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Hi all,

I am developing a website on SS that features my greeting cards (and other gift items in the near future). I am working with a site designer who is new to SS, but has done a great job of learning the ropes. The site is currently informational only and has pages such as CONTACT, STORE LIST, BIO and also GALLERIES (that feature the cards) and a BLOG (imported from Blogger).

We are looking to add an e-commerce component to the site that will allow you to purchase individual cards, card box sets, and in the future, products such as T-shirts, mugs, notepads, etc. Because I am not a developer and have no experience building sites and also because my designer is new to SS, we need to find out which way to go. Foxy-Cart, Mals-E, E-Junkie, Pay-Pal, and Zen-Cart have all been suggested by SS. What I need to know is which of these is easiest to use/develop/maintain with SS, especially for SS novices. I also would like something that is very secure and easy for me (with my basic computer skills) to maintain.

I have seen some options where, through coding, 'purchase' buttons can be added to each individual item in an existing gallery. I have also seen where you can build an entire independent 'store' and import it into your existing site. What works best for my situation? Please advise!!!!!

Many, many thanks (have a great holiday weekend)!!!

I use PayPal. Works well for me.

I would also like to know the answer to this please from experienced developers who have maybe implemented many different carts for their customers and can advice which would be easier to build and maintain for novices. Thanks!

I use practice paya dn professional cart or 1 shopping cart

Depending on your needs I recommend either ProStores.com or PaySimple.com

ProStores is an eBay Company, and so it naturally works seamlessly with PayPal and PayPal Payment Pro services. It also lets you post items from your store directly to eBay. You can be up and selling within an hour or so, for roughly $30-$60/month depending on the packages you choose between ProStores and PayPal. (Price Break Down: ProStores $29.99/month and PayPal Payment Pro is $30.00/month). For your type of business, I would suggest this solution. You can mimic the site CSS to achieve the same look & feel. Just setup a sub-domain like shop.yourdomain.com. Another great benefit, is that they handle the SSL for you, which is one less expense.

PaySimple.com is just that... very simple .. $29.99/month, setup the cart through their site, and they process everything for you. They specialize in ACH payments which are great, because there are no Credit Card fees.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

After much research, I chose Fastspring. It all works well and their service is excellent (same responsiveness and friendly tone as SQ). You pay via a fixed commission per sale. I have sold more books on Amazon than Fastspring, but that's my mediocre marketing, not their fault.

I started with a eJunkie/Paypal combination. eJunkie worked well; Paypal, not so much.

I hope this helps.

I've been looking at RomanCart also; has similar solution to FoxyCart but doesn't require extra javascript in header...

A service called Payvment is an e-commerce store maker from PayPal. I have never used it however, but it might be good to check it out because it is supposed to be really easy. Just copy over one line of code that they give you and it's pretty much in your site.