should i create a subdomain?

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should i create a subdomain?

brnm98105

6:00 pm on Oct 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

I have a 2 part question.

1. I have a site www.mysite.com that is for our local area residents to see our products. We receive lots of traffic that is outside of our local area that we cannot service due to the size and shipping of most of our inventory. There are a few other products that we carry and can ship however. Ive been struggling with thsi for a while now since i dont want to just make a few prodcuts to have "buy now" buttons nex to them and others not to. I think that would frustrate clients. I'm thinking of creating a subdomain onlinestore.mysite.com. and using that to create a new site set up with "Paypal"

What are your thoughts? subdomain, paypal?

Part 2. My host says that I can set up a subdomain with an htaccess file. Which I know little to nothing about.

Any help appreciated.

homeless

7:05 pm on Oct 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

IMHO, if your current site is working fine and PayPal is working fine, you need to keep everything as is and find a way to "pre-screen" your customers by zip code. Geo-location won't work because your customers can order from 1000 miles away but need you to deliver accross the street.

I'm assuming this is based on FedEx/UPS/USPS/etc. weight/size limits.

The best scenario would be to move away from buy now buttons and investigate shopping carts. PayPal can point you in that direction. You then need to *tweak* the cart to only *allow* certain zips for specific products and allow any zip for all other products.

If you want to stick with buy now buttons, you could try to do this PayPal button -> prescreen zip script (only for large items) -> PayPal.com, however, check with PayPal 1st to determine if you are going to break their terms by doing this.

I would also put some verbage on your product pages (for large items) alerting customers that the product has a limited shipping area and state what the delivery area is.

Also, if your large items can be shipped freight or ltl, why not take that route. But once again, you will need to pre-screen for the dual/multiple levels of charges.

Anyway, a subdomain will just make things more confusing for your customer. If you're getting decent traffic, why lose it. How would you know which customers to redirect to a subdomain? How would they get there? Also, even with a subdomain, you will still need to pre-screen your customers before they pay.

I pre-screen by country. If a shipping address does not/will not contain a certain country, I just stop the transaction before the charge is finalized.

brnm98105

9:05 pm on Oct 26, 2008 (gmt 0)

Thanks for your advice. My site has over 450 pages and only 5 pages have products that can be shipped. Wouldnt that confuse the customers who kept looking for products we carry that can be shipped.

Would a bright link on every page work to direct customers to the page where the products I can ship are work?