I am looking to start retailing cake supplies just in the local area but without a store front until I can build it up. I have looked into Yahoo business. Who do you use and do they set up a shopping cart and paypal for you or is that separate? Just starting out so I really don't know what I'm doing on that end. Any help would be appreciated!

I set my website up on wix and set up my own paypal account and linked it to my site (www.thecakeboxofjackson.com). It was pretty simple.

Karen

Karen, I really like your site. (The cake on your contact page is just beautiful!) I might even look into that for my baking business as well. Thank you for the info!

If you are considering a full e-commerce site, it is pretty involved with a cart and all credit cards. I had a designer do the skeleton of mine and it took awhile with plenty of work. The bare bones price started at $700.

scp1127: do you take cc direct or do you do a paypal type thing and let them take payment for you? I have been hearing so much about retailers getting hit harder for cc fees on a transaction.

I want to get to the full e-commerce site but I think I may have to start out locally. There is nothing close to where I live that you can get more than wilton and that is limited. I was so happy to find a whole new word of "stuff" that I wanted to share it with others. Any thoughts on that?

Talk to you local banks about merchant services- they will have lots of info about taking credit cards and what it will cost. How much is costs depends on HOW you actually want to take cards whether it's over the phone or physically swiping it or even another option, it all makes a difference on that rates you will get. I currently accept credit cards through PayPal- essentially once someone places an order, I email them in invoice and they can pay with a card that way. I only incur a small charge for each transaction and there's no charge to actually have the account which is great. I've also found a shopping cart that's freeware so I saved there too if I end up needing it.

Great! I will check into that too. Thank you!

inspired, I use Paypal, but I take all credit cards through them. A customer doesn't have to have a paypal account. I found Paypal to be much cheaper than a bank. You have to pay the gateway provider, setup fees, and higher per-transaction fees. I also use Square for in-person swipes.

My site has a full cart and checkout, customer information, taxes, delivery charges... everything I will ever need. Plus it has a terms and conditions box for my refund policy. I love it. It still has a few irritating issues, but nothing the customer sees. I'm getting them fixed. Actually they are things the web designer set up that I don't like.

I could have never done this on my own. If you would like to see it, pm me.

Wow! So much to learn! Especially for this old lady! I knew that I could count on my CC friends! You have never let me down yet! You guys ROCK!