Start taking payments through your website in less than 30 minutes

You want to sell your products and services online. You want to save time by taking a payment over the Internet quickly and easily and you want site visitors to be able to donate to a local cause that you’re supporting. But you have no idea if your site has that type of functionality, or even where to start.

Not to worry, it is actually very easy to get started taking payments online using PayPal. Paypal is one of the most widely used and most trusted forms of online payment, so if you are just getting into the e-commerce space this is a perfect place to start.

PayPal buttons - perfect for single payments

PayPal buttons are an easy way to take a single type of payment. PayPal allows you to create a button to add to your website which when clicked on will take the site visitor to the PayPal website with a specific item ready for checkout.

So for example, if you were selling handmade chocolates, you could configure the button with information about:

A description of the product you are selling - "My Handmade Chocolates (Box of 12)"
The price of the product - "$10.00"
The price for shipping the product - "$3.00"
Where the payment should be sent (your email address) - "myname@mybusiness.com"
Other optional information such as taxes, the product ID, handling charges, etc.

You can use buttons for selling a variety of different items or even for taking a donation.

PayPal shopping carts - useful for selling multiple items

PayPal buttons work well when you are only selling a small number of items, but if you are looking to sell more than that you should consider using a PayPal shopping cart. Shopping carts are an easy way for you to sell multiple items in one order. They allow you to configure a variety of different items with all of the same information as PayPal buttons do, but you can also associate a product image with the item and when the user checks out, they only pay once for all of their purchases. Think about the cart you see on any e-commerce site, including Vistaprint.

This makes it easy and simple for the online buyer.

PayPal is an easy way for anyone to get started selling products online and you can configure the shopping experience to meet the needs of your business very easily. You can get started using PayPal by signing up for a Vistaprint website and choosing the Professional package.

Good luck getting started with e-commerce!

33 Comments to Start taking payments through your website in less than 30 minutes:

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Caitlin on Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:46 AM

Great to see you have a blog now!! Thanks for all the useful onfo.

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	Samuel Johns on Thursday, September 16, 2010 3:02 PM Thanks for your support Catlin, we are glad you find the information useful. Feel free to add any insights based on your experience or ask any questions you may have! Cheers, Samuel

Rob on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 12:56 PM

These websites are great, although i have found adding a paypal shopping cart no as easy. I have listed all my products and services and then tried to add the shopping cart. It apears i have to relist all my items again under a single page titled shopping cart. I have had a website before, and yes, vista websites are a lot better to use and set up, but i have never had to relist all items just to add a cart. Do we not get a choice of what type of shopping cart we can have? It just seems so basic, and in my opinion, does not suit my website.


	Samuel Johns on Friday, September 17, 2010 11:59 AM Hey Rob, Thanks for your comments regarding our service, we are excited to hear that you like it. With regard to the product pages and shopping cart your are correct, currently you have to add the shopping cart seperatley from the product page template. We will look into it and see if it is possible for us to enhance the experience for you in the future. So I noticed you are not currently using paypal at all on your site, have you thought about adding the "Buy Now" button next to your current products if you are wanting to sell online. Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Samuel

Ray on Thursday, September 16, 2010 11:43 AM

Paypal is user friendly, please let me know how to add down-loadable product like e-book? Thanks- Ray


	Sameul on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 1:25 PM Hi Ray, Currently downloadable products is something that you will need to do manually by adding the product image and all the regular details for a normal pay-pal transaction. Then send the E-Book to your customer via email or a suitable platform manually as it is not currently possible to do automatically. Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks Samuel

Mirjana on Thursday, September 16, 2010 3:50 PM

Will there be a Paypall drop down feature available in the near future where customers can select one item from a number of similar items?


	Samuel Johns on Friday, September 17, 2010 11:50 AM Hi Mirjana, It is not something we currently offer, however thanks for the interest and suggestion for future product enhancement. Nice work on your site! Are you wanting to use that feature to have your customers select from the number of session they want to book? Thanks, Samuel Downland Crafts on Saturday, September 18, 2010 9:59 AM You can add a drop down menu by using the paypal create a button feature using your paypal account and then adding the html, hope this helps.

Debbie Huff on Sunday, September 19, 2010 12:07 AM

I love how all my marketing materail look the same. On my website I am haveing trouble setting up shipping cost through pay pale. Do you have to have a biz account with pay pale before you set up shipping. I have personal not biz account with them currently.


	Samuel on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 1:49 PM Hi Debbie, Thanks for your support, we are glad you love all your products! As for the shipping cost, you don't need to have a business account to add the shipping cost. On the opening page of the Paypal feature you will see an option to choose shipping in "lbs" or "Kgs" then you can go from there. You can choose to add the shipping costs either on your end before customer purchase or have it done once the customer defines their location. If you are still having trouble please let me know and explain some of the problems you are experiencing. Thanks, Samuel Aileen on Thursday, October 07, 2010 5:52 AM Hi Samuel , I'm interested in more info on your comment "You can choose to add the shipping costs either on your end before customer purchase or have it done once the customer defines their location." ideally I want to put shopping cart in and then once I know what the customer has bought I can then work out weight and location to advise shipping costs to add on to their invoice.. can you please expand on how to do that for me and then I can very happily add shopping cart to my website.. Thanks for your much appreciated help as always :) Samuel on Thursday, October 07, 2010 11:40 AM Hi Aileen, With regard to my comment I was talking about the adding the shipping up front or at the end of the shopping cart expereience once the customer puts in their shipping information. With regard to what you are looking to do, I can see how this would be beneficail for you when sending multiple iteams to the one custoemr. This is something you will need to contact Paypal about to see if you can do it once you have recieved payment for the goods. You may be able to find some assistance here :https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_contact_us Apologies for not being facilitate your specific needs, however I hope my reponse gives you a good next step. Thanks for engageing and reaching out. Samuel

elaine on Sunday, September 19, 2010 11:47 PM

I had just started to build my website with vistaprint. I had problem listing my products. As my products come with different size and prices. I had the drop down menu option where i can key in different sizes. Is there a way customer can chose what size and the price? or i have to key in same product and different price and size individually?

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Danielle on Sunday, September 26, 2010 1:05 PM

I love love my website and how easy you made it for me. The only thing that I would love to have is discount codes. How would I be able to enter a place for customers to enter discount codes? It would make it a lot easier then returning money after the fact. Thank You!


	Samuel on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 1:40 PM Hi Danielle, Thanks for your support. With regard to discount codes it is something not currently offered in the Pay-pal features, thanks for letting us know of your interest in this extra feature. Thank you. Samuel Michelle on Tuesday, October 05, 2010 7:00 AM Is there some other way can we can use to offer discounts & still use paypal

Brenda Foucart on Sunday, September 26, 2010 1:11 PM

I am really enjoying setting up my new website using Vista Print...it's really a lot easier than some others I've tried along the way. I have had an eBay store since 2003 and have wanted a personal website for my store for a long time. I am having some troubles setting up shipping rates with PayPal though. My items ship using total weight of the package and I'm not seeing an option to put shipping scales in using weight, just order cost or item number...no option for shipping calculated on total package weight. Is there a way to configure my shopping cart shipping this way?


	Brenda Foucart on Monday, September 27, 2010 11:45 AM I wanted to also add that I am a little confused trying to set up product pages and/or the shopping cart. I have over 350 products I would like to put on my site and some of them have size options. Ideally I would like to have different pages set up for different types of products, like Adult Sweatshirts, Kids T-Shirts etc... where I can have the items, pictures (including the option to view a bigger picture of the item), description, price and size option where needed as well as an "add to cart" button. I tried doing this with the shopping cart, but there's no option to view a larger picture like there is with regular images. Also how do I use the shopping cart and separate my items into different pages of like items? Should I call customer service? Can they help me with this? Thanks for offering a great product!! phatjasper on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 12:55 PM Hi. I have the same problem setting up paypal they could have made it a little more simple, Would you let me kmow if you receive any help with this matter, I did contact paypal but they have very poor customer service, I am trying to adjust my shipping to have multiple options to ship to different countrys, I would be happy to do it manually for each purchase that way I can combine shipping for multiple purchases as well. Thanx Phat.

Linda on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 9:22 AM

When will Vistaprint add inventory controll??? This is a very important feature when you have a eComm. website. Right now if someone puts 10 items in their cart and I only have one of that item, this causes a big problum. I have to put Enter Store on my home page that has a link to my eBay site that has inventory controll.


	Samuel on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 2:02 PM Hi Linda, Thanks for letting us know about your interest in inventory management and showcasing the pain point for you. I agree that it is something of value for eCommerce websites to be able to track their inventory. Nice work on your site and nice look Jewelry. Thanks, Samuel

Michelle O'Keeffe on Thursday, September 30, 2010 6:01 AM

This is something that I would also be interested in


	Samuel on Thursday, October 07, 2010 11:18 AM Hi Michelle, Thanks for letting us know your interest and stopping by to read the blog. Samuel

Ruth on Wednesday, October 06, 2010 7:28 AM

Hi I would love inventory control - I only stock small numbers of items and one off pieces of jewellery. It would make the experience for the customer better too. Ruth www.tenderjewellery.co.uk


	Samuel on Thursday, October 07, 2010 11:21 AM Hi Ruth, Thanks for sharing with us your experience with using the Paypal tools. We appreciate the feedback. Also thanks for being apart of the community on the blog. Samuel

John Page on Monday, October 11, 2010 11:53 AM

hi all i`m new to all this and taking it in where I can, currently have a vp web site http://www.casaalta.co.uk I would welcome any help or comments from fellow users.

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Cherri on Monday, October 25, 2010 6:27 AM

I love this sites products byr my website just for a lack of a better word...Sucks. Where the links are to get to the pages on the left side of the homw page, they are so amall that you can't read them and can't find a way to make them bigger. Also, the links at the bottom of the page are great if I could only see them. It's like they are in the color gray and there is no way to change the color. $4.95 for imahes is a lot especially when you are selling different versions og items at all times. I could really use some help getting this up and working productively. Plus the whole link thing confuses me. Frustration has set in!


	Samuel on Monday, October 25, 2010 10:56 AM Hi Cherri, I just checked out you site and see what you are talking about. Checking with the development team what the potential issue is and I will get back to you soon. What are you referring to when you say $4.95 for images? Not sure I understand what you mean. We are here to help Cherri, please let us know if you have any more questions. Thanks Samuel

Brooke on Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:55 AM

Hi, We are using vistaprint webbuilder and although we think its great, i think there is a bug or limitation. I have been tolde several times that you can have more than one shopping cart but can these 2 different shopping carts have 2 seperate paypal accounts. As we have a Aus and a NZ business with 2 different paypal accounts. Could you please let us know if this is possible and if so how do i do it, or will it be available any time soon? I have got around it by having a shopping cart on the AU page and then paypal buttons only on the NZ page, which means we cant have multiple product orders in NZ. Please help. Thanks Brooke

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Candy on Sunday, January 23, 2011 3:24 AM

Hi Am just finished building my website (www.re-hatched.com) and haven't published my items to sell yet as I am concerned about the PayPal shopping cart. I have one off items (many things though)and am worried that when someone adds a product to their cart the item will still be available for someone else to purchase. This can become a major issue as I only have one of everything!So what I am wondering is when someone adds something from my website does it stop being listed as add to cart option? Any help would be welcome as really want to publish everything and get my business up and running. Thanks Candy

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Karen Suhr on Monday, February 21, 2011 11:58 PM

HI - AS YOU CAN SEE I HAVE QUITE A FEW ITEMS IN MY SHOPPING CART AND WANT TO ADD MORE - AT LEAST DOUBLE THE CURRENT CART - MY CONCERN IS PEOPLE ARE NOT STAYING ON THIS PAGE AS PER SITE TRAFFIC INFO AS IT IS SO LONG AND ONE PAGE ONLY - CAN ANOTHER PAGE BE ADDED TO THE SHOPPING CART - I ALSO AM GETTING A "SERVER TIMED OUT" MESSAGE WHEN I AM TRYING TO DO AN EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN OR LOAD MUSIC - VERY SLOW - AND AGAIN IS THERE GOING TO BE A POINT IN THE FUTURE WHERE IMAGES LOADED TO THE SITE AND/OR SHOPPING CART CAN BE BIGGER - I REALIZE YOU CAN CLICK THE IMAGE IN THE CART FOR A BIGGER PIC BUT I AM CONCERNED THE CART LOOKS "LOP SIDED" WITH SUCH SMALL PICS AGAINST LOTS OF INFO FOR SOME ITEMS - I LOOK FORWARD TO A SPEEDY RESPONSE AS I HAVE HAD A VP WEBSITE FOR OVER 9 MONTHS WITH LOTS OF LOOKS AND NO SALES !

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Lisa V on Friday, April 20, 2012 12:14 AM

Thank you so much for the info, that has help me to decide what kind of product to sell online and what to use to make it easier for potential customers to buy not only my services, but also products.

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