There is a short presentation with more information about MultiBitMerchant at:
http://multibit.org/eurobit/MultiBit%20talk.odp
(Open Office format)
Topic: Shopping cart solution needed for my blog (Read 1072 times)
As Jim as stated, MultiBit Merchant is still pre-alpha (Dec 2011) however I'll have some time free in the next few weeks to make some considerable improvements to the codebase. If anyone is interested in just kicking the tyres the source is available on GitHub here: https://github.com/gary-rowe/MultiBitMerchant. I'm aiming for a basic catalog + Bitcoin payment (and supporting security infrastructure) in a few weeks.
The intention is to provide the Bitcoin community with a free and open source implementation of a fully functional online shop with customisable layout and themes. It's never going to compete with the big CRMs out there like Joomla and Drupal, or other online shops like eBay, Shopify and Magento but that's not what it's about. This is to provide people with an easy way to host an online shop without having to endure excessive payment card fees. The main cost you'll have to bear will be hosting costs (it's got to run somewhere 24/7) and the one-off creation of an SSL certificate to reassure customers during the payment process.
If anyone would like to make suggestions about what they would expect from such a shop please get in touch with a PM. I would like this to be community-driven so that the application can have a wide appeal.
The intention is to provide the Bitcoin community with a free and open source implementation of a fully functional online shop with customisable layout and themes. It's never going to compete with the big CRMs out there like Joomla and Drupal, or other online shops like eBay, Shopify and Magento but that's not what it's about. This is to provide people with an easy way to host an online shop without having to endure excessive payment card fees. The main cost you'll have to bear will be hosting costs (it's got to run somewhere 24/7) and the one-off creation of an SSL certificate to reassure customers during the payment process.
If anyone would like to make suggestions about what they would expect from such a shop please get in touch with a PM. I would like this to be community-driven so that the application can have a wide appeal.
Hi film2240,
We are working on a web merchant solution - called MultiBitMerchant to complement the existing MultiBit code. It is still in alpha so is not complete enough for general use yet but it is targeted to what you are after.
I did a demo of it at the EuroBit conference and made a (quite rough!) demo screencast as a backup just in case the network went down or I dropped my laptop 5 minutes beforehand.
Have a look:
http://multibit.org/eurobit/EuroBit_2011_MultiBit%20demo.mp4
It is basically:
a catalog + BTC shopping cart + pay in BTC + confirmation on the website
I will mention this thread to the main developer - Gary Rowe.
We are working on a web merchant solution - called MultiBitMerchant to complement the existing MultiBit code. It is still in alpha so is not complete enough for general use yet but it is targeted to what you are after.
I did a demo of it at the EuroBit conference and made a (quite rough!) demo screencast as a backup just in case the network went down or I dropped my laptop 5 minutes beforehand.
Have a look:
http://multibit.org/eurobit/EuroBit_2011_MultiBit%20demo.mp4
It is basically:
a catalog + BTC shopping cart + pay in BTC + confirmation on the website
I will mention this thread to the main developer - Gary Rowe.
Hi Jim618
That's great.I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.If this works well,then lots more merchants will be receptive to the idea of using BTC as an additional or primary payment method (like in my case BTC is primary method)
Hi film2240,
We are working on a web merchant solution - called MultiBitMerchant to complement the existing MultiBit code. It is still in alpha so is not complete enough for general use yet but it is targeted to what you are after.
I did a demo of it at the EuroBit conference and made a (quite rough!) demo screencast as a backup just in case the network went down or I dropped my laptop 5 minutes beforehand.
Have a look:
http://multibit.org/eurobit/EuroBit_2011_MultiBit%20demo.mp4
It is basically:
a catalog + BTC shopping cart + pay in BTC + confirmation on the website
I will mention this thread to the main developer - Gary Rowe.
We are working on a web merchant solution - called MultiBitMerchant to complement the existing MultiBit code. It is still in alpha so is not complete enough for general use yet but it is targeted to what you are after.
I did a demo of it at the EuroBit conference and made a (quite rough!) demo screencast as a backup just in case the network went down or I dropped my laptop 5 minutes beforehand.
Have a look:
http://multibit.org/eurobit/EuroBit_2011_MultiBit%20demo.mp4
It is basically:
a catalog + BTC shopping cart + pay in BTC + confirmation on the website
I will mention this thread to the main developer - Gary Rowe.
I'm in the process of implementing it.Tried it on the blog as it just shows random code instead of the shop like I expected meaning that the blog isn't working with javascript I think.I'll try it one more time on another host.I just cant get this solution to work.
Merchants like me who are relatively inexperienced have trouble with these types of things.I tried to learn how but I just can't understand it tbh.The host I'm using offers premade apps for google merchant and paypal merchant.If something can be built like that,I'll be happy to pay a dev (not right then as I'll need to raise funds first as he develops)
Since I find most of these things too complex for me,I'll give up trying to add BTC cart on my site and go back to 'conventional methods' even though it comes with the type of paperwork I'd rather avoid,but it's not worth sacrificing reliability and ease of use just for some beliefs to conduct business sorry.
I've tried several solutions and they've all let me down.The web based ones don't stay up for long,have serious reliability issues and the ones that are reliable are too complex to setup so it's made BTC acceptance more fristrating and not worth my time as that could be spent making my films better.My BTC experience has been soured by things like this.If people want BTC to be used more widely then maybe they should focus more on how to develop the easiest to setup and use shop features that can be accepted on a wide range of platforms.The 2nd host I'm using is http://members.webs.com/s/webs/.They offer premade shopping carts that are a 1 click experience on their websites which is why I used them to replace the shop part of my blog.It goes like this,1 click install then add account details (or just btc address in my case since I want a BTC accepting version of this cart)
Maybe the guys behind multicoin can help me with this as they got the simplicity/reliability/speed right,just needs to be adapted a little for the purposes I need it for.
Bitcoin acceptance is only for the donate and like the article features at present on my blog,where people pay by QR code thanks for the guys behind multicoin client.
I can't do coding or website setup of any kind (I just end up relying on the easy setup options for my blog with some customisations),I'm just a filmmaker/tech enthusiast (who just uses and knows about gadgets to a great depth)/artist.
That's my feedback.
Merchants like me who are relatively inexperienced have trouble with these types of things.I tried to learn how but I just can't understand it tbh.The host I'm using offers premade apps for google merchant and paypal merchant.If something can be built like that,I'll be happy to pay a dev (not right then as I'll need to raise funds first as he develops)
Since I find most of these things too complex for me,I'll give up trying to add BTC cart on my site and go back to 'conventional methods' even though it comes with the type of paperwork I'd rather avoid,but it's not worth sacrificing reliability and ease of use just for some beliefs to conduct business sorry.
I've tried several solutions and they've all let me down.The web based ones don't stay up for long,have serious reliability issues and the ones that are reliable are too complex to setup so it's made BTC acceptance more fristrating and not worth my time as that could be spent making my films better.My BTC experience has been soured by things like this.If people want BTC to be used more widely then maybe they should focus more on how to develop the easiest to setup and use shop features that can be accepted on a wide range of platforms.The 2nd host I'm using is http://members.webs.com/s/webs/.They offer premade shopping carts that are a 1 click experience on their websites which is why I used them to replace the shop part of my blog.It goes like this,1 click install then add account details (or just btc address in my case since I want a BTC accepting version of this cart)
Maybe the guys behind multicoin can help me with this as they got the simplicity/reliability/speed right,just needs to be adapted a little for the purposes I need it for.
Bitcoin acceptance is only for the donate and like the article features at present on my blog,where people pay by QR code thanks for the guys behind multicoin client.
I can't do coding or website setup of any kind (I just end up relying on the easy setup options for my blog with some customisations),I'm just a filmmaker/tech enthusiast (who just uses and knows about gadgets to a great depth)/artist.
That's my feedback.
Hi
Since I've seen the ease of use for adding recieve and send BTC addresses for people who wish to donate to my blog or like an article.I wish to now take this to the next step in making my blog fully BTC friendly.
Steps taken so far:
1.Add QR code to ease the BTC donate system
2.Wrote a clear guide linking to the relevant video introducing BTC and showing how they work
3.Plans have been 50% for adding a shop like feature to the blog so that customers can actually browse products as well as just buying them.
2 stumbling blocks remain for me:
1.Wordpress.com doesn't seem to like/let me running non HTML code for embedding most currently available solutions for BTC acceptance.
1b.Whenever a new page is create on wordpress,it doesn't let me post only to that page and instead clutters up my homepage (not user friendly or tidy) so I'm looking for someone to create a professional interface webpage which I can then self host on another provider (after being linked from by main blog)
2.All the shopping cart solutions that take BTC are too complicated (require adding PHP,and other code that my blog just doesn't seem to like) or are unreliable (as certain solutions go offline for good after a while like www.base2shop.com has now or suffer other problems like login issues with no remedy on bitcoinservices.co.uk and my product links becoming dead after uploading as reported by a tester who visited my blog the other day)
The things I require in the shopping cart solution are:
1.Simple to setup (and must not require coding beyond HTML or other complex procedures,client side server side,e.t.c)
2.Reliable
3.Must be able to take payment that is sent straight to my BTC address like the Multicoin client does for me whenever a QR code is scanned and hte person pays up.The QR codes and management of BTC addresses and items is good.I just need a shopping cart solution that can tap into that potential and give me funds straight to my computer and not a 3rd party server as I risk losing money that way.
5.Must only let customers pay a set price for the item in question as with the Multicoin solution,the customer can decide how much to pay instead of following the price that's set by me.
If this solution doesn't yet exist,can it please be developed by people who know about creating these types of things. When this project is finished successfully with the help of you guys,I'll make sure my shop is open and start conducting business through there as my way of saying thanks (12bvFTAebmVcYTkKjWYcBo8nsGTnA6Dt1E.It's here if you wish to use it).If the created system works well,be sure to say thanks as well so I know what's working and what isn't.
Thanks
Since I've seen the ease of use for adding recieve and send BTC addresses for people who wish to donate to my blog or like an article.I wish to now take this to the next step in making my blog fully BTC friendly.
Steps taken so far:
1.Add QR code to ease the BTC donate system
2.Wrote a clear guide linking to the relevant video introducing BTC and showing how they work
3.Plans have been 50% for adding a shop like feature to the blog so that customers can actually browse products as well as just buying them.
2 stumbling blocks remain for me:
1.Wordpress.com doesn't seem to like/let me running non HTML code for embedding most currently available solutions for BTC acceptance.
1b.Whenever a new page is create on wordpress,it doesn't let me post only to that page and instead clutters up my homepage (not user friendly or tidy) so I'm looking for someone to create a professional interface webpage which I can then self host on another provider (after being linked from by main blog)
2.All the shopping cart solutions that take BTC are too complicated (require adding PHP,and other code that my blog just doesn't seem to like) or are unreliable (as certain solutions go offline for good after a while like www.base2shop.com has now or suffer other problems like login issues with no remedy on bitcoinservices.co.uk and my product links becoming dead after uploading as reported by a tester who visited my blog the other day)
The things I require in the shopping cart solution are:
1.Simple to setup (and must not require coding beyond HTML or other complex procedures,client side server side,e.t.c)
2.Reliable
3.Must be able to take payment that is sent straight to my BTC address like the Multicoin client does for me whenever a QR code is scanned and hte person pays up.The QR codes and management of BTC addresses and items is good.I just need a shopping cart solution that can tap into that potential and give me funds straight to my computer and not a 3rd party server as I risk losing money that way.
5.Must only let customers pay a set price for the item in question as with the Multicoin solution,the customer can decide how much to pay instead of following the price that's set by me.
If this solution doesn't yet exist,can it please be developed by people who know about creating these types of things. When this project is finished successfully with the help of you guys,I'll make sure my shop is open and start conducting business through there as my way of saying thanks (12bvFTAebmVcYTkKjWYcBo8nsGTnA6Dt1E.It's here if you wish to use it).If the created system works well,be sure to say thanks as well so I know what's working and what isn't.
Thanks
Jump to: