joralyd

I usually use Avactis but it's a bit big for my current project. I have a client that only has about 50 products to sell. I recommended Bigcartel but I think she is under the impression that hosted carts aren't that good. Anyway I'm trying to find an option that is very easy to use and came across www.storesprite.com PHP based, simular to Avactis only there isn't a lot of information around and I'm yet to find any reviews let alone a demo? Anyone know if it or tried it before? My other options I thought would be perhaps WP and e-com plug in or even Joomla and Virtuemart? although she's never used a CMS's before and it might be a bit overwheming. Or should I just go ahead with Avactis or something equally large and just modify?

perhaps try a hosted cart like Bigcartel.com or Foxycart.com instead and just add a Shop link to your current site this would be so much easier than trying to install software and customising it.

Cart: Lemonstand Cost: yet to be announced but they say around the $300 mark Url: http://www.lemonstand.com It looks lovely (designers eye) easy to use etc not released yet but comming soon apparently

Cart: Storesprite Cost: Free Url: http://www.storesprite.com easy to use and easy to design with Cart: Opencart Cost: Free Url: http://www.opencart.com has downloadable purchases option

Ebay has a forum did you have a quick search through there? there will be something written somewhere on the web alot of the shops aren't designed by designers I know that much LOL I did start an Ebay shop myself and customised it about 7 years ago when it was FREE LOL and I remember it was pretty easy, is there any chance you could ask your client for their log in details and ask them to change their password when you've finished? otherwise they may only want you to design the actual graphics (buttons, logo) and they install the actual shop since ebay has it's own "builder". Honeslty there are heaps of ebay shop templates around that you can take a look at so you know what to do.

No worries. Let me know how you get along

it's not hard it's just you have to do a bit of research. Have a look around for free ebay templates and see if you can customise them in DW. I don't think you need to learn to hand code to make it, alot of designers use WYSIWYG editers, DW doesn't write the code for you it only lets you see what you have written hence the WYSIWYG accronym. Give it a go you have to start somewhere right?

Hi mooncart, I hope someone will beable to offer you more guidence but I thought I would chime in with what little I know LOL I have been looking into shopping carts lately too and your comment for downloadable options was something I also had on my list, I know Zencart doesn't have this option but another cart not on your list is opencart and from what I understand it's relatively easy to customise and it's open source, I haven't tried it out yet so i can't give you a personal opinion. Oscommerce from what I've read uses tables?? this im not sure on as I haven't tried it out but if your learning webdesign I would think you would prefer to use CSS based design. Magento is also very popular and peopel mention it all the time when recomending shopping carts but I've also heard it's quiet taxing on your server resources and maybe a bit too heavy for smaller jobs. I have a few other carts on my short list that I'm about to try out so I'll let you know what I find out.

Thanks for your help I have found a few other carts that I like as I would like to have a couple of options incase one cart doesn't do what I'm after for each client ie downloadable purchases, coupons etc. Has anyone had any experience or know anything about storesprite.com avactis.com and opencart??

Hi Gareth thanks for your help, I'll have a closer look at Magento. From a designers point of view would you find it easy to design?

thanks for your replies, How would this be more of a benifit for my clients? I do like the option of owning the licence of say easyboutiquebuilder.com or the like but not sure if this is any better than using an OS cart. I have looked into Drupal and Joomla but I feel it's over kill for what I'm after and I'm trying to simplify things for my clients who would probably find both Joomla and Drupal a little technical to start out with. WP is an option but do I really need a blog with plug in's? Does anyone know what cart software is used in some of the hosted cart sites? I'm wondering if it's just the software itself that makes them simple or if it's the fact that they install them for the client?? Thanks for listening to my non tech ramble LOL

Hi I'm a small time designer specialising in small/micro business sites. I've been researching the possibility of offering small e-commerce sites. I looked into using a cart and CMS like prestabox, cubecart and even WP with a shopping cart plug in but to be honest I'm more confussed than when I started LOL there are so many choices it's hard to know which is the right one so I have gone back to my original option which was to use "hosted carts" where all the techy stuff is left to the host and I can concentrate on the design, plus the client can manage their own site supported by the host. Do you think this is a good idea? or is it a monthly payment for something that can be done using a cheaper host and prestashop or other cart software? any suggestions welcome