The dreaded 'S' word Shopping carts ! on your website

English: Shopping cart. Português: Carrinho de supermercado. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

         So  you had a few direct sales and sales via your exhibitions and before you knew it people wanted to know whether you accepted credit cards. Well lets face it, its the easiest way to buy anything online these days.Well I recently had the same query and was all gung-ho about 'growing up' and getting me a shopping cart !
Well I found its not as easy as it sounds, first there are so many payment gateways ( that's what they are called) that you need to wade through all of them and their terminology. Then once you have narrowed them down you need to go through their requirements of you.These are mostly documents from the government and residential info and stuff that proves you actually are a legitimate business.  And you can forget banks cause they actually require you to have a very large turnover.

Now I am not naming names here nor am I complaining as the institutions are simply following rules set by the authorities and nor is this a how to on integrating shopping carts. Just stating my experience.
So this little jewellery artist will not be adding a shopping cart soon but will continue to use 'Pay-Pal' for online sales and I am thinking of adding their buttons to my website :)

What experiences have you had and what service would u suggest, do drop a line.