The shopping cart was completed this weekend. With the new cart we are also considering a switch to item sales directly between buyer and seller instead of buyer - Ekaweeka - Seller.
The shopping cart has taken us longer then we had hoped, regardless, the build is done. The finishing touches included switching over to cookies so anyone can shop Ekaweeka add items to their shopping cart, leave their computer for minutes/hours/ or days return and still have the items they'd added sitting right there ready for purchase. We fixed up the item attributes and item options which weren't being added to the shipping cart total. So now all those extra's like framing a picture, additional charges for shipping, and anything else will be included in your orders.
The biggest development was truly that sellers can now receive payments through Google Checkout and Paypal. And just in time as Authorize.net has become one of the worst financial services to provide credit card transactions literally overnight. Without getting into the gory details I will just say we are going to be switching to a different credit card authorization company, so keep your eyes open for it, we will be back up with all three sale processing options shortly.
As for processing methods, currently we retrieve the funds for sellers when a buyer has purchased an item. We watch the sale to make sure each party is happy before releasing the funds to the seller. This escrow like service was chosen to assure sellers and buyers a smooth transaction but in the recent past we've found more and more sellers who would be comfortable with managing the sale without our assistance. Since this would speed up the process for everyone we are giving it serious consideration and are opening up the floor to anyone who would like to chime in on the issue. So let us know folks - what would you prefer?