Graphic & Web Designer in Vista, CA.

Shopping cart websites usually are more structured and more template-like, since they need to be easy to navigate to ensure people don’t abandon the purchase during the process.

With the popularity of smart phones, more people buy products on their phones, or compare online prices, when shopping in a store. With responsive web design, your online store is accessible through the regular computer as well as on a mobile device.

Are you planning to charge a flat fee? Or automatic postage calculation for USPS, UPS or FedEx?

With an e-commerce shopping cart you can either provide free shipping, a flat rate or calculate postage to specific zip codes. All you need to know is the weight and measurements of each product and create an account with USPS, FedEx or UPS.

Shipping label printing is available through some independent shipping services or payment processing companies. Be sure to mention to your web designer if that is a requirement before starting the design process.

There are a few different options for accepting online payment for your products. If you are establishing a new online presence, we recommend starting with a payment solution like Square, PayPal or Google checkout, until your website has enough visits and sales to justify the upfront costs of an independent credit card gateway service.

Here are some of the most popular dependent and independent payment companies: PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net, Bluepay, First Data (Linkpoint/YourPay), Sagepay, Worldpay, Moneybookers, Square, Amazon Payment Gateway.

E-commerce sites are very advanced systems. Elements like tax calculations, shipping options, payments etc add to the time it takes to set up an e-commerce site as well as certain requirements from payment processors including set up of privacy policy and terms pages.

The costs of building a shopping cart does not include the payment processing costs. The credit card processing is handled between the merchant and the credit card processing service. We recommend comparing the companies and their fees, and reading the online reviews.

Dependent credit card processing services like PayPal and Google Checkout do not charge anything for the set-up, so you don’t pay anything until you actually sell something. When you sell an item, you are charged the credit card fee as well as a transaction fee of approx. 2.9% and .30 per transaction. See PayPal fees >>.

The free standard PayPal account re-directs clients to the PayPal check-out page during the credit card transaction. Since PayPal is doing the actual processing, they take care of the security issues and PCI compliance that is needed for online credit card transactions.

Note: Most people who don’t use PayPal often are under the misconception that you need a PayPal account to pay with PayPal. The PayPal checkout allows users to use their credit card without having to have a PayPal account.

High volume companies usually ask for independent credit card processing. The advantage is a lower credit card fee and more reporting options as well as the option to integrate with QuickBooks and some shipping modules.

Accepting credit cards on your website require you to have a merchant account and a payment gateway. These can cost as much as $800 for setup and account fees for the first year in addition to the credit card fees. Fees can be as low as 2.19%. In addition to that, you may be charged a PCI compliance fee and you will need a SSL Certificate through your hosting company to protect buyers’ card information.