Jeff Givens

Profile Information:

What is your position in the coffee industry?: coffee roaster
Where are you located? ( City and Country ): Finksburg, MD, US
How many years have you been in the industry?: 8
About Me:: It may have had something to do with being born in Coffee County, TN. Or maybe it was my first trip to Boquete back in '86, when I was in the Army.

Who knows?

An interest turned into a hobby, which led to me starting a roasting company in 2006.
About My Company:: We're just starting out, but we decided from the beginning that quality would be the reference point for everything that we did. We sell at the local farmer's market, have a subscription delivery program, and sell to restaurants.

E-commerce is our next challenge.
Website:: http://www.southernskiescoffee.com

Kerry Laird

Welcome to The Barista Exchange. We're getting ready to start e-commerce too. Have you decided which shopping cart provider to use? We haven't...

Feb 6, 2008
Jeff Givens

The different pieces of the puzzle are the host, the shopping cart software, and the merchant gateway. We are using Miva Merchant, which is provided by my web host. It's not the easiest to configure, but the upside is that there is lots of flexibility.

For my merchant gateway (the folks who actually process the credit cards), we are going to use Dharma Merchant Services, an Authorize.net reseller. It's a small company that has provided really good customer service so far. They also donate 10% gross profits to a charitable non-profit of our choice.

Feb 6, 2008