The Fleapay Blog

One advantage of using Fleapay is that you don't have to purchase and install an SSL certificate; it's built into your cart. 

In the past, we've secured our users' carts with GoDaddy SSL certificates. Problem is, we don't like GoDaddy. In fact, we kinda hate them. It's not just because their CEO hunts elephants or that their Super Bowl ads are a tad sexist; it's that their service and support are terrible. So we're done with them. And so are you.

We're pleased to announce that we're now using Digicert for encryption. Digicert is U.S.-based, a WebTrust-Certified SSL Certificate Authority and a BBB member. Most importantly, they are not GoDaddy.

So... you might notice a new seal at the bottom of your cart - nothing else will change for your Fleapay account. Looks like this:

The landscape of e-commerce and shopping carts becomes more and more cluttered every day. Every shopping cart adds new features that supposedly make your life simpler and e-commerce easier. But are those features really making implementation easier for designers and developers?

We're not convinced. And we're striking back with our shopping cart by striking a balance that's both simple and sophisticated. We're founded on the notion of simplicity, and we stick to it.

Most products are either a single checkout page or a complete shopping cart, but very few are both — and even fewer offer all that and incorporate your own business logic.

So if you use Authorize.net, you probably know about Simple Checkout. Or maybe it's what you're currently using for a shopping cart. 

You probably also know about its limitations. 

• Customers can't have multiple items in their cart.
• Customers can't 'Continue shopping' and get back to your website
• No branding, thus you can't add your logo
• No mobile compatibility

Fleapay, a certified Authorize.net shopping cart, has the simplicity and ease of Simple Checkout but without the limitations. Users can add multiple items or donations to Fleapay carts. They can hit the back button (or 'Continue shopping' link) to go back to your website after adding an item to their cart. And adding a logo to your cart is super easy. We're also 100% PCI compliant.

So if you're looking for an alternative to Simple Checkout, or just getting started with selling online, try out Fleapay for free.

Photo Credit

The purpose of sourcing sales is to determine the location of the sale for sales tax purposes. If a sale is taxable, the sourcing of the sale will depend on whether or not your business is located in an origin-based state or destination based state. Sales tax sourcing becomes extremely important for e-commerce transactions that are shipped to other locations. When you ship a product to another address, the knowledge of your tax rules becomes very important in both the sales tax calculation and when completing your tax returns.

What sales tax rate do I charge my customers?
If you're business is in an origin-based state, you are required to collect sales taxes for all of your sales.

What is destination-based sales tax?
A destination-based state does not have to collect sales tax on sales that are shipped out-of-state. Retailers who ship product to an address within their state must collect sales tax at the rate of the address to which the product is being shipped. Most states use destination-based sales tax.

What is origin-based sales tax?
Where products that are shipped to the customer are taxed based on the location of the business itself.

For example, if the location of the company selling the product has a 6.5% tax rate then all shipments within that state are taxed at 6.5%, regardless of the tax rate at the location where the product is being shipped.

What states use origin-based sales tax?
Only a few states have origin-based laws, As of this writing, these states are:

Arizona
California
Illinois
Mississippi
Missouri
New Mexico
Pennsylvania
Texas
Utah
Virginia

What states do NOT require the collection of a sales tax?
Alaska
Delaware
New Hampshire
Oregon

Can Fleapay figure this stuff out for me?
Yes. In fact, we can and do. We determine if you're a origin, destination or tax-free based state. We then calculate the sales tax based on store location, customer location and if your state requires shipping to be taxed.

For more information on your states general sales tax rates, check out sales taxes in the United States.

See you there. Follow @fleapayapp and @fsimmons to say hi.

Today I walked into another business in our building to schedule an appointment.  They say, let me check to make sure we your information on file, quickly repeating my home address, credit card number, expiration date, etc... It quickly occurs to me they have our credit card stored in their CRM database. I inform them, you know, you are really not supposed to store credit cards like that.  They reply, "it's secure". After doing a quick audit of the site, I realize, it's absolutely not. No SSL. No encryption. Plain text storage of our vital information! 

As more consumers use plastic to pay for smaller purchases, countless mom-and-pop shops and restaurateurs are running afoul of rules designed to protect people's personal data. Small businesses have proven ill-prepared for the complexities of safeguarding credit-card information. According to Visa, more than 80% of the instances of unauthorized access to card data have involved small merchants. These businesses account for 85% of the seven million locations nationwide that accept plastic. 

All merchants are supposed to follow card-industry rules to prevent account information from falling into the wrong hands. Many small merchants aren't even aware that the rules exist. The industry has generally focused on larger retailers. For instance, big merchants face fines of $25,000 a month for noncompliance.

If you're storing your customers credit card information anywhere other than your credit card processing software, please STOP! Utilize the tools made available by your merchant provider or software partners, such as a virtual terminal or online store, You are making your customer vulnerable to identity theft and credit card theft.

Thanks to Robin Sidel of the WSJ for this information.

Hey,

Come check Fleapay out at TechWeek/mvLAUNCH next Monday, July 25. We've got a tabletop in the demo pit and will be there to answer questions, hand out schwag and demo our shopping cart app.

We'll also be at WordCamp, an event we're sponsoring because we're releasing a Wordpress plugin (which is huge).

-- Fred & Zach

Huge Improvement. Still working it into all our layouts, icons and avatars. 

Celebrate milestones, right?

Over $300,000 has been processed through Fleapay shopping carts so far. Not bad:)

A huge thanks to our customers and congrats on collectively selling $300k worth of stuff!