Setting up an e-shop.

[Forodstar]

Hi folks,

Really looking to set up an e-shop. I have customers from all around the world so multiple methods of payment would be ideal.

I am a real noob at this. I mean lots of people use paypal but I have heard many horror stories about them. I am currently using a third party to generate business this, of course, surrenders control, which I do not like. I am really looking for a technical solution that makes setting an e-shop a no-brainer and requires minimal technical knowledge.


Extra detail:

- My main product at the moment is service based so any solutions which have in built timezone matching features would be neat.
- I would like to link the payment to my Czech bank account.

Questions:

Should I make people pay in dollars rather than Czech currency? Should I get my own domain?

Thanks in advance!

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Hi folks,

Really looking to set up an e-shop. I have customers from all around the world so multiple methods of payment would be ideal.

I am a real noob at this. I mean lots of people use paypal but I have heard many horror stories about them. I am currently using a third party to generate business this, of course, surrenders control, which I do not like. I am really looking for a technical solution that makes setting an e-shop a no-brainer and requires minimal technical knowledge.


Extra detail:

- My main product at the moment is service based so any solutions which have in built timezone matching features would be neat.
- I would like to link the payment to my Czech bank account.

Questions:

Should I make people pay in dollars rather than Czech currency? Should I get my own domain?

Thanks in advance!

I'm a little unsure what you want to accomplish.

Do you want people to go to a website and order your online services?

Who is your primary market? If it's US customers, then US dollars makes sense.

I use PayPal and have never had any problems in over 10 years.

Consider where your clients come from right now. How do you get them? Another business sends them to you? If so, then it sounds like the other business generates leads for you. If you don't have any experience with web-building, then it may not make sense to build your own site for that purpose, since the other company may bring a lot more customers than you can bring on your own. But that's for you to decide. Many people here have learned to build their own websites, or hire the work out to freelancers.

 

[Forodstar]

I'm a little unsure what you want to accomplish.

Do you want people to go to a website and order your online services?

Who is your primary market? If it's US customers, then US dollars makes sense.

I use PayPal and have never had any problems in over 10 years.

Consider where your clients come from right now. How do you get them? Another business sends them to you? If so, then it sounds like the other business generates leads for you. If you don't have any experience with web-building, then it may not make sense to build your own site for that purpose, since the other company may bring a lot more customers than you can bring on your own. But that's for you to decide. Many people here have learned to build their own websites, or hire the work out to freelancers.

Sorry, if it was not clear. Cheers for your response.

Yes order the services on a website.

Primary market is non US. So China, Europe, Russia.

I hope to generate clients via my list of previous clients and video marketing. I basically just want a shop front and maybe blog. The issue I have no idea how to get the international clients to pay. I think accepting multiple currencies and payment methods would be a good start. I was essentially asking if anyone has had experience with this and if they knew of any good shop front solutions?

 

[SBS.95]

You need to be using PayPal. Google Wallet, Apple Pay, Bitcoin, etc. are all nice in theory, but at the end of the day, none of them have a dominance over the market like PayPal.

Yes, people can scam trough PayPal. It's happened to me and it sucks. But if out of fear you're going to let .5% customers stop you from accepting the most-used payment processor, that's a waaaaay bigger problem. You can argue about PayPal giving you less control, and that's true, but I would also argue that nobody is going to buy from you if you are unheard of and trying to use some special "just-made-for-you" way of taking their money.

 

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[Christiano]

I have recommended Shopify as an appropriate E-Commerce solution to several of my clients. This has multiple currencies embedded in it with Stripe (which is fantastic if you ever need to regulate partial or full refunds) on the back-end accepting payments for Visa/Mastercard and adding Paypal is no big deal. It also has built-in blog functionality as well.

As for your scheduling thing, you can choose a simple scheduler and add a hyperlink to the notification email after purchase. They click it and it sends them to a defined calendar which is real-time that they pick a time-slot from. My wife uses VCita as the scheduling tool of choice which syncs with Apple or Google Cal. This way, as you add stuff, availability disappears for your clients real-time.

The above solution I am suggesting you could have up and running in about 15 min (visually unoptimized but fully functional).

 

[Forodstar]

I have recommended Shopify as an appropriate E-Commerce solution to several of my clients. This has multiple currencies embedded in it with Stripe (which is fantastic if you ever need to regulate partial or full refunds) on the back-end accepting payments for Visa/Mastercard and adding Paypal is no big deal. It also has built-in blog functionality as well.

As for your scheduling thing, you can choose a simple scheduler and add a hyperlink to the notification email after purchase. They click it and it sends them to a defined calendar which is real-time that they pick a time-slot from. My wife uses VCita as the scheduling tool of choice which syncs with Apple or Google Cal. This way, as you add stuff, availability disappears for your clients real-time.

The above solution I am suggesting you could have up and running in about 15 min (visually unoptimized but fully functional).

Christiano really appreciate your comment especially with the timetable.