Merchant Account Shopping Carts
Open Source Ecommerce Shopping Carts
The chief criteria for judging an ecommerce shopping cart are the number of credit card processors and shipping services it supports, and the number of people that support *it*. Why? Because credit card processors and shipping services mutate all the time. Your cart will require updating. Which service works today may go out of business tomorrow, and leave you with the orders piling up.
Other important criteria are how easy it is to set up, and add products, and how easy it is for the customer to use.
When you set up your shop test it using a wide variety of the oldest and buggiest browsers you can find. If your web store works under them you're home and dry.
Here are the cheapest, simplest, and most effective carts I've found:
A very good, full-featured, cart. Uses Php and MySQL. Not easy to set up for a 'newbie'. Cookies are used to track the order. If you have PhpMyAdmin installed in your web account, it's easier. Requires a customer to register before they can make a purchase. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.
Bad point: Technical support is limited to the Oscommerce forums, which are not helpful to newbies.
Also, it may be a while before an update is available to a payment module. These are done by unpaid enthusiasts.
Good point: Oscommerce is supported by thousands of unpaid enthusiasts; this means updates do eventually arrive, and it's less likely to go out of business, unlike a commercial cart.
Similar to Oscommerce. Requires a customer to register before they can make a purchase. Lots of features and add-ons. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services. Has an affiliate program add-on, and lets others sell products though your cart.
A well specified cart. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.
Bad point: Apparently the Perl code is obscured, to make it harder to copy, which is annoying if you want to customise it.
A version of the old Akopia / Minivend carts. Complex product with lots of files and a lot of setting up to do. A complete solution, and includes the option of third party credit-card real-time order processing. Encrypts orders.
A Web-Store/Commerce.cgi hybrid.
A CGI-based shopping cart which also functions as an affiliate program. Other webmasters earn commissions by signing up and linking to your site.
Has a nice little wizard-based set-up. If you have a lot of items in your shop, this is an option worth checking out.
This is a very valuable feature. A person who's set up CGI scripts before will get the most out of this. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.
Bad points: It's ugly, awkward, and uses JavaScript too much.
A simple, wizard-based option. Uses Javascript a bit, but the main work is done by CGI scripts. It saves the credit card information on your server.
It's for someone who hasn't set up a CGI script before. Expensive for what you get, but it works. Option to buy it on hire-purchase.
Most suitable if you have lots of items in your store. It's a 'wizard'-based PC program; you type in your information, and the program sets up the store.
You should set up the default store as-is, then customise it later. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services. A little complicated for an internet newbie; there's quite a lot in it.
A clever little program. It's a standalone Windows executable, which the customer downloads. The customer starts it up, chooses the product, enters their details, and sends off their order like an email, with the credit card details encrypted. It costs $29.00 at the time of writing. No secure server or order page needed; it's all done on the customer's PC at their leisure.
You need to customise it. Make sure you write your mail server URL into the code. For the customer, the order module is a 160kb download.
NOTE: Try to avoid carts that use cookies and javascript only, or that tie you into only one secure server and credit-card processor. Also avoid web-based services that you lease only. They can go out of business, leaving you flat.
Having read the above you should have eliminated quite a few programs from your shopping list. They either won't work properly with all browsers, or they won't encrypt your order, or they want to tie you into their manufacturers' secure order system at $40+ per month.
Another option is to get a bespoke system set up for you by a specialist company. These cost thousands of dollars. Aren't you glad you read this far?
Free Perl Shopping Cart CGI Scripts
The shopping carts, inventory and fulfilment, ecommerce (or e-commerce) Perl CGI scripts listed on this page allow you to set up your own online shop in the fashion of Amazon.com 's famous online bookshop. Typically, the scripts displays your products on your site, allow your visitors to select and place orders and transmits the orders to you. Some of the scripts are integrated with a particular credit card ordering system (indeed, some of them may be written by a particular credit card processing vendor trying to promote their ware).
If you are running an online shop, you may also need to have some means of collecting credit card payments - see the article How to Collect Credit Card Payments on Your Website, which also lists some third party merchants that allow you to collect payments without having your own merchant account. Note that some (or perhaps all) of the merchants listed on that page may provide you with an ordering system that you can use free of charge, so you may not even need to install a shopping cart script if your needs aren't complicated.
Disclaimer
The information provided on this page comes without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. Just because a program, book or service is listed here or has a good review does not mean that I endorse or approve of the program or of any of its contents. All the other standard disclaimers also apply.
Free Shopping Carts, Online Store and Inventory Management Perl Scripts
AllCommerce ecommerce and fulfilment
AllCommerce is an ecommerce and fulfilment system that allows you to access inventory and order information. It supports MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle (ie, you need one of those databases). The script is released under the GNU General Public License. At the time this is written, the site says that a future version will handle purchase orders, pull forwards, picking, shipping, problem orders and customer service, but that was in 2001.
Yams (Yet Another Merchant System)
Yams is an e-commerce shopping cart system that uses a MySQL backend. Its features include a product search facility, related products display, persistant shopping cart, support for multiple product types, user registration system, session ids for tracking, support for multiple shipping addresses, revenue reports broken down by referrers, works as a CGI script or under mod_perl, inventory tracking, order management tools, calculation of shipping charges, etc. It requires you to have an Apache server, MySQL, Mail::Sendmail module, etc.
Web Store
This is a configurable shopping cart that allows your customers to select items (and put them back if they change their mind), search according to some criteria, etc.
Commerce.cgi
commerce.cgi is a shopping cart system with a store manager that allows you to manage your inventory (add, delete, edit items in your shop inventory). You can customise your storefront in a wide variety of ways: you can control the headers and footers, associate options with certain products (for example if the visitor selects a T-shirt, you would want a way for them to select the T-shirt size), add images, add static links, etc. Your visitors can also search for a particular product.
Redicart
This shopping cart allows you to accept credit card, cheques (checks) and EPT payments online in real time. It uses the customer's IP address to track cart contents (which may not be necessarily good since it is possible for many customers to share an IP). You can control the header and footer of your shop front. It can handle things like shipping charges and taxes. This script is designed to work on Unix servers.
Accepting Credit Cards on Your Website
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com
Are you thinking of selling things on the web? If so, you will probably also be considering some way in which you can accept credit cards on your site. Since new webmasters who visit thesitewizard.com often ask me about how they can get started accepting payments in this form, this article provides some basic information on adding credit card payment facilities to your website.
Why Do It?
Credit card payments allow you to take advantage of the following types of customers:
- Impulse buyers . After reading your advertisements and hype on your site, buyers would be all fired up about your product. If they have a means of making a purchase immediately, you've secured that sale. If you only allow cheque payments, the additional time it takes for them to get their cheque book and mail out the cheque may be a deterrence. They may also have second thoughts later.
- International customers . Credit card payment is a tremendous convenience if your customers are overseas. It automatically takes care of the problems of currency differences as well as the time it takes for a cheque to travel to the vendor. You will lose a large number of overseas customers if cheque payment is the only way you can accept payment.
Methods of Accepting Credit Card Payments
There are actually two ways in which you can accept credit cards on your site.
- Using Your Own Merchant Account . To do this, you will need a bank that will allow you to open a merchant account. Requirements for this will vary from country to country, and you should check with your local banks for more information on this.
- Through a Third Party Merchant . There are numerous companies around will are willing to accept credit cards payments on your behalf in exchange for various fees and percentages.
Which Method Should You Use?
The initial costs of opening your own merchant account is usually higher than when you use a third party merchant. Indeed, some third party merchants have no setup fee at all.
However, the transaction fee (which is what you pay the bank or third party merchant for each sale) is much higher when you use a third party as compared to when using your own merchant account.
A third party merchant is usually convenient to use when you don't know if you can actually make much out of your product or service. If you just want to test the water to see how things are, this is usually a good way to start. It is also convenient in that the merchant takes care of everything for you. You just get a cheque at the end of each payment period (if you have earned enough) and concentrate on your products, services and customers.
Having your own merchant account accords your business with a certain amount of professionalism. And, as mentioned earlier, your transaction costs are usually much lower. However you have to be careful to minimize your credit card risks since you'll be processing the credit card payments yourself. This is not to say that there are no risks attendant in using a third party merchant.
Some Third Party Merchants
Here's a list of some third party merchants that you might want to consider if you're looking for ways to accept credit card payments. I have not tried any of them myself (as a vendor) so I cannot vouch for any of them. Check them out carefully and use them at your own risk.
Note that rates and stuff that I publish below were correct at the time I investigated these vendors. It may have changed by the time you read this since I investigated them quite a while back.
The list is arranged alphabetically.
CCBill : There are no setup fees. Transaction fees vary (I can't find the schedule though) depending on the volume of sales in each accounting period. According to their website, "these fees are never more than 13.5% of revenues charged during this one-week period for CWIE hosting clients and 14.5% for non-hosting clients".
CCNow [http://www.ccnow.com] : This is only for people who ship tangible, physical products. There is no setup fee, and they charge 9% per transaction except in the November and December where the fees are 8% per transaction (yes, lower).
Clickbank : There is a one time setup fee (US$49.95) and a transaction fee of US$1 plus 7.5% of sale price. There are no other monthly fees. This is only for people who sell services or deliver products over the internet (not for those who need to ship physical products).
Digibuy : This service is intended for software authors only. They charge 13.9% per transaction. I'm not sure if there are any other charges.
IBill : This is a very expensive merchant. They charge 15% of each transaction or lesser if you sell US$10,000 or above. It is a big and (I think) reputable company, so if you are willing to part with such a huge margin of your earnings, you might also want to check them out. http://www.ibill.com/
Kagi : There are no setup or monthly fees with this merchant. Kagi "charges 6.5% up to a maximum of [US]$3.00... plus 3.5% plus [US]$0.50 for processing costs".
PayPal : If you are a Premier or Business account user, you get charged US$0.25 for transactions of US$15 and below, 1.9% plus US$0.25 for transactions above US$15 when your customers pay by credit card. They require your customers to sign up for their services before they can pay you. This can be a deterrent for your customers.
ProPay : A new competitor to PayPal (see elsewhere on this page) that currently only caters to US residents. You have to pay a $35 fee to sign up, but there are no monthly charges.
RegNow : Designed for software authors to sell their ware, this merchant deducts 20% of your sale price with a minimum of US$2.00 for their commission. There are also other charges for sales generated by your affiliates, etc.
Share-It : This service is for shareware authors. They charge US$2.95 plus 4% per order, and US$1.95 plus 4% for the 1000th order of the month and above. There are also charges for mailing you your cheque in some instances.
Trying It Out
Whichever you choose, if you are selling things on the Internet, you really have not much choice but to accept credit cards. You probably don't know what you missed until you try it out.
All the best in your business!
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