eCommerce Gateways, and Merchant Processing

[TheExpertish]

Wondering who you guys use out there. I want to use Payment Alliance International because they're NRA endorsed, obviously gun friendly, and I can use them for my POS and eCommerce. However, the bundled eCommerce web hosting sites that use them are few and far between, or expensive when using an open API. What are your experiences?

[echoarms]

tagged for answer. I have my merchant account open, now i need a shopping cart system for my webpage.

[bellts]

1 vote for opencart (opencart.com). It's free, feature rich, quick and pretty easy to setup. Use on just about any host which supports PHP, MySQL, your own SSL certs.

One of the best places to purchase SSL certs is godaddy but their hosting sucks! Really really slow. Basically you get what you pay for. I've had some luck with 1&1 but it's been years (5+) since I have dealt with them.

[TheExpertish]

1 vote for opencart (opencart.com). It's free, feature rich, quick and pretty easy to setup. Use on just about any host which supports PHP, MySQL, your own SSL certs.

One of the best places to purchase SSL certs is godaddy but their hosting sucks! Really really slow. Basically you get what you pay for. I've had some luck with 1&1 but it's been years (5+) since I have dealt with them.

Great info. If I have to end up going the more expensive route and purchasing my own SSL I'll use godaddy. I got my domains through them. My plan was to use shopify for the webhosting and template because they're cheap and the SSL is included. Only issue is they don't have an open API access. Just wondering which of the larger merchant services provider out there are 2A friendly.

[bellts]

http://www.bluehost.com/ (2a support unknown) is offering hosting which supports SSL for $5 a month. An SSL cert at godaddy runs about $75-80 a year. I'm pretty sure opencart can use Payment Alliance's gateway as they are (or attempt to be) an authorize.net clone (for their API).

Shopify pricing can get a little out of hand. $29 a month for 100 products and they take 2% of every transaction. Or $59 a month for 2500 products and they still take %1 of every transaction.

[TheExpertish]

http://www.bluehost.com/ (2a support unknown) is offering hosting which supports SSL for $5 a month. An SSL cert at godaddy runs about $75-80 a year. I'm pretty sure opencart can use Payment Alliance's gateway as they are (or attempt to be) an authorize.net clone (for their API).

Shopify pricing can get a little out of hand. $29 a month for 100 products and they take 2% of every transaction. Or $59 a month for 2500 products and they still take %1 of every transaction.

Yeah, that's what I was noticing. Was thinking of just limping along with Shopify and Google Checkout for the first phase of the site, but would like to avoid it if possible. I checked out bluehost and I like what I see there. Thanks for the recommendations.

[tonyxcom]

I always recommend Authorize.net as the gateway. They are one of the most universally supported processors when it comes to shopping cart software.

With regards to e-commerce platforms, I know a lot of gun stores use Volusion (BCM, SKD, Primary Arms, JoeBob to name a few). And I use them for a site I manage too, but I would have a hard time recommending them. Two times now they have made changes to the software that created problems with their template that I am using which caused my store to stop functioning. But when it works it's actually great.

Another solution that am using and growing more fond of is ecwid.com. Their solution will integrate into ANY website via a few lines of javascript. It's a rather elegant solution.

[ugimports]

I always recommend Authorize.net as the gateway. They are one of the most universally supported processors when it comes to shopping cart software.

With regards to e-commerce platforms, I know a lot of gun stores use Volusion (BCM, SKD, Primary Arms, JoeBob to name a few). And I use them for a site I manage too, but I would have a hard time recommending them. Two times now they have made changes to the software that created problems with their template that I am using which caused my store to stop functioning. But when it works it's actually great.

Another solution that am using and growing more fond of is ecwid.com. Their solution will integrate into ANY website via a few lines of javascript. It's a rather elegant solution.

Unfortunately, authorize.net has TOS that restricts firearms sales. If you use a reseller of authorize.net you may be shielded from that, but you need to be aware of it.

[rogtac]

I signed up with authorize.net and PAI separately, but when you set up PAI, they can set you up with a gateway as well...and I believe it is authorize.net...not positive. for ecommerce, I use MagentoGo...very basic and cheap, but also very limited, so I think I am going to get some professional help and move on to Magento Community. I got my SSL Cert from GoDaddy. If you want to know what I like and dont like about MagentoGo, you can email or text me. Other than overgrowing it and working around its limitations, it is a very solid all-in-one platform.

[TheExpertish]

Update

I signed up with authorize.net and PAI separately, but when you set up PAI, they can set you up with a gateway as well...and I believe it is authorize.net...not positive. for ecommerce, I use MagentoGo...very basic and cheap, but also very limited, so I think I am going to get some professional help and move on to Magento Community. I got my SSL Cert from GoDaddy. If you want to know what I like and dont like about MagentoGo, you can email or text me. Other than overgrowing it and working around its limitations, it is a very solid all-in-one platform.

I was going to go with BlueHost, but ended up going with Magento Go. This is exactly what I wanted from Shopify, but it will work with PAI. Even better, when we expand to our next phase it all integrates with Lightspeed. We ended up choosing Google Apps for our email hosting, and will probably get our SSL from godaddy since that is where we purchased the domains. Only issue is that Magento charges $99 to install a 3rd party SSL.

[wildhawker]

In re hosting and e-com, we dropped Magento Go like a hot rock after 2 months of dev. It's horrible, and so is the customer service. If you want to spend lots of money and time on e-com, just put Magento's free version on your server.

We're now with Volusion e-com SaaS and, while not the cheapest, the [actually useful, USA-based] 24/7 customer support and fairly broad developer base for design make it a value we're happy with.

-Brandon

[TheExpertish]

In re hosting and e-com, we dropped Magento Go like a hot rock after 2 months of dev. It's horrible, and so is the customer service. If you want to spend lots of money and time on e-com, just put Magento's free version on your server.

We're now with Volusion e-com SaaS and, while not the cheapest, the [actually useful, USA-based] 24/7 customer support and fairly broad developer base for design make it a value we're happy with.

-Brandon

Good to know. I had looked into Volusion as well since PAI recommended them, but dismissed them due to the price and lack of out-of-the box templates. Might consider them when I have a professional site built down the road.

[RFree190]

My 2 Cents

I've been setting up Shopping Carts for a while now and wanted to share my thoughts.

I've been using ZenCart for the last several shopping carts and have been very happy with them. They are a FREE shopping cart, but are 100% PCI Compliant. If you haven't dealt with your bank and PCI, you will soon and it's no picnic. ZenCart also offers hundreds of FREE add on modules and templates. They are worth a look. Zencart.com. I'm not affiliated and don't get a kickback.

As for Payment Gateways, my advise is to first check their Terms of Service agreement. Authorize.net, PayPal, Google and a few others are not 2nd Amendment friendly and will not deal with shopping carts selling Firearms or Firearms Related Products. Be careful with them. They won't tell you anything until they just shut down your account.

Hosting, I've been using Hostgator.com for several years and have a VPS with them right now, hosting about 70 of my own clients. They are a great hosting company, with equally great customer service. They offer live chat 24/7 as well as email and phone service. Offering both Windows and Linux servers, as well as SSL Certificates. Here is a coupon code for 25% off hosting: RDCHOST25OFF.

Again, just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it, just trying to help out my community.

[CifaldiPrecision]

Hey everyone great info here however I have already paid for the year with godaddy and so far I like the website because I can use it easy enough. However I need a solution for a merchant account and gateway that is compatible with godaddy. Can anyone point me in a good direction. It seems several are not godaddy compatible.

[TheExpertish]

Try the ones people have listed in here. I've heard less than stellar things with GoDaddy's hosting services, but hope it works for you.