I have been playing with the idea of creating some kind of directory on one of my sites. I just want to provide the option for people to post their links/ads where the products are actually sold (since I am not an e-commerce site). I don't really need a full blown directory so what is the best way to do this? What are the US legal issues (would I need a business license of some kind if I sell links on my site)? What is the best and easiest way to handle payment options? I know you guys will have the best insights so thanks in advance.
PayPal is the best option for handling payments, they are the most comon processor for directories and submitters are used to paying through them. As far as US and business, I can only guess that you would need to keep some form of record. You might be better off asking that question in the legal section of the forum... unless someone from the US would like to shed some light.... As far as the best way, I presume you mean software... as it is only a basic requirement I would recommend the free version of phpLD as it has all the features you would need and it is lightweight on the admin side compared to the paid version of the script. HTH
don't really understand what you mean about posting their link/ads to where the products are actually sold. How is that different from a normal directory?
Basically I have an information site about certain products. I would also like to provide visitors with links to sites where they can actually buy these products. Each product will have a page for "good places to buy" that product. Other site owners can pay to put either a text ad there or an image ad on that page. Hope that makes more sense.
ah.... creative idea. So its more an advertising site than a directory. It will actually be very similar to many of those shopping portals wouldnt it?
depending on exactly what you want / how big you want to take it you could for example place in your left / or right column a table and title it shop here or similar then place text links into the table. you could build a seperate page ( with a link from your description / main page ) then as above build a table but centre it giving more layout and room. These two options would target specific to your display page. If you wanted to go bigger then you would need the basic templates as described and probably some design work to tie a theme in with your site so it flowed together and seemed like one unit. Over and above that for the big time you may go the full hog and custom build a site to meet your needs. For payment options, pay pal as suggested or another option that may work is the new google payout option, this can be connected to a shopping cart but if you do not have a cart there is an option to just build a pay button that links straight to your account, so if all links were say $xyz then you may not need a cart and use the buy now option. http://checkout.google.com/seller/integrate_buynow.html
My understanding (I'm not a lawyer or an accountant) of the tax consequences of selling advertising would be that it is simply income. In some ways it is like the tip income of waiters and waitresses - you're on your honor to report it. I seem to recall somewhere that there was talk of PayPal reporting transaction to the IRS - don't remember if anything came of that or not. As to the set up of your site, if I were doing it, I would simply add the links by hand. It sounds like you already have a more traditional site and simply want to put paid advertisements on the pages. I think a full-fledged directory might be overkill - you would have to add all of your existing content into the database and work on keeping the URLS consistent with what you already have. If, you haven't started yet, directory software would be a good choice to build the site. All of the major directory programs (names left out to keep this thread on topic) have payment options built in which would make that part easier as well as the advertisers would be able to provide their own pitch. Maintenance would be much easier for you over doing it by hand or even through a CMS system. I think your concept is spot on - advertising rather than 'directory'. IMHO, that's where the future is.
Perfect, I think we are on the same track. I'll probably just end up hand coding it. Now I guess I just have to decide between PayPal or Google. Doesn't Google accept PayPal? Would I get hit (them taking a portion of the sale) twice by using them both? Thanks for everyone's help by the way!