Google Checkout and E-Junkie cart
RogersDA
Registered Users Posts: 3,502 Major grins
A quick review of the E-junkie Shopping cart service.
I have used a Google Checkout (GC) for a while now, though mostly for ordering stuff. I decided to try to integrate the GC service with a shopping cart that has more features than what Google's free cart offers. Specifically, I was looking for an inexpensive service that allowed inventory/quantity management and low monthly cost. The E-junkie plans start at $5.00 per month.
I signed up for E-junkie's 7 day trial. Set up with GC was easy. After creating an account you copy your merchant id/key to your E-junkie account, and then copy a E-junkie-provided URL into Google's callback url setting (in your GC account). All Done. If you have never sold with GC then you will need to validate your GC account with your bank account so that sales can go through properly. This can take up to 2 business days for the small GC deposit to get to the bank. Once you validate your account with GC you can start selling with a cart on your SmugMug account.
I started to configure my E-junkie account with a single item. I was able to specify quantity available, an expiration date (date after which the item will no longer be sold) (an excellent option for you photogs that want to get customers to order their photos before a certain date), shipping rates per ounce (overriding E-junkie's U.S. Postal rates), handling charges per order, allow sales/VAT taxes per item, specify currency type (though GC only operates in U.S. dollars or G.B. pounds). You can even configure an item and/or a cart with discount codes. That way the customer can enter a code and get a discount. There are a lot of other features that can be set up on a per item and/or per order basis.
Any handling charges will not be listed as a separate line item in the customer's checkout screen. Handling charges are rolled into the total shipping charges shown to the customer. This is good if you have to buy boxes and packing materials for some items.
Discounts set up per item do not expire and are flat-rate based; e.g., $50.00 or whatever you decide.
Discounts set up per cart can be set to apply to shipping or to the total amount, can be flat-rate or percentage based. These can be set to expire at some future date. This type of discount can't be used with "Buy now" buttons.
You can set up customized "thank-you" sites and/or emails that the customer gets directed to (or receives) upon ordering.
Once you set up an item you create either add to cart/show cart code or a buy now code. Place this code between <html></html> tags and you are all set. In my case I integrated the code into the caption of the item's photo along with a brief description of the item. I used the journal-style in SmugMug for the item for sale.
One thing to be aware of is that you want to make sure that the text of your customized "thank you" sites/emails does not conflict with the shipping and/or return text that you might provide in your GC account.
Now, I only did one item to test this out, but overall it seems pretty easy to set up and integrate into GC and SmugMug.
I have used a Google Checkout (GC) for a while now, though mostly for ordering stuff. I decided to try to integrate the GC service with a shopping cart that has more features than what Google's free cart offers. Specifically, I was looking for an inexpensive service that allowed inventory/quantity management and low monthly cost. The E-junkie plans start at $5.00 per month.
I signed up for E-junkie's 7 day trial. Set up with GC was easy. After creating an account you copy your merchant id/key to your E-junkie account, and then copy a E-junkie-provided URL into Google's callback url setting (in your GC account). All Done. If you have never sold with GC then you will need to validate your GC account with your bank account so that sales can go through properly. This can take up to 2 business days for the small GC deposit to get to the bank. Once you validate your account with GC you can start selling with a cart on your SmugMug account.
I started to configure my E-junkie account with a single item. I was able to specify quantity available, an expiration date (date after which the item will no longer be sold) (an excellent option for you photogs that want to get customers to order their photos before a certain date), shipping rates per ounce (overriding E-junkie's U.S. Postal rates), handling charges per order, allow sales/VAT taxes per item, specify currency type (though GC only operates in U.S. dollars or G.B. pounds). You can even configure an item and/or a cart with discount codes. That way the customer can enter a code and get a discount. There are a lot of other features that can be set up on a per item and/or per order basis.
Any handling charges will not be listed as a separate line item in the customer's checkout screen. Handling charges are rolled into the total shipping charges shown to the customer. This is good if you have to buy boxes and packing materials for some items.
Discounts set up per item do not expire and are flat-rate based; e.g., $50.00 or whatever you decide.
Discounts set up per cart can be set to apply to shipping or to the total amount, can be flat-rate or percentage based. These can be set to expire at some future date. This type of discount can't be used with "Buy now" buttons.
You can set up customized "thank-you" sites and/or emails that the customer gets directed to (or receives) upon ordering.
Once you set up an item you create either add to cart/show cart code or a buy now code. Place this code between <html></html> tags and you are all set. In my case I integrated the code into the caption of the item's photo along with a brief description of the item. I used the journal-style in SmugMug for the item for sale.
One thing to be aware of is that you want to make sure that the text of your customized "thank you" sites/emails does not conflict with the shipping and/or return text that you might provide in your GC account.
Now, I only did one item to test this out, but overall it seems pretty easy to set up and integrate into GC and SmugMug.
0
Comments
Thanks for idea. I set it up and it works fine. It has great potential.
Bill
My Website