PayLoom
( RapidWeaver Plugin )
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I Register my copy of PayLoom?
To register your plugin, add a PayLoom page to your RapidWeaver site file. Click on the Page Inspector. Click Registration at the bottom. Enter the serial number, then close the page inspector.
So how does this whole PayPal / Rapidweaver / PayLoom thing work to provide a shopping cart?
- PayPal provides a shopping cart system based on the PayPal payment system. You obviously need a PayPal account to get started. Bad news is, WITHOUT Rapidweaver and PayLoom, it's not very easy to setup products and make items available within the PayPal cart - you have to mess with copying bits of html code generated by PayPal into your html documents, manually size and place images, the whole 9 yards. That's where PayLoom and Rapidweaver come in to make things very easy.
- Rapidweaver is the popular, easy to use Mac OS X application that allows you to create quick and professional looking web pages using templates and a drag and drop content management setup. With Rapidweaver, you can quickly create your entire site - including for example, your Terms of Sale, About your Company, FAQ, a photo gallery, instructional content, links toproduct relavent resourses such as message boards, blogs, enthusiast sites, etc. Basically all of your content EXCEPT for the actual products and buy-now buttons. Now this is where PayLoom comes in.
- PayLoom is a plug-in for Rapidweaver that allows you to create a new type of page - a PayLoom Product Page. Simply add a new page to your Rapidweaver site and select the PayLoom page type. The PayLoom page allows you to drop in product images, setup a product part number, price, shipping rate and any tax you many need to charge. You can also setup multiple product option types (ie, Size and Color), and control how your image is displayed. Now you're ready to preview your site in Rapidweaver and then publish it to your webhost. Your entire site and product catalog will be presented in your selected Rapidweaver theme and you now have a really professional looking site and online catalog powered behind the scenes by your PayPal cart.
How many product options can I have
PayLoom 2 supports multiple product options as well as price overrides based on option. Price overrides allow you to alter a product's price based on user input. For example, you could vary pricing based on a product's size or color.
Can I sell downloadable products?
PayLoom alone does not allow the sale of digital products however vesion 2 now has support for users of Linklok digital delivery system. See: http://www.vibralogix.com/linklokipn/index.php
I'm not located in the US, can I use PayLoom to sell products?
PayLoom supports multiple currencies and languages.
US Dollar (USD)
British Pound (GBP)
Canadian Dollar (CAD)
Euro (EUR)
Japanese Yen (JPY)
Australian Dollar (AUD)
Swiss Franc (CHF)
Czech Koruna (CZK)
Danish Krone (DKK)
Hong Kong Dollar (HKD)
Hungarian Forint (HUF)
Norwegian Krone (NOK)
New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
Polish Zloty (PLY)
Swedish Krona (SEK)
Singapore Dollar (SGD)
Note that the currency setting sets the currency for YOUR shopping cart. Users with PayPal accounts in other currencies will still be able to pay you - PayPal handles the currency conversion.
How do I manage my PayPal Cart profile?
This needs to be done before I setup my cart right?
Many aspects of your PayPal Cart are configured by logging into your PayPal account and navigating to: Profile -> Selling Preferences. In this menu, you can configure Sales Tax, Shipping rules, payment noficiation preferences, and give some customization to the checkout pages that your customers see.
How does PayLoom handle Sales Tax?
PayLoom offers two methods of charging Sales Tax. PayLoom's product setup allows you to enter a tax amount - if you enter a tax amount here, it will ALWAYS be applied. This amount is entered in currency form - it is NOT a calculation, rather a flat amount to add as tax. If you only need to charge sales tax in certain regions, you can create a Sales Tax Profile within your PayPal Profile. This is generally recommended. Note that if you enter a value for tax within the PayLoom page, it will override your PayPal setting.
How do I create Product Categories and Subcategories
Creating categories is as simple as creating new pages within Rapidweaver. For Example, if you let's say we want to sell books. We want to first divide things up by cover - hardback and softcover. Add two new Styled Text pages to your site. Name one Hardcover and the next Softback. Making your main category page a Styled Text page gives you freeform "landing page" that you can use as an intro page to describe the types of products in this category or provide sample images. Now make a new page nested under Hardcover called First Editions - choose PayLoom as the page type. Make another one called LeatherBound - this will be a PayLoom page also. These two pages will be the pages where you add products. Essentially you've just used Rapidweaver pages to create Main Product Categories, and then place products in specific subcategories.
How can I keep things uniform so that all my products look the same?
To simplify the process of making your product presentation uniform we've added page-wide image preferences to the PayLoom plugin. - Click on Image Prefs and set the desired image components. These settings will be applied to all images on your page. Be sure to setup the Image Prefs the same on each individual PayLoom page on your site.
Can I use any RapidWeaver them with PayLoom?
Most RW 3.6+ themes should work just fine. But we encourage you to download the trial version and test it out with the theme you plan to use. PayLoom does use javascript, such as Fancybox, which may not work with themes containing conflicting scripts. Download the trial and give it a try.
Can't I just use PayPal Buttons with RapidWeaver?
Yes, that's the most basic way of integrating a PayPal shopping cart into your site - however, PayLoom makes the whole process much easier - no more messing with html snippets, manually creating button links. PayLoom also lets you easily drag/drop item images and descriptions and places them in a store format for you. No more need to go to PayPal's site every time you want to add a product - simply do it all in PayLoom.
Can I present my items in a grid on a PayLoom page?
Yes, but how you'll implement this varies by the body content width of your theme. PayLoom will automatically flow products to accomodate the width allowed by the theme. The default product listing width is 300 pixels. If you'd like to display products in a grid, try reducing your thumnail image sizes and product listing width (Page Inspector -> Style tab). Alternately if your theme supports variable widths, you might want to increase page width to achieve more columns in your grid.
How do I track inventory?
The old fashioned way. Paypal doesn't offer any tracking ability and your RapidWeaver pages can not automatically be updated when an item's sold out. You'll have to manually keep an eye on your inventory and update your Rapidweaver site when items are added/sold-out.
Does PayLoom support coupons or discount codes?
Unfortunately PayPal Shopping Cart does not support discount/coupon codes at checkout. You might want to checkout our CartLoom service. Same ease-of-use as PayLoom but a cart with many more options than PayPal's..
What Format does my CSV File need to have?
Instead of telling you, I will show you. Here are three exanmples you can reference when creating your own CSV file.
As a Google Document: Click Here
In Excel Format: Click Here
In CSV Format: Click Here