Merchant software

[Madison Kelly]

John McGregor wrote:
> Madison Kelly wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>>   No doubt this has been asked before, but things change so quickly. :)
>>
>>   A friend has started a small, at home business selling customized
>> children's books. Basically, he needs a merchant app that can take a
>> customer's billing, shipping and a couple custom fields. Specifically,
>> the names of the child and their friends/family to work into the story.
>>
>>  
> I was involved in a similar situation for a small cultural
> not-for-profit that was looking for a way to market its memberships and
> merchandise on-line. As you've probably found out, there isn't a lot
> available for micro retail operations. One solution is to set up a
> website that can handle all the text registration info with a  link to
> Pay Pal Canada to handle on-line payments and then use GnuCash for the
> company's books and to manually issue invoices / record payments for in
> person purchases. Your friend should expect to increase his product's
> price by $5.00 to cover the Pay Pal and credit card process fees.
> http://www.paypal.ca/ca/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_home
> 
> Another possible solution is a complete on-line hosted operation like
> GoECart. There are a couple of downsides though. At approximately
> $3000.00/yr its pricey for a micro business and it's automated data feed
> requires Quick Books which means added start up costs of Cross Over
> Office and a Quick Books license.
> http://www.goecart.com/shopping_cart_software_price.asp
> 
> Sorry that I couldn't be more helpful, it's just that there's not much
> available that caters to the micro-business market place.
> 
> John

Thanks John. Neither are very good options in this case as the books 
sell for quite little. A $5 increase would represent tens of percent 
increase in price and the $3k would probably eat more than too much profit.

This is a business he's running to help cover bills while he goes to 
nursing school.

Thanks for the info!

Madi
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