Searching for the Right Payment Service

Initially, I planned on using Paypal to handle all the payment processes for Pixel Petunia. Last week, I did some research on their shopping cart and found one lacking detail that made me change my mind – no automated delivery of content to the buyer.

When you buy a game online from your usual portal site, you receive an email confirmation of the order, your invoice and links and info on where to download the game, who to contact for help, and so on. I was hoping to find a similar system set up when using Paypal’s shopping cart but that was not the case.

I have considered other services like Plimus and BMTmicro but they specifically deal with software and what I will be providing is not software. Quite a quandary. This left me with one other option and that is Lulu. Lulu is a self-publishing  service that initially was made for the production of books but has expanded to include other material goods like calendars and cds and non-material  (or intangible) goods as ebooks and other  downloadable content.

What’s great about Lulu is that all files are stored with them and when someone orders a file, it will automatically be sent to the purchaser. Download links will be kept in their account for a certain time period until it expires.

What I don’t like as much is that buyers will have to sign up with Lulu to buy items plus with a 20% fee on all goods sold regardless of price, it cuts into my profit margin much more significantly than Paypal would. But for convenience for myself and my customers, I will have to set up with Lulu.

Now to see if they have a shopping cart I can set up… :keeps fingers crossed: