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Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

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Re: Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

#21

Post by AJSturrock »

jordanlev wrote: post #19

2 questions: How does this compare to existing eCommerce back-ends like SnipCart, Ecwid, Foxycart? And: I presume your service requires javascript to function (as all of the similar services do)... any chance of providing a non-javascript fallback such as a generic-looking checkout page hosted on your own servers (like when you use a paypal button to send users to their site to complete the final step of the transact…

Firstly we’ve looked at all of these options and as developers got pretty excited by their potential. The problem was that we found them to all be lacking in some degree, Snipcart is only for the most basic ecommerce, Ecwid is focused more on widgets, and Foxycart requires you to use their hosted checkout.

Secondly every member of our team has been in a position at some point in their working lives where we’ve had to build applications that support all manor of strange legacy requests. We completely understand.

Yes, if you use our javascript SDK with the API, you would require javascript for it to work. That said, you could take the backend approach and then there would be no issues with supporting older clients or applications as it would all be handled by the servers.

We have been thinking about adding a hosted checkout page for exactly the reason you describe. it would probably be an option so that you can either use a hosted checkout page quickly, or if you want more control you can use one of our SDKs and build your own checkout.

Thanks for wishing us luck!

Re: Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

#22

Post by jordanlev »

thasmin wrote: post #20
jordanlev wrote: post #19

2 questions: How does this compare to existing eCommerce back-ends like SnipCart, Ecwid, Foxycart? And: I presume your service requires javascript to function (as all of the similar services do)... any chance of providing a non-javascript fallback such as a generic-looking checkout page hosted on your own servers (like when you use a paypal button to send users to their site to complete the final step of the transact…

The website has PHP and curl examples.

Ah, I see... so actually this is a big distinguishing factor that separates this from the other services I mentioned! Looking forward to playing around with this.

Re: Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

#23

Post by ngoel36 »

The pricing confuses me a bit - as a user, I would have very little sense as to how many API requests or how much storage I would need for an eCommerce app. Why not price simply as a percentage of all processed transactions (in addition to the payment gateway commission, of course)

Re: Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

#24

Post by AJSturrock »

ngoel36 wrote: post #23

The pricing confuses me a bit - as a user, I would have very little sense as to how many API requests or how much storage I would need for an eCommerce app. Why not price simply as a percentage of all processed transactions (in addition to the payment gateway commission, of course)

There’s two reasons behind the way we’ve structured our pricing:

Firstly you can very easily circumvent our checkout flow as we don’t lock you into using the entire system, we could therefore be supporting a large store and never receive a payment.

Secondly we see transaction fees as penalising you for selling well. It’s tough to push a product when gateways already charge for payments. A combined total of 5%+ for every order would be difficult for store owners to swallow.

We decided that offering a free tier and flat monthly fees for our paid users would be more acceptable. As a user you know exactly what you will be charged for each month.

Thanks for the feedback though, we’ll see what we can do to explain API requests and storage better.

Re: Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

#27

Post by jHoldroyd »

jordanlev wrote: post #22
thasmin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The website has PHP and curl examples.

Ah, I see... so actually this is a big distinguishing factor that separates this from the other services I mentioned! Looking forward to playing around with this.

Great, if you need anything or have any feedback we're always available on livechat or support@moltin.com

Re: Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

#29

Post by jHoldroyd »

bikamonki wrote: post #28

Do you support non-US businesses? Payments in particular. For example: send all collected payments to a Paypal account.

Yes we do, we support over 50 payment gateways with more on the way. You can see the complete list here - https://moltin.com/faq#gateways

Re: Show HN: Moltin – eCommerce Back End as a Service

#30

Post by bikamonki »

jordanlev wrote: post #19

2 questions: How does this compare to existing eCommerce back-ends like SnipCart, Ecwid, Foxycart? And: I presume your service requires javascript to function (as all of the similar services do)... any chance of providing a non-javascript fallback such as a generic-looking checkout page hosted on your own servers (like when you use a paypal button to send users to their site to complete the final step of the transact…

Have you tried a proxy approach with node.js? I have done this twice already when using baas solutions.
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