Microsoft Office Live Small Business Community

Can anyone tell me if I am required to purchase store manager to have my website on line?  I sell products and have all the PayPal buttons on my site.  Someone said if I didn't buy Store Manager I wouldn't be able to go online or sell anything from my site.  Is this right?  If so, I think the Microsoft people have mislead me and others.  Thanks for your help.

I am a Microsoft People :)

 No; you are not required to buy Store Manager to have a website; we hope you do, but only if/when it becomes convenient for you.

Technically that is right, you can't sell items with Office Live unless you use store manager.  But, you can use third party apps to sell items.

Thank you for this information. 

I've got my web page linked to PayPal and then to my PayPal business account.  My webpage in OL is communicating with PayPal both in send and receive.  The testing I've done going through the net has allowed me to purchase a product from my website and pay for it through PayPal and the flow through seems to be working without a flaw.  It this what you mean by third party application?

Thanks.

Lion in the Son.

Hi lionintheson,

I have a PayPal business account as you do, and it works out just fine on my website. I don't have a huge inventory, so its not hard to keep track of whats being ordered and sold. People order through my PayPal shopping cart and make a secure payment through PayPal, then PayPal sends me the information, I confirm their order and send it off to them. Works just fine, and its free :). Its nice to have the Store Manager option, but this is fine for now..

http://gypsyribbons.com

Thanks for the info Gypssy.  I had suspected the web site/PayPal set up would work just find but people kept directing me towards Store Manager so I just had to ask.  I've looked at strore manager and even signed up an account, which I later cancelled.  One thing I found out that will benefit you and your decisions later........when you have a Store Manager account, the API address and access at PayPal becomes strmgr_1@microsoft.com or something very close.  This of course means that Microsoft Store Manager then is in the send/receive position for confirmation to and from PayPal.  Now, that's good and maybe not.  I believe Microsoft has all we "Freebies" sharing a server and while I understand doing that, it means that potentially some of the send/receive isn't as secure as it might be.  Just food for thought for you and others.  Personally I have always liked and used Microsoft and will continue and from past experience with them if a probelm did arise, they would quickly address the issue.

Thanks again for confirming what I thought I knew.

Lion in the Son.

Sorry if it's a stupid question but is it possible to advertise products on different pages without purchasing Store Manager. I was going to go for Store Manager but I looked at the costs and it was just too much. Looking at other alternatives, I found PayPal is the best solution.

You can get free OLXT-SM ( Store Manager ) free at http://olxt.com/storemanagerfree.aspx

OLXT

PayPal was working for us, but it was a nightmare to keep things straight.  Due to the economy, the Microsoft Store Manager is not currently within our budget.

We now use the PAID version of the OLXT-SM solution and most of our nightmares have gone away.  We're almost finished with the Terrastones project and are currently working on the RixStix implementation.

Rick,

Thanks for the feedback and sharing your success store.

OLXT

Hie

I am trying to set up the store manager has anyone using this version have a complete page with prices and images set up.  The default setting is asking to install pictures from a website and I dont have pictures in website but in my image gallery.