Announcing the Scif Store

cajunace: Unit is the name of the unit that you are selling.

Whatever you type into the "unit" field will show up for the customer as "PRICE per UNIT", so if the price is $1.50 and the unit is "plant", they will see "$1.50 per plant".

Scif stands for the StandardOut Community and Information Facility, and it is a framework that I developed that helps me quickly develop powerful websites. Dave's Garden is based on Scif, as are many other sites that I've made (and many that are under development for various companies across the U.S.)

You can see your store on the "Member Stores" link here at DG (in the Menu box). If you aren't lsited there, let me know and I will add your store.

dave

Dave please add me, I'm not listed.

Dave how is the store advertised? We know its there because you told us and we have the members store listing but how about people not familiar with DG? Will they be able to find it easily? Is it or will it be advertised/listed elsewhere?

cajunace: I added you.

psilo: This has become a frequently asked question (i.e. I need to write a good answer for it).

I'm not advertising the store anywhere except for DG and my standardout.com site. I wasn't planning on doing a whole lot of it, actually, since Scif Store isn't intended to be an advertising medium, but rather a catalog/cart system used for companies and/or members who wanted to sell products.

My idea is that some company or person has a website where they showcase some of their products, and then they link to their catalog on the Scif Store when it is time to get the people to purchase the stuff. In this way, you don't have to program a cart system, that's all taken care of.

But a lot of people seem to want it to market their stores directly, and I think that's probably a good idea that I do what I can to direct traffic there, even though that's not the primary purpose of the system.

Currently I link to the stores from "Member Stores" in the DG menu box. I will be added a "Store Gallery" on the Scif Store main page, so that passersby can find them.

Also, I'll link to it from my various other sites and see about bringing people in that way.

On top of that, I don't have any other marketing plans at the moment.

dave

Okay, I am getting it now. What link should I add to my webpage to get to the order area? Just link it to my store at store.standardout?

P.S. Could you add my store to the menu please?

This message was edited Wednesday, Oct 9th 2:29 PM

haighr: Link to your main store page. You can find the link to that by going to Scif Store, click on "Manage store", and then click on your store's name. That'll open in a new window, and that's the address that you will want to give out to people. Your store is here: http://store.standardout.com/s/sj/9/

(I added your store to the Member Stores page, also)

dave

haigr,

Wow. What a beautiful piece of art.

Thank you Dave, I'll do that next. This will work well instead of what I had set up on my webpage.
Thank you smilin - there are a lot better works on our webpage:
http://www.hmscandee.com/
Just go to Works of Art - their are lots!


This message was edited Wednesday, Oct 9th 6:03 PM

This message was edited Wednesday, Oct 9th 6:03 PM

Dave, my daughter was checking this out. She says when she adds a product to the cart and proceeds to checkout the only option is PayPal and then a message underneath that says payment by credit card takes precedence over Pay Pay or paying with check or money order. ??
Why is pay pal the only option to click on ??
Do you get further options after clicking on Pay Pal??
Thanks for your patience and help, I created the link to our homepage.
Candee

haighr,

You can offer multiple forms of payment. Currently you have only opted to accept PayPal payments. You can change this through your "Manage Payments" link in your admin area.

PayPal payments lets you take credit cards through PayPal's system, but how that works is up to PayPal. What the Scif Store does is, collects the information from the customer and sends them to PayPal along with their shipping information, the total purchase amount, and order id. Then, they give their money to PayPal (in whatever manner they choose, including credit card) and then PayPal notifies my server that the payment was completed. Then, my server notifies you (by email) than an order was placed and is ready to be shipped.

So, currently you have only selected PayPal for your checkout. You can add check, if you want to. Then customers can select check, fill out their information, and send you a check. When the check arrives, you go into your admin area, lookup the orderid, and mark it as paid.

If you want to accept credit cards directly (in other words, not using PayPal, but actually using my credit card gateway), then you'll need to E-mail me directly and I'll tell you about our options. For folks with a lot of product, this option may make sense, as it is a bit more seemless (and maybe a bit more professional) to accept your own credit cards, but it's also a bit more expensive, thanks to the extra fees that are incurred (by all of us) in using this method.

Think this stuff through and let me know if you have any questions.

Dave

haighr: I just realized what the first part of your question was about (about the precedence) and I apologize that this text was in there. It is old and deprecated, and didn't belong. So that text is gone now.

dave

Dave, thank you for your help with the start of our store. You have given more surprises this summer. WOW! Thanks and Thanks again.
--Joyous

Dave, May we opt to use c2it instead of PayPal?

Dave, I think I'm ready to open. You might want to look over it and see if I missed anything.

Dave you and Trish are the answer to my lastest query to the Universe! I'm just getting "Spirit's Dream" up and running and was considering my options for putting it on the Web....my brain is warped from trying to get through all the Ebay info! This is the perfect solution for me! I can put a link on my personal site and not have to upgrade my site to be able to take orders! Now all I have to do is get the Pay Pal in place and my product on the Scif site! Thank you so much!! What timing!!
Weedwalker

Dave I am just now finding this new addition so what I would like to know is how much do we have to pay you when we sell an item or is it a one time flat fee for say a year?

And is this just for DG'ers to have a store, or can anyone do it.

windsurffer: The answer to your question is here: http://store.standardout.com/faq.php#What%20are%20the%20fees%20associated%20with%20having%20a%20store?

Azalea: Anyone can have a store. It's not just for DGers. In fact, I have several deals in the works for some good size stores to come onto my system.

Calalily: I'll look your store over.

Darius: Any payment option requires a module to be written (by me) to support it, and currently that's PayPal, Check/MO, and Credit Card. Today I will be also programming a "Phone in your order" method.

I've never used c2it (never heard of it, actually) but I'm on their website and am checking it out. If feasible, then I'll add it to the options, but this won't be for quite a while (I can't see doing it within the next 2 weeks).

dave

Calalily, I recommend adding your logo (if you wish) to make the pages look a little bit nicer. Also, you might want to add a paragraph about you (or your company) so that it appears on your front page.

You do both of those things in the "make changes" area of your admin.

Not all the products have pictures, but I guess that can't really be helped.

The checkpoints for shipping are kind of lengthy, resulting in a long pulldown. You might consider making the text inside the checkpoint a little more brief. I'd change:

"4.5" pots-plants will be shipped bare root and price reflects higher shipping cost"

to

"4.5" pots/bare root shipping/price reflects added cost"

It might make the page not so wide, and easier to see and scan by folks with smaller monitors.

Pictures for the hostas would be awesome. The passiflora page is beautiful!

I think you're all set. Please do go through and make sure that you have the right inventory set up for each product, and that the weight is correct, so that shipping is figured up correctly.

I think it looks good, though. When you are ready to launch, just activate your checkout "Payment methods" in your admin area, and the checkout will activate immediately.

dave

Thanks Dave, you're better with words than I am. I couldn't figure out how to word that. I will try to get pictures of the hostas, but they look pretty beaten up right now. I emailed Trish a question about inventory, since some are big plants, some are rooted cuttings, etc. I may have to separate them into different entries.

Yes, Trish asked me about that. Separating them into different entries (alas) may be the best way to go for now. I've added to my feature list a way to track inventory on a checkpoint basis, but that'll be a couple weeks out, I think.

dave

Dave what does inventory mean on the add a product menu?

Inventory is the number of items of that particular product you have available for sale psilo.

so what happens if you dont have a set amount, because they are ordered as needed?

Dave, going to double check inventory, might be this evening. I tried to get some hosta pics, at least the leaves, between showers of rain. I like the way it looks so far and the photos help.

psilo: For things like that, just set an inventory of 10000.

dave

Ok dave thanks

Dave...Holy Wow...I was so excited to learn about the New store front you developed for us...What a FANTASTIC benefit for Members. I've already started building my store. It is just so easy to use. You are terrific!! Thank you for all of your time and efforts! I hope this will be an exciting and properious venture for us all!

Patti - a newbie member who just love's Dave's

Welcome, WaWild1, thanks to Dave,it just keeps getting better & better. You'll find subscribing is one of the best investments you've made in your social and educational life in quite awhile. Good friends, invaluable garden and other info, and opportunities to share... and now to sell!

Dave - I've been using paypal for some time. It doesn't sound as if you are aware that you can set up a free paypal personal account if you do not intend to accept credit card payments. I currently have a personal account set up to which customers can pay me, but it does not accept credit card payments (customers can pay me with a paypal balance, electronic check or a direct transfer from their bank account and it doesn't cost me a penny!). Can you set up your payment options so that it doesn't automatically assume a credit card payment through paypal (Ebay does this and it's a real pain! People never actually read the payment options in my adds and just assume that with Paypal you will be using a credit card) With Ebay buying out paypal and discontinuing their Billpoint electronic payment system (I had been using Billpoint for my credit card payments), I will probably be upgrading my paypal account to a business acount in order to accept credit card payments, but once I make that move, I will have to pay paypal a transaction fee on all payments regardless of whether or not they use a credit card. For those people that want to offer their customers an alternative payment option without paying extra fees, a paypal personal account is an excellent option.

karen7: Yes, this is a good issue you've brought up. But, my question is: Where are you seeing that the system assumes that you'll get credit card payments through PayPal?

My system actually doesn't know about credit cards. All it knows is that the thing was paid for through PayPal (paypal notifies my server, which marks the order as paid automatically and E-mails you to let you know about the new order).

dave

Dave - Actually - I hadn't gotten that far to see how you have the whole paypal thing set up and how it will actually look in the storefront when you go to use it. It's just most people assume that you will be using a credit card payment with paypal (and in all the messages in this thread it appears that the same assumption is made. Paypal's auto insertion icon even says "To pay with a credit card use this link...) When using Paypal with my ebay auctions, I specifically state in the add that I do not accept credit card payments through paypal. People can attempt to make a credit card payment to a personal account anyway, but the money is not actually transfered the the sellers account at that point because personal accounts can not accept credit card payments. The payment must be manually denied (or you can upgrade the account to accept the payment with a transaction fee). If payment is denied, the payment is then refunded to the purchaser with an automatic e-mail to the purchaser informing them that the payment was denied and no fees are charged to anyone. If there is no reference to what type of payment you will be using with paypal, just that you wish to make the payment through paypal, and you are not using Paypal's auto link insertion, then that should be fine.

Sounds like we're good to go, then. Thanks for this extra information, as it will help if other members come up with that kind of question.

BTW - this thread is getting very long. Any new stuff that comes up, let's post them in the Scif Store forum.

dave