I have a client who wants to sell a shareware utility type software program from a site. He wants to offer a free downloadable trial and of course the ability to purchase the full version by download.

I've never used PayPal's shopping cart feature (or their other payment features as far as that goes. other than for personal use on EBay). My question is: Is this the best route to go? The client does not already have a merchant account, and I suspect orders will be slow at the beginning so it's difficult to justify a regular merchant account. PayPal's 2.9% and .30/transaction sounds very reasonable, but does PayPal offer immediate authorization/decline or do they notify the merchant within a short period?

I'm trying to figure out how the customer would gain access to the downloaded file; would it be automatic or require the merchant to email them the url to a password protected directory?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

ginnie

I'd suggest signing up and playing with it. The code lets you direct the user to a certain page after paying.

Another payment method you may want to look at is www.2checkout.com . It costs more than Paypal, but is much less than Authorize.net.

Linda

------------------
Frontpage Web Templates

Thanks for the suggestions.

I talked to someone from 1ShoppingCart and they indicated that PayPal didn't return an authorization or decline and that their software automatically assumed authorization and allowed the download, and for that reason they recommended AuthorizeNet, which of course requires the merchant account. That seemed really strange to me. Of course you wouldn't want an unauthorized transaction to go through.

I'll look into PayPal some more and checkout.com.

Thanks,

ginnie