Hello,

I'm putting together a reseller hosting site. My primary cliental will be my design customers. I am only planning on having 2-3 hosting packages. I've installed osCommerce, and I don't like it. It seems like overkill for what I'm doing, and seems like it will be a real pain to get it to look the way I want.

I have a layout completed, and I think coding osCommerce to fit into it will be more than I want to take on.

I like the number of features that oscommerce has, I just don't think I need so many.

Basically what I want is:

1.Customer comes to my site

2.Customer picks a package they want.

3.Customer enters all of their information.

4.Customer pays (via paypal)

5.I get all of the information (setup info, payment made, etc)

6.I can track customers monthly/yearly payments.

I'm VERY new to the e-commerce software, so please bare with me.

Any and all advice is welcomed. If I need to provide more information to get feedback, polease let me know.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

Tom,

It is a good idea that you are putting a couple of hosting packages together for your business so that new clients can have a one stop shop for design and hosting. However, I would take your payment processing one step further to a merchant account. PayPal is risky as all get out (search for PayPal on this board and/or Google and you'll see what I mean) and to educated consumers it makes your business look "cheap" IMHO. Getting a merchant account is getting easier these days and less complex. Search for merchant account on the board and you'll find some good companies with some great merchant account products.

:)

Richard

Ooops.. as far as the e-commerce software, I would personally go with a secure form since you are only going to have a couple hosting packages and your main business is graphics/design.

:)

Richard

You can make a secure order form, and keep your own site design. that way it looks good, while you don't have to use a complete shopping cart system.

You also might check out zencart - I do not use PHP any, but I think that is a scaled-down version of osCommerce.

Thanks for the replies.

I stumbled upon WHMAutoPilot.....

From what I can tell this may be what I'm looking for. It seems to be setup more as a complex set of forms, that your (my) site would wrap around however you (I) want.

Does anybody have any experience with whmap? It's $20/month, but if it takes care of some of my potential headaches, it'ss worth it, or at least the $200 to buy rights forever.

I'm aware of the paypal = cheap line of thinking, and while I do use paypal quite a bit, I have to admit that I agree.

I'm looking into merchant accounts, just not ready to jump in head first. I simply don't know enough about them.

13graphics,

Merchant accounts give you a lot of advantages over PayPal, here are a couple just to name a few :

- More control over your charges
- More fraud protection
- Easy to use and modify as your company grows

To get more info, I would check out the E-Commerce discussion on WHT (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=66) .. There is an enourmous amount of info on merchant accounts and processors.

Richard

There is a lot to understand about merchant accounts - that's for sure. Feel free to ask any questions. Look at other websites & see what they offer & their charges. If you do not understand - ask. This way - you will be more than prepared when you are ready

Definitely do your research when it comes to merchant accounts, it will be well worth the investment of time to ensure that you make the right choice when you do finally select a processor.

And regarding WHMAP, it is a solid billing package. We have many merchants using it and they seem to be very happy with it.