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AgoraCart Free User Forums

This is the official FAQ and Cool Tips guide For the AgoraCart shopping Cart software


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What does Agora get me?
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Post What does Agora get me? 
I'm brand new to this shopping cart stuff, so please bear with me.

I started investigating the Agora cart because my web hosting provider offered it. Then I needed to select a gateway, so I looked at the list of gateways that Agora supported. The one that sounded like the least hassle for a "garage merchant" was 2CheckOut. But when I went to their site to see what they offered, it looked like they offered the whole shebang -- the merchandise database sits at their site, the shopping cart runs at their site, and checkout gets done at their site. Apparently, from everything I can see at their site, I need to maintain my own web site, but not my own shopping cart.

So now I'm wondering -- what does it MEAN to interface Agora to 2CheckOut? What does it buy me? Am I just complicating my life if I use Agora at all?

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hell-o
many online merchant services offer their own solution to shoppingcarts and the ability to make online transactions. the heart of their business is usually online transaction services which can be ported to from a varity of free or cost shoppingcarts. you apparently fell victum to their self promotion and couldn't find the basic service package. it's there someplace.
a general overview is that you sign up with them. usually some upfront fee or charge plus minimum monthly sales or they nick you a few bucks. then there is a transaction percentage fee and a per-transaction fee. you get a username and password to log into your secure account where you set up data according to your account type and other things.
then you configure agoracart to use 2co and any other gateways you'll be using. all gateways require some type of merchant service unless you just have cash, purchase orders or snail mail payments. some people use agoracart for non purchase purposes. they just need it for a dB and maybe to generate some sort of report.
so you have a website and a shoppingcart. when someone buys something the shoppingacart (agoracart) does all the calculations and tracking of products and options and other things. when your customer actually goes to pay they and the data get transfered to 2co or whomever, securely (ssl). there they enter their payment method and when approved all sorts of things happen. they they click back to your website, this is an acceptable method and very secure. this method also absolves you of a lot of responsibility and liability.
whether or not you're complicationg things isn't really the issue. you need to make a choice on their shoppingcart solution or agoracart. it all depends on control. while it is acceptable and secure to complete a transaction remotely it can cause some distress in some prople when they go to a site then enter their shoppingcart at a remote url. this type of thing lends itself to link hyjacking and more issues so be aware of that.
regards,
dan

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I dug further at their site and have found their gateway service. They have a list of shopping carts that they interface to, but they don't mention Agora at all. This troubles me.

My client is technically unsophisticated. If I implement an Agora solution for this client, I'm going to be on the hook for support, and he's not going to be happy about paying for it. My thinking is, the more functionality I can fob off on the gateway provider, the better off I am: he's paying them anyway, so they can deal with him.

Thanks for the pointers.

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hell-o
2co works just fine with agoracart. however, all merchant services (gateways) are limited in what they can do. agoracart does a great job of passing necessary data to emails and the log file. as long as you percieve any gateway soley as a means to facilitate online transactions then they will be fine. many people expect too much from their merchant service as far as their role in data retention, cutomization and what not.
you'll be ok. just install it. be sure to read up al that is here on 2co as it can be persnickity to set up. some gateways are like that. most of their settings have descriptions that apply to their shoppingcarts or other features they offer. trouble is they don't apply to 3rd party shoppingcarts even though the description may sound like something you need. so follow the basic setup instructions only until you can find out what does what.
we aren't listed on thier shopping cart list nor on several merchant service lists. who has time to jump through all the hoops? 2co works and is secure.
regards,
dan

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