed at Paypal Pro.

Our problem was the same as many others. We didn't like the store designs. We wanted something that easily integrates into an existing site, but without extreme reconfiguring it wasn't going to happen. Most of the carts seemed to be so Amazon like with ratings, reviews, suggested products, and all that. But if you're building a site from that ground up to BE a store, then they're probably great.

Good luck.