How do I collect payment for things not in my shop?

[scrums]

Hi all,

I don't even have a phone line, let alone facilities for taking credit cards in my workshop/gallery. What I was wondering .....is there any way that I can set up a page within Zencart where a real live customer, rather than a 'virtual' customer can go home, get on the web, input the price for something they want and pay via paypal?

I figure that I could put in a 'private sale' somewhere for the requisite amount - but that's not really what I want.

Any ideas?

Chris.

[DrByte]

You could create a product and call it something like "Custom Work", and give it a price of $1.
Then the customer can enter a quantity equivalent to the price they wish to pay, and checkout.

Or, since you're using PayPal, they could go to the PayPal website and click Send Money and enter your PayPal email address to send you money. They will have to create a PayPal account to do that (at no cost to them).

Or, you could go to your PayPal account, and click the Request Money tab and enter the person's email address. They'll get a message asking them to go to PayPal and send you money.

[scrums]

Thanks DrByte - option a is the one for me.....nice bit of logical thinking.....why didn't I do it?

That way they don't have to be paypal members.

Cheers,

Chris.

[swguy]

If you get a merchant account, you can start accepting credit card payments right away (a la Dr. Byte, where they put in a multiple of $1 for the price). It costs a couple of %, but it's money you wouldn't have gotten without a merchant acct. so it's well worth paying imho.

Good luck,
Scott