However, we know that in this difficult economic climate there are many who are thinking about starting a Online Ecommerce Business, but are perhaps deterred by the cost and commitment required. That’s why we’ve decided to lower the entry bar for Start-Up businesses.

Having just upgraded web space and bandwidth on both our single-site Starter and Business hosting packages we have also now instituted a system of quarterly payments. Previously, for these two packages, there was only an annual payment option. You can now get your eCommerce site online for just £11.99 (plus vat) per quarter.

You still get a free domain (all common domain types – see our site for full details), and a free install of an eCommerce shopping cart website (Zen Cart, Magento, Prestashop, osCommerce).

For those that want a Full SSL Certificate, rather than use our Shared SSL Certificate, we’ve also lowered the cost of purchasing Full SSL for your website.

It doesn’t get easier than this to get your dream business online!

SagePay is used by many shops I’ve built and they provide a reliable service with realistic fees. They’re usually top of my list when customers ask for a recommendation. An additional benefit is that they’re developer-friendly (good integration guides and test environment).

www.sagepay.co.uk - the new home for ProtX

Form or Direct?

Sage Pay offers 2 main services: Sage Pay Form where customers go offsite to Sage Pay to pay the invoice & are then returned back to your shop; and Sage Pay Direct where customers stay on your website and only the payment details are sent to Sage Pay.

Both options required the business to have its own internet merchant account. Sage Pay provides a list of compatible banks here: http://www.sagepay.com/developers/industry_knowledge/merchant_acquirers.asp.

The form integration is very simple. The website doesn’t even need an SSL certificate (although we do recommend this for all e-commerce websites). Customers go to the Sage Pay site to pay and are then redirected back to the website. Sage Pay Form comes with the added benefit of PayPal integration.

With Sage Pay Direct, customers stay on the website and only their card details are passed over to Sage Pay. Website will therefore need an SSL certificate and be PCI DSS compliant. Customers enter their card details on checkout_confirmation. If 3D Secure is required, the bank’s 3D Secure page appears. On successful autorisation, customers go the checkout_success page. Voids/Refunds can be processed from within the admin area.

Taking payments

Multi Currency: Sage Pay is in principle multi currency compatible, however accepting multiple currencies must be agreed with the merchant account provider (usually your bank) and can be expensive. If you need to take multiple currencies, check the fees carefully in advance. For smaller shops, PayPal may be a cheaper method to handle several currencies.

MoTo: Sage Pay can provide a virtual terminal for accepting payments in writing and over the phone. Very useful and doesn’t cost anything extra.

Cashflow: Sage Pay transfers the authorised payments into your bank account at the end of each working day cycle. This makes it great for cash flow, especially when compared to PayPal where transfers can take over a week to reach you.

Sage Pay Integration with osCommerce

The form integration is available as standard with all osCommerce shops. It can be found & activated under “Modules -> Payment”.

For the direct integration, we recommend http://forums.oscommerceproject.org/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=20 . The module is actively maintained and very reliable.

A paid installation service is also available from TerraNetwork.

Reports

Reports are available to view online or to download as CSV file (easy importing into Excel and other spreadsheet programs). The reports package includes:

• Orders – complete orders download in default shop currency
• Orders – multi-currency – same as above but with order currency values
• Orders – products only – products sold report
• Stock – current stock levels
• Saved customer baskets look-up – shows which customers started checkout but did not complete
• (optional – for shops with CCGV(trad) installed) Unused Gift Voucher balance look-up – redeemed but not yet used gift voucher balances

Installation fee: £52.50 + VAT (discounts for ReadyCart shops available)

Cross-Sell Manager

Present additional products on the product details page in a “We recommend” box. Ideal for cross-selling accessories and related products. Cross-Sell templates can be set for each product or at category level for easy bulk application.
Installation fee: £70 + VAT (discounts for ReadyCart shops available)

Attribute Manager

Attributes are variations of a product, e.g. colour, size, fabric. The attribute manager allows setting up of templates which can be bulk applied to products (e.g. a template for sizes for all T-Shirts). Templates remain linked to products and any change made to a template is reflected in all linked products (e.g. price changes, adding/removing of attributes). This makes managing of large numbers of attributes across products simple & quick. We’ve also added advanced filtering for easy finding of products/attributes and added sort orders with simple drop’n'drag sorting.
Installation fee: £95 + VAT (discounts for ReadyCart shops available)

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Requires: osCommerce MS2.2 / ReadyCart v3.2 or lower
+ Compatible with CCGV(trad)/Gift Voucher & Discount Coupons.
- Not compatible with QTPro/Attribute Stock.

To order, please contact us.
Some modules are also made available as free downloads from http://forums.oscommerceproject.org/. Please note that support for free downloads is only provided via the forum. For paid support, please contact us.