While I did not find exactly what I was looking for in terms of adding a PayPal shopping cart to an XSitePro created site it did become obvious that for someone who wanted to sell ebooks or any kind of downloadable material it would be really slick.
A couple of years ago when I first started exploring the idea of selling reports online there was a system called the $7 report system getting a lot of promotion. The author had figured out $7 was a price point with little sales resistance and was promoting a system to write and sell these kinds of reports. We toyed with the idea but part of the reason we never went far with it was because the process of making your reports available for easy download we difficult.
XSitePro has a membership site with several videos, one of which shows exactly how to use one of their wizards to set up a system to sell online reports like this. I have not personally tested it, but it seems very straightforward to set up and the process requires no technical knowledge.
For someone who wants to try writing and selling digital products this would be a really easy way to set up your distribution system.
Their membership site indicated they were working on a video to show how to set up an actual PayPal shopping cart, but this won't be as simple. As soon as you start getting into all the choices required to make a viable shopping cart the process is bound to get complicated.
I think this makes a nice illustration of working within the design constraints of the software you buy. This system was designed for buyers with zero technical skill. If what the buyer wants to do was included in the system design parameters, sell digital copies of reports for example, it will work really well.
If the user knows more and wants something more elaborate, which is outside the design parameters, it can probably be done, but at the price of more complexity. It always comes down to trade offs. The question you need to ask is if you need the additional complexity. When I ask myself that question I frequently find the answer is no. I would be better off going with a simple system I could get running quickly. Frequently features I am sure I will need turn out not to be that important.
