Frequently Asked Questions

So how does this whole PayPal / Rapidweaver / PayLoom thing work to provide a shopping cart?

It's really pretty simple

1. 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.
2. Rapidweaver is the popular, easy to use (and might we add, really a great deal at only $49US), 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.
3. 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 two 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.

   For a great video tutorial of PayLoom, check out: http://www.yourhead.com/PayLoom_HD.mov

Why can I have only two product options?

Unfortunately, PayPal only supports two option types. There is no way PayLoom can support more option types until PayPal does.

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's product setup allows you to enter a tax rate - if you enter a tax rate here, it will ALWAYS be applied. 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 setup shipping rates?

There are two ways to establish shipping rates - you can specify item-by-item rates in PayLoom, or you can establish site-wide rates in your PayPal Profile. When using PayLoom, you can establish a shipping cost for the first item, then a second shipping cost for additional units of the same item. For example, $5 for the first item and then $2 for each additional unit of the SAME product. This may not be flexible enough for some users, so it's worth checking out the shipping options available in PayPal - a fairly advanced shipping calculator is available which allows you to establish rates by region (international or domestic). Note that you'll need to use either the Rates Based On Order Amount or Rates Based On Order Quantity if you use the PayPal shipping calculations.

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 a feature under the Images tab in the PayLoom Page Inspector - once you get your image looking as desired, click the Use This Style For All Products button to apply the settings you've specified to all items.

Can I use any RapidWeaver theme with PayLoom?

PayLoom supports most RapidWeaver 3.5 and 3.6 themes. If you are using a 3.5 theme, the theme must support the RapidWeaver 3.5 theme tag of . If you're not sure, contact your theme developer and see if they've upgraded the theme for v3.6 compatibility. Most 3.6 themes will work just fine.

How can I sell downloadable content such as images or audio files?

Unfortunately, the sale of downloadable content isn't something that PayPal.com supports as part of their shopping cart - since PayLoom is a plugin for the PayPal shopping cart, it can't support this either.

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.

When I switch my layout to Grid view, all my Add to Cart buttons disappear.

When in grid view, the Add to Cart buttons are moved to the Detailed view. This helps keep the grid uniformly spaces.

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.