# www.bestaquariumregulator.com



## epicfish

Would you still have the option available for people to go directly through you to save some money, or no?

As a consumer, I wouldn't like to pay more if I'm paying via my PayPal account. 

As a business-owner, I'd implement the system to bring in more sales. Convenience wins out most of the time. Your price increases will be less than a dollar I'd imagine. For a low-volume merchant, I believe it's 30 cents plus 2.9% of the dollar amount per transaction.

For it to be a $1.00 transaction fee, that'd be $24 in fertilizers.

For your CO2 equipment, the small items would also only witness a small price increase. Not sure about the more expensive items like your regulators though.


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## Opiesilver

Hey Rex,

Long time no chat. Why don't you have a look at Volusion.com for a really nice shopping cart system.

Del


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## Minsc

You can get a free shopping cart at http://www.mals-e.com/
My wife has used it for over a year and is very happy with it.

You can take a look at what she's done with it at http://www.breadandbadger.com
(Shameless plug:icon_redf )


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## epicfish

The increase in price isn't due to the shopping cart. It's due to the payment processor charging a per-transaction fee.


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## rich

Paypal's convenience is worth the extra fees for most consumers & advertisers and it's damned easy to set up for web people. Not much way of getting around the extra fees for cc and paypal transactions, I'm afraid. Have a look at paypal's fee schedule and see if it's a good fit for your inventory. 
on the other hand, there's always google.... 
https://checkout.google.com
If you're handy, Google Checkout is also a nice checkout system for credit card processing. If you run adwords they waive the fees too.. might be good if you'd like to start doing some advertising buys with Google AdWords.



-Rich


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## Darth Sensei

It would increase your sales Rex.


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## A Hill

Rex I would. I'll be making a website over the summer for inverts,plants and other stuff and think I'll use the paypal one. It seems nice and easy. 

Most people wouldn't of ever known if it where a few dollars more Rex:hihi: .

Boost your sales, try it out.

-Andrew


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## JohnInFlorida

I found it easy enough to order from the buyer's end ...

I just sent Rex an e-mail saying what I wanted and asking him to send a paypal bill. He did so and I restated what I wanted in the comments section of the paypal message to him. No problems.

As I said, easy from my end ... but I would think it's a PITA from Rex's end ...

Keep Smilin'
John


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## Robert H

> Long time no chat.


No kidding... I thought you fell off the face of the earth! Are you still with AP?


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## Robert H

Taking credit cards and having a shopping cart are two different issues. You do not have to be able to take credit cards in order to have a shopping cart. You can have a shopping cart that only does paypal and electronic checks. It would be just like what Rex is doing right now, accept that instead of having to email him for the total and then send him the paypal, the shopping cart would do it all for you with one key stroke.

For Rex to accept credit cards directly he would need a merchant account and a credit card provider, proccessor. When I first started my business I was paypal only. The first year I got a merchant account, my sales tripled. That was 2001.

With a merchant account you have all kinds of fees, and sometimes benchmarks you have to reach in sales. Its a big committment and you better be serious about your business if you are going to take that step. If you want to keep your business casual and without pressure, don't get a merchant account, stick with paypal.


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## Opiesilver

Robert H said:


> No kidding... I thought you fell off the face of the earth! Are you still with AP?


No, not for quite some time now.


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## retoid

www.zencart.com is also a free os commerce site. You can set it up to use just paypal.

As a matter of fact most hosting services have auto installs in the admin section. For example my host Lunarpages offers this huge list.
*Blogs*
Nucleus
pMachine Free
WordPress

*Content Management*
Geeklog
Joomla
phpWCMS
phpWebSite
Post-Nuke
Siteframe

*Customer Relationship*
Crafty Syntax Live Help
Help Center Live
osTicket
PHP Support Tickets
Support Logic Helpdesk
Support Services Manager

*Discussion Boards*
SMF

*E-Commerce*
CubeCart
OS Commerce
Zen Cart

*F.A.Q.*
FAQMasterFlex

*Guestbooks*
ViPER Guestbook

*Image Galleries*
4Images Gallery

*Mailing Lists*
PHPlist

*Polls and Surveys*
Advanced Poll
phpESP
PHPSurveyor

*Project Management*
dotProject
PHProjekt

*Site Builders*
LunarPages Webbuilder
Templates Express

Wiki
PhpWiki

*Other Scripts*
Dew-NewPHPLinks
Moodle
Noahs Classifieds
Open-Realty
PHPauction

*Extras*
Language
Side menu appearance
Email notifications
Installations overview

but any of these can be installed onto an existing server of course.


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## CampCreekTexas

I voted selfishly since you asked ~ just thinking of my own convenience (voted no as I don't mind the extra emailing). 

But honestly Rex, it would probably be easier for you if you got the shopping cart ~ no more email-tag, just look at a list of the orders and send them out. Period. Money already there, everyone knows how much to pay and automatically pay it without any extra effort from you, and it'd save you having to email them back and forth ~ with a shopping cart, you don't have to do much of anything except look at a few emails, pack things up and ship them out. (I'm assuming here, so "Round File" my comments if they don't line up with reality ~ never had a business with a shopping cart before.)

The ease of use would probably also entice more people to buy from you.

Your prices are already low enough, I'd honestly say you need to make that decision yourself, based on how easy (or not) it'd make YOUR life. If we have to pay an extra dollar per fert order and an extra five dollars per regulator order, so be it.


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## Rex Grigg

Setting up a shopping cart is PITA. I have been working on it behind the scenes. But I will show up one of these days.


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## retoid

actually Rex, its not that hard at all.

Zen Cart works great.


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## A Hill

Robert H said:


> Taking credit cards and having a shopping cart are two different issues. You do not have to be able to take credit cards in order to have a shopping cart. You can have a shopping cart that only does paypal and electronic checks. It would be just like what Rex is doing right now, accept that instead of having to email him for the total and then send him the paypal, the shopping cart would do it all for you with one key stroke.
> 
> For Rex to accept credit cards directly he would need a merchant account and a credit card provider, proccessor. When I first started my business I was paypal only. The first year I got a merchant account, my sales tripled. That was 2001.
> 
> With a merchant account you have all kinds of fees, and sometimes benchmarks you have to reach in sales. Its a big committment and you better be serious about your business if you are going to take that step. If you want to keep your business casual and without pressure, don't get a merchant account, stick with paypal.


Robert, with a Premier or business (can't remember the differance, but its the upgraded one) you can take CC payments on paypal. I believe the Fee is something like 3% big deal. I'm not sure if you're aware of that. Figured I'd let you know.



Rex Grigg said:


> Setting up a shopping cart is PITA. I have been working on it behind the scenes. But I will show up one of these days.


Which one did you decide to use? The paypal cart seems easy peasy to set up! Still haven't yet.

-Andrew


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## dantra

Hey Rex, I think that the initial process of getting the shopping cart done may be a slight inconvenience on your part however the expediency of it all will pay off in the long. It will be very easy for someone to fulfill an order(s) at any given time just like any other place we order from for our aquarium supplies.

If you like the way your process is set up now then stay with it but if you’re thinking about expanding (which I think you are) then it’s a no brainer… go with the shopping cart.



Robert H said:


> With a merchant account you have all kinds of fees, and sometimes benchmarks you have to reach in sales. Its a big committment and you better be serious about your business if you are going to take that step. If you want to keep your business casual and without pressure, don't get a merchant account, stick with paypal.


You took the words right out of my mouth.


Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Dan


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## Rex Grigg

A cart is just not going to happen. It's a LOT of work. And getting the shipping figured right is almost impossible.

I know from experience how much of most anything I can put into box or envelope. Three of X and two of Y can be way different than two of X and three of Y.


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## Minsc

Oh yeah, setting up shipping is a true nightmare. I had a grumpy wife for weeks when she was trying to figure that out, and I know she is still unhappy with it. 

Trying to base your shipping charges on what you will actually pay seems impossible, especially with the new USPS policies involving zones and weight.
The options seem to be overcharging some and undercharging some, and hoping it balances out, or overcharging everyone.

Or hiring a developer to custom make you a cart:icon_roll


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## A Hill

Rex Grigg said:


> A cart is just not going to happen. It's a LOT of work. And getting the shipping figured right is almost impossible.
> 
> I know from experience how much of most anything I can put into box or envelope. Three of X and two of Y can be way different than two of X and three of Y.


Never thought about shipping off sized parts.

You could always just over charge a bit for convince, but that makes much more sense to just not do a shoping cart.

Everything isn't for everyone.

-Andrew


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