I need a shopping cart for my web page

[Carodi]

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RichardF, post: 55185 wrote:

See, BigCommerce is quite easy to use to set up a store, isn’t it. Just a couple of things to consider:
1 – i would put in the logo of your payment gateway (in your case PayPal) in either the left or right column (see my site – kettlebells). I think it is important for a customer to know straight away how they will be paying for their goods. And PayPal has a great reputation – so you should promote that.
2 – you need to add some text to your front page. This is very important for 2 reasons. 1. you need to tell your prospective customers what your shop is all about. you want them to feel comfortable and confident in your store. 2. it is important for Search Engine Optimisation. When google scans your site they will need to find keywords that define and describe what your shop is about – that is one way to rank in google search results.
3 – I’m sure you know this, but you will need to register your own domain name.

i will PM you with a bit more info on each of these points i have mentioned above.

Richard

Richard

I’ll play around with it tonight when the kids are in bed, check out the tutorials and so on. I’ve sent you a PM as well.

Di

[The Internet Bloke]

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Carodi, post: 54190 wrote:

Hi
Can anyone recommend a cheap(ish) and easy-to-use cart or is there another solution?
Di

I think that you need to provide a bit more information so that you receive advice that meets your needs.

1. How many different types of items are being sold, and are there large numbers of the same item?
2. Will they change often?
3. What sort of items are they? What delivery arrangements apply?
4. Do you have a merchant account or just want to use Paypal?
5. Does inventory need to be tracked?
6. What is the anticipated yearly turnover, number of transactions, and expected growth?
7. Do you intend to update it yourself, or have someone else do it?
8. How many products would have to to added or changed, say, every month?
9. What skills do you have, and what do you need to learn if you are intending to update it yourself?

And that’s just for starters!
Selecting a shopping cart without considering these topics is probably not going to end well.

I recently spoke to someone who was totally ripped off. He was sold an E-Commerce system costing over $10,000 (plus expensive ongoing costs) when the current and future scale of his operations could be adequately handled by a HTML sales page with Paypal buttons.
He had less than 10 products ferchrissakes!!

The shopping cart you choose should be appropriate for your circumstances.
Unfortunately, too many people just recommend their favourites, or the most expensive one that they sell.

It may be that your needs can be met by one of the excellent online carts that are available for a few dollars a month.
For example, check out http://www.e-junkie.com
(terrible name. good cart.)

Regards,
Eric G.

[Leisa D]

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Shopfactory is affordable, easy to use, and SEO freindly – I use it on my own site as an example http://www.alexandradesign.com.au

[NathanC]

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The Internet Bloke, post: 55252 wrote:

The shopping cart you choose should be appropriate for your circumstances.
Unfortunately, too many people just recommend their favourites, or the most expensive one that they sell.

Well said Eric. Worse, some people think that offering advice is the same as throwing up an affiliate link to whatever ecommerce affiliate program their signed up to.

[Paul-w]

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Ive played around with allot of the open source carts and found that Presta Shop is a pretty good one, easy to use and looks great.

[zhenjie]

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I don’t entirely agree with one users warning to stay away from Magento. It’s the fastest growing open source cart out there and for good reason. Sure its more resource heavy, and probably not suited for small users, but if you factor in growth and think long term, its a very viable solution.

Presta Shop is great. Got the web2.0 look to it. However, modules and extensions are expensive as anything. Support team is French and things get lost in translations at times.

OsCommerce/Zen Cart. I use to love them, still have webstores running them. But they are sooooo old and outdated that even the best skinners can’t make it look as good as Magento and newer carts developed in the past 3 years.

Big Commerce and Shopify are my favorite hosted solutions.

[pflammea]

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Hi Carodi,

This is a common problem many people are coming to realise now with the fees of ebay and all, people are realising that they need to have a website with their products to grow and expand their business.

Don’t mean to blow my own horn, but my business webcruzer.com offers complete online solutions for small to medium businesses. We offer shopping cart with credit card payment facilities, we also offer free online auctions which can be hosted inside your business website.

Not sure how far along you are with the other services that have been sugested here, but if we can be of any assitance to you feel free to check us out and get in contact. If you’d like to speak to us for more info you can call 1300 790 481.

All the best with your business.

Paul

[Carodi]

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NathanC, post: 55310 wrote:

Well said Eric. Worse, some people think that offering advice is the same as throwing up an affiliate link to whatever ecommerce affiliate program their signed up to.

Thanks Nathan and Eric
I have thought about all the things (well most of them) you’ve mentioned, Eric. I have started my store with BigCommerce and am pretty sure they’ll meet my needs.
I am also aware of affiliate links (having done a bit of that myself) and always check anything out thoroughly before purchasing. Good tip though and there are definitely a few of those links on this thread, lol.
Kind regards
Di

[Bullet Web Studio]

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If you’re looking for a simple store that’s easy to get started, we recommend Shopify. V easy to use and customise.

[queusearch]

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Hi,

If you already have Paypal buttons, you only need a small piece of PHP code. If you know a bit of PHP, you can search for PHP Paypal Carts and find some free code.

Regards,

Jose

[Author]

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