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💰 Get paid

With Big Cartel, you can accept orders through your online shop or in person using our apps for iOS or Android devices.

• On the web, customers can pay by card via Stripe, or with PayPal. (Big Cartel shops currently cannot use other payment processors like AfterPay, Klarna, and iDeal.)
• If you have Stripe enabled, customers with Apple Pay can use Instant Checkout to complete their purchase directly from a product page.
• If you have PayPal enabled, customers can pay with Venmo or PayPal Credit.
• Payments you accept via in-person checkout can be processed with Stripe or cash.

We don’t charge any fees on the things you sell, so you can keep more of the money you earn. (Processor fees from Stripe/PayPal still apply.)

🤔 So, which one should I choose?

When in doubt, enabling both Stripe and PayPal covers the broadest range of payment options your customers may want to use. Stripe is by far the easiest way for customers to pay - they just add products to the cart, enter their card number securely at checkout, and boom, done!

On the other hand, many online shoppers know and trust PayPal and like the ease of logging in to an account to use a saved payment method (or even check out as a “guest” using a card), so you can give your customers that option, too.

Ultimately, it’s up to you and what makes the most sense for your business. And don’t forget: you can add, update, or remove checkout options from your shop any time in the Account area of your admin.

Switch to PayPal Express Checkout and Stripe

Decades ago, PayPal Standard was a true breakthrough for ecommerce. Now however, it’s outdated and error prone. Quite simply, there are much better ways of getting paid online today. Here are a few reasons we recommend everyone switch to our newer, better PayPal Express Checkout and/or Stripe options:

• Direct payments - your customers can pay you directly with a credit card (through Stripe) or with their PayPal account (through PayPal Express). PayPal Express also offers a “guest checkout” feature for those who wish to pay with a card instead of logging in.
• Fewer headaches, more awesome - no more pending e-Check payments, IPN delays, or attempts to spoof orders.
• Better for high volume sales - no delays from PayPal Standard means a reliable first-come-first-serve checkout experience. No more accidental overselling or ten minute inventory reserve-related headaches.
• Better conversion tracking with Google Analytics - since your customers always return to your receipt page, we can better keep Google informed.
• Print shipping labels with PayPal Express Checkout - just the same way you’re used to now with PayPal Standard.
• It’s the same price - PayPal Express Checkout and Stripe both start at the same price as PayPal Standard: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
• Switching is fast and easy - you can setup PayPal Express Checkout and Stripe in just a few clicks, and we’re here to help if you have questions.

How to make the switch to PayPal Express Checkout or Stripe

It’s fast, we promise. You’ll be done in minutes!

1. Visit the Account > Edit your payment options area of the desktop admin.
2. From there you can choose Stripe, PayPal Express, or both.
3. Follow the steps on screen to connect your accounts.

FAQs about making the switch

Do customers have to log in to a PayPal account to pay using PayPal Express?

Nope - PayPal Express offers a “guest checkout” option the same as PayPal Standard, so customers can pay by card instead.

Is there an extra fee or membership cost for using PayPal Express or Stripe?

No, there are no monthly or annual fees for using either option. PayPal and Stripe each have their own per-transaction fees.

How long does it take for Stripe and PayPal Express to deposit money?

The first payment Stripe processes will be available in 7 days, and most accounts will then move to a 2-day rolling schedule for deposits. You can also request different deposit scheduling via Stripe. Check out their help doc for more details.

Payments processed through PayPal Express will be available to transfer or use directly from PayPal right away, the same as with PayPal Standard.

Will PayPal Standard’s shipping and tax settings still work?

No, PayPal Standard’s shipping and tax settings aren’t compatible with PayPal Express or Stripe. If you rely on those settings, you’ll either want to stick with PayPal Standard, or switch to Big Cartel’s shipping and tax settings instead.

How do I set up shipping costs and tax rates in Big Cartel instead of PayPal?

Edit any product in your admin to add shipping costs in the Shipping section of the product’s page. You can set a tax rate for your shop in your Account area. Customers will see the appropriate shipping and tax costs added on at the final checkout screen, once they’ve entered their address.

A note on Inventory Reserve

One of PayPal Standard’s shortcomings is a potential delay between a customer placing an order and our system getting notified that money has been received.

To work around this delay (for shops with inventory tracking enabled), our old Inventory Reserve system would remove items from your inventory for 10 minutes when a customer added them to their cart. This gave them time to complete the checkout on PayPal and for us to be notified of the payment. If we didn’t receive payment in 10 minutes, we’d put the item back on sale.

We talked to a lot of people about this workaround. While many loved it, and said their customers liked knowing an item in their cart wouldn’t be taken from them, just as many people hated it, and felt like they’d lost sales, and found that it was abused by people hoarding limited edition products in their carts.

The workaround would also break down when PayPal experienced delays, and would often put a severe load on our servers during flash sales, leading to occasional downtime, and even accidental overselling of popular items.

Ultimately, we feel that first-come-first-serve is the fairest and simplest solution to high-demand products, and the 10-minute Inventory Reserve window is no longer supported with PayPal Standard.

If you have a high-volume shop, and do flash sales on limited inventory products: we highly recommend you switch to PayPal Express Checkout and Stripe, where we only need to reserve the items while the payment is processing. This eliminates the potential for overselling.

Need a hand?

If you have any questions or concerns about these changes, or need help with anything at all, just contact our Support team and we’ll help you out.

Looking for quick answers? Our Support team has rounded up the top questions we get and listed ‘em below for easy reference. If you can’t find what you’re looking for here or elsewhere in the help site, reach out and a team member will be happy to lend a hand. You’ll get a response from a real person, not a bot. 😉🙌

Account Basics

How do I change my password?

To change up your password in the admin, you’ll head to the Security section from the Account area. Click Change your password and then enter your current password and your new password there.

If you don’t remember your password, then we can send you an email that’ll include a link you can use to easily create a new one - just click this link and enter your account’s contact email.

How do I change my shop name or URL?

You can change both your shop name and url from the Account area in your Big Cartel admin. To change your shop name, click Edit profile and adjust your shop name there. Click Edit your shop info to change your Shop URL and click Save changes. Our system will let you know if the new subdomain you choose is available or not.

How do I change my contact email?

Your shop’s contact email can be changed from the Account area in your admin. Click Edit profile and adjust the contact email there. For added security, you’ll need to enter your password to verify the change. Keep in mind that the contact email is used to determine account ownership. You’ll want to make sure you are using an email that can send and receive emails and be sure to triple-check your spelling before saving your changes!

How do I close my account?

To close your shop, log in and complete the closing process here.

Just keep in mind, closing your account is permanent - we won’t be able to recover any store data for you down the road so you may want to download your order data beforehand.

Does Big Cartel make the products I sell?

Big Cartel doesn’t offer order manufacturing or fulfillment, so you’d want to get your merchandise created on your end. Then as orders come in, you’d be responsible for shipping them out. Our job is to provide the hosting for your web store/checkout system.

If you’re looking for spots to help manufacture your goods or sell via print-on-demand, check out our integrations with Printful or Art of Where.

Adding Products

How do I add options like colors or sizes to my product listings?

You can do that with our product options feature. As you’re adding your products into your shop, you can include variants like the size or color of a product under the Options section.

Got more than one set of options? You can display options in multiple lists in your storefront with the product option groups feature.

Can I limit the number of a specific item that is sold?

Yup! If you’re on a paid plan, you can use our inventory tracking feature. You’ll find that under Account > Preferences in your admin. Once you enable that feature, you’ll be able to add quantities directly to your product listings.

When products are purchased, the inventory will automatically adjust. So when a product or option’s inventory reaches zero, it will display as ‘sold out,’ preventing further purchases.

More on inventory tracking here.

How do I charge shipping?

Once you’ve landed on how and where you’d like to ship your products and estimated that cost for each product, you’ve got two shipping options – you can set up shipping on a per-product basis, or you can create shipping profiles. To set up shipping on a per-product basis you’ll head to the Products tab and enter those rates in the Shipping section for each product.

You’ll notice there is a Shipped Alone and a With Others field. The highest “alone” shipping cost among the items in the customer’s cart is added in first. Then, the “with others” costs are added in for every additional item the customer is buying.

So if you want to give the customer a break in shipping when they buy more than one item at a time, be sure to keep the “with others” amount less than the “alone” amount.

More details on setting up your per-product shipping rates here.

If you want to use shipping profiles, which are handy if you’ve got the same shipping rates for all your products, then you’ll head to the admin’s Account tab. Scroll down to the Shipping profiles beta section, click to edit shipping, then toggle on shipping profiles. From there you can create shipping based on zone, and you can even offer different expedited options to your customers. Just keep in mind that enabling shipping profiles will override any shipping you may have added to your indivdual products.

There’s more info on how the shipping profiles work here.

I’m not seeing all of the products display in my storefront?

It sounds like you may be looking at the featured products displayed on the home page. If you’d like to display more products on the home page of your shop, you can adjust that number by clicking Customize design from the Account tab in your admin and then clicking Customize. In the Customize panel, you’ll see the option to adjust number of featured products. Keep in mind, your customers will also be able to view all of your products from the Products page in your shop.

How do I add product categories?

You can create categories in your shop in the Products section of your Big Cartel admin by clicking the three-dot Actions menu > Manage categories.

Then, within each product’s edit page you’ll see a Categories button that you can use to assign that specific product to a category. A category with at least one active product assigned to it will have its own link displayed within your shop.

More details on managing categories here.

What size images should I use for my products?

Each theme will display product images a bit differently to fit the design, so there isn’t a specific set of dimensions to use. Your best bet to get the most out of the theme you’re using is to upload large high-resolution images that are all the same size and orientation to create a consistent, uniform look.

To get those images looking nice and crisp try keeping them at least 1000px wide, and we’ll do the heavy lifting to resize them as needed to fit within your theme’s design constraints.

You can also check out our Themes help pages for specific recommendations on elements like slideshows and header images, which tend to vary across themes.

I’m getting an error when adding or editing products - “At least one option’s price must match the base price.”

This error typically means that all of your added product’s options have a different price from the base price of your product so you’ll need to adjust either the base price or one of your options’ price.

This error could also display if you are using Microsoft Edge or an older version of Safari. We are working on a fix for this issue. In the meantime, switching to a browser like Chrome should do the trick.

Managing Orders

How do I refund or cancel an order?

Since Big Cartel doesn’t actually handle the payments, those refunds will be issued directly through Stripe or PayPal, depending on which checkout option was used at the time that particular order was placed.

You can click the “view in Stripe” or “view in PayPal” link for that order to complete the refund offsite through PayPal or Stripe. We have some more info on that here.

There isn’t a way to entirely delete an order in your admin after the payment has been refunded, but you can add a “private note” stating the order was refunded to help you keep track of things. Then, you can go ahead and mark that order as shipped to get it out of your way. Here’s more info on adding a private note if you’re curious.

Getting Paid

How do I accept payments?

You can accept online payments in your shop via Stripe and/or PayPal. With PayPal enabled, you can also accept PayPal Credit and Venmo (as long your customer is on a mobile device and has the Venmo app installed). There’s more info on setting up your shop’s online checkout here.

With Stripe enabled in your shop, customers using Apple Pay will have the option to complete their purchases directly from a product listing with Instant Checkout.

If you are using in-person checkout in our iOS or Android app, you can accept cash and credit card payments - either manually or with a card reader - via Stripe Terminal.

Does Big Cartel offer more payment options like Afterpay?

Right now we have support for PayPal (including Venmo and PayPal Credit) and Stripe (for card payments).

We keep the payment processors limited so we can provide the most seamless and secure integration for the majority of our shops, while keeping things simple and not bogged down with a bunch of options. For those reasons, additional payment processors, like Afterpay aren’t on our radar at the moment.

Do I have to have a PayPal Business account?

That’s correct! PayPal requires a verified business account to accept payments in your shop. But no worries, it’s simple to upgrade your account. You can login right here to upgrade to a Business account for free.

And there’s some info about how to verify your account here.

After that, you should be all set to accept PayPal Commerce Platform payments in your shop!

How do I update my bank account that payments are sent to?

If you are using Stripe to accept payments in your shop, you can update the bank account in your Stripe dashboard. There’s more on that here.

If you use PayPal, you’ll update your bank account info in your PayPal account. There’s more info on that here.

Customization

Can I translate my shop to another language?

We don’t actually have a built-in tool to change the language of your site, but all of our stores on paid plans have access to their HTML. So, you could either go in and translate your code by hand, or you could embed a translate widget. There are quite a few options out there like the one Bing offers here.

You could also check out an app like Weglot that’s super simple to integrate with your Big Cartel shop and will display your site in multiple languages.

How do I add images to custom pages?

If you want to include an image on a custom page in your shop, you’ll first need to host your image through an external hosting service - there are lots out there! A couple worth checking out are free services like Pasteboard.co or Dropbox.

For Pasteboard, after the image is uploaded there, you’ll click the ‘Go to image’ button and then copy the Embed URL. Here’s a handy video to help out with that!

For Dropbox, you’ll copy the “share” link for your image in Dropbox. Then you’ll need to modify the end of that URL so that it instead of ending in dl=0, it now ends with raw=1. Here’s a quick video walkthrough.

Next, go back to your custom page editor in the Big Cartel admin and click the add image icon in the toolbar (it’s next to the little button that says HTML).

Now paste in the Embed URL you copied earlier.

Can I add customer reviews to my shop?

Sure, stores on paid plans can use third party integrations or widgets to embed reviews or a feedback form.

For example, a service like Disqus or Testimonial Robot might have the tools you’re looking for. They’ll provide an embed code that you can copy and paste into a custom page in the design section of your admin.

Custom Domains

Can I use my own domain?

Yes, all Big Cartel shops — even those on our free Gold plan — can use a custom domain with their shop. There’s more info on that here.

Can I remove the .bigcartel from my URL?

There’s not a way to delete or deactivate your store’s bigcartel.com URL, but you can definitely use a custom domain as well.

First, you’ll need to purchase domain from a DNS provider. If you are in a Google-supported country, you can purchase a domain directly in your admin.

If you are not in a Google-supported country or would prefer to use another provider, we have a list of DNS providers along with instructions on mapping your domain here.

Security

I received a suspicious email claiming to be from Big Cartel. Is this legit?

If you received a suspicious email, please don’t click any links in that message until we can verify that it was sent by us. Please forward it to support and we can take a look.

Is my shop SSL-encrypted?

Each page in your online storefront is SSL-encrypted as is the backend admin, so any time sensitive data like payment details are passed, it’s encrypted.

However, if you see a red lock in the Account area of your admin, it means that your domain is not currently SSL-encrypted. This is due to a problem with your custom domain redirect settings, unsecured assets detected in your shop, or the SSL certificate’s failure to generate. There’s more information on how to resolve those issues here.

Integrations

How do I set up Instagram tagging (shoppable posts) for my products?

While we don’t have a direct integration with Instagram, you can manually set up shopping on Instagram by following our step by step instructions here. Just keep in mind that Instagram and Facebook must approve your products to be tagged in your Instagram posts. We can’t guarantee that your products will be approved, but going through this process will definitely get your products on their radar.

Can I add a newsletter signup?

Sure thing! With the MailChimp integration, you can enable a Subscribe to our newsletter box automatically at checkout so customers can opt in to receive your newsletter, sync up your customers info and purchase data with your MailChimp account, and even send custom order confirmations. You can also implement more targeted newsletter campaigns and easily embed a newsletter signup in your shop.

You can find more info on the MailChimp integration and how to connect it to your Big Cartel shop here.

Billing

Can I upgrade or downgrade my plan at any time?

Definitely! You can upgrade anytime if you find you need more product listings and features. Or you can downgrade if you don’t end up using the paid features. All of that can be done from your Big Cartel admin by clicking Account > Edit your plan & billing > Change your plan.