Industry guru Dave Taylor offers free tech support on a wide variety of technical and business topics, including HTML, Apple iPhone, online advertising, Cascading Style Sheets, Web design, management, Unix, Linux, search engine optimization, online dating, Mac OS X, shell script programming and Microsoft Windows.

What's a fast way to add a shopping cart to my site?

Dave, I have a few different books and audio CDs I'd like to sell and am wondering if you can recommend a quick and fast way for me to add some sort of an online store on my Web site so it's "commerce enabled", even a rudimentary one?

Dave's Answer:

I've been exploring different online options since my friend James Armstrong and I created our own hosted ecommerce system almost a decade ago while running The Internet Mall. At this point, my recommendation would be for you to sign up for Paypal and use their shopping cart tool.

Paypal isn't ideal because of both the transaction fee percentage, which is higher than what you might get from your local business bank and because if your customers have a Paypal account but want to pay for your particular items with a credit card, they can't do so.

Nonetheless, using their tools, you could have your store online within an hour or two at most, and there'd be no monthly minimum, no maintenance fees, nothing. Just a slice of the transaction pie.

The very first step to get started is to Sign Up for a Paypal Merchant Account. (disclosure: I make a tiny commission if you click on that link and sign up rather than just going to the site directly. Thanks!)

Once you're signed up, go to the Merchant area, then click on Shopping Cart. It's a bit confusing, but you can specify state sales tax, different methods of calculating shipping (and remember that you should take into account postage, packaging costs, and your time), and various other bits and pieces.

When you're done, you end up with 'add to cart' code that looks like this:

<form target="paypal"  method="post" 

  action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr">

<input type="image" 

   src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but22.gif"

   border="0" name="submit" 

   alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!">

<input type="hidden" name="add" value="1">

<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">

<input type="hidden" name="business" value="bizname">

<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="sample item">

<input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="I123">

<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="24.99">

<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="2">

<input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1">

<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">

</form>

Not too bad if you're already at least moderately familiar with HTML. Once you have the first button working the way you want, then you only need to tweak the three items show in bold above to create a new button for a new item, which means you should be able to whip out dozens of 'add to cart' buttons in no time (or even automate the entire process)

The only other button needed is a 'view cart' button, and that's always the exact same code whereever it appears on your site:

<form target="paypal" method="post"

   action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr">

<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">

<input type="hidden" name="business" value="bizname">

<input type="image"

 src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/view_cart_02.gif" border="0" 

 name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!">

<input type="hidden" name="display" value="1">

</form>

I think that'll get you going in no time. When you do get your store online, why not come back here and give us a link so we can check it out?

Help others find this article at Del.icio.us, Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and Stumble Upon

Categorized: CGI Scripts and Web Site Programming (Article 3969)
Tagged:
Previous: Can I get Microsoft Office XP Updates Offline?
Next: What's a Character Blog?

Subscribe!

Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader.

Comments

Dave,

Just a general comment. PayPal no longer requires that a user have a PayPal account before they can make a payment credit card or other wise.

I agree with you on recommend PayPal just because it is so easy.

Also if your going to set up your own shopping cart and merchant payment option then you have the added problem of security. The cost of a even a shared certifite to make a transaction safe is really a hidden cost to use your own merchant account. By using PayPal you solve that problems as well. Also the minimum charges of most merchant accounts can add up fast.

Good luck with that on line site.
Frank

PS Great job Dave enjoy your info and help greatly.

Posted by: Frank Woodman Jr at April 20, 2005 8:13 AM

"Just a general comment. PayPal no longer requires that a user have a PayPal account before they can make a payment credit card or other wise."

Actually, here's where that becomes a problem: if you already have a Paypal account associated with your email address and you want to pay for something through Paypal via credit card, you need to either use a different email address or you'll find that Paypal complains that you already have an account and need to sign in. Sign in, and you can no longer specify that the specific transaction should occur via credit card, it instead just automatically goes against your existing Paypal balance.

Posted by: Dave Taylor at April 20, 2005 8:20 PM

Ola Dave,
thank you for your instructions on how to set-up Paypal on myspace account. I'm trying to set-up a store to sell, and this info was key to sell relaxation music and soaking music for www.aquadio.com on http://www.myspace.com/aquadiosteven

-steven

Posted by: Steven Burgess at January 27, 2007 8:33 AM

I do not want to write separate button codes for each item,I want to customize a single button so that to give item_name and item_code values from Database.

Posted by: asim at July 21, 2007 8:43 AM

One easy way to add paypal shopping cart onto your website is to use 3d party shopping cart software, that automatically generates add to cart buttons based on your product entries in the database. Because shopping carts, like this one http://www.ShoppingCart.org automatically updates your online Paypal store every time you update your database, you have to do very minimal maintenance.

Regards,
Jim

Posted by: Jim Arias at December 2, 2007 10:42 PM

I need to know how to edit the shipping amounts on the pay pal add to cart . the editing i need to do is the shopping cart let me use a % for shipping or a flat rate but what i need is to allow customers to add the amount of shipping i tell them because my supplier has way to many different shipping zones in the usa and a flat rate or % depending on the amount of your purchase so again need to know how to edit the hmtl code it the add to cart button to allow costumers to add shipping cost manually ..

Posted by: Alex at February 11, 2008 6:59 PM

Ok, I seen someones page on myspace that was selling items they made and had (add to cart) buttons and paypal logo. I currently use paypal for my customers so I'm wanting to know how I can do this to my page also along with the cart buttons. I don't have a website yet so I'm wanting to try it this way first. Can I do this and how? Thank you in advance for all your help:)

Posted by: Ginger Newsome at March 11, 2008 12:13 AM

How do you add a shipping option to the cart - I want free shipping if ordering from say USA but to pay if shipping from say Europe or Africa... I dont want to charge everyone and I just dont see how to do this. Can you help?

Posted by: desre at July 28, 2008 8:06 PM

Hi.dave, i want add shopping card to http://www.convertdirect.com/
how can i do that,i meaning google shopping"_

Posted by: jietjiang at October 11, 2008 6:18 AM

hi guys,

I need to integrate paypal shopping cart with my website , my question is how to add mu product images with my product details . Ia there an option to edit these images ? i tries the above way to integrate paypal to my website ? does i need a database to store these items ? Does i make changes to the products and and the generated code each ti me ? please give me a clear idea...

Thanks in advance

Meenu

Posted by: Meenu at January 27, 2009 9:45 PM

Hi David,

Do you know someone who can help me with the process of building my first website. I purchased a package from simplesitesbigprofit but i am unable to use it because i am not getting anywhere trying to get started and not enough help. Can you please help recommend or do it for me.

Posted by: YWCB at April 3, 2009 9:48 AM

I have two projects to make a shopping cart site. but both parties don't want online transactions. what they need is just make a cart online. and on finish an email is generated to the seller with contact info of buyer. they'll contact and arrange to exchange money and items on phone/email. both parties have their sites up an running. I'm not a programmer nor a developer rather I'm a system engineer. but looking for some FREE software that can make a good looking shopping cart like things for them.

Posted by: Iqbal Sajid at July 10, 2009 8:04 PM

Dave,

I have been trying to figure out the best way to add a web mall/shopping cart to our website www.dabarefootchef.com and your web page magically appeared before my very eyes. Please help! I don't know a lot about HTML formatting, but am trying. Since I already have a website if I add anything to it then it needs to be put into HTML format. Whew, I need your assistance in adding a page for the web mall/ shopping cart in HTML format please. Also I would like to add pictures and descriptions of our items that will be for sale on our website.

Thanks So Very Much In Advance!!!!
HTML Confused,
Amy :)

Posted by: Amy & Da Barefoot Chef at December 11, 2009 5:01 PM

Thanks for the article and code snippets. I am looking for something a little different, I guess. What I would like to see, is an ecommerce shopping cart with a "blog this" type of option in the backend, or a blog with an admistration back end that will allow selling of products.
Any thoughts on something like this?

Posted by: larry michaels at February 7, 2010 10:54 AM

I used http://www.popcart.net for my site and was impressed with how easy it was to add. You just paste some code wherever you want a "buy" button and that's it - you've got your shopping cart.

Posted by: Mike at March 10, 2010 10:36 AM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!