I'm a freelance web designer and I'm starting to get demand for e-commerce projects. I don't fancy climbing the steep learning curve involved in writing my own e-commerce site from scratch so I've been crawling the internet for solutions.

 

From what I can see there are a lot of free open source products out there but most of them seem to give you a set of templates to pick from. Does any one know of any good CSS based e-commerce solutions out there?

 

I had a good look at Shopformat.com as they seemed to offer the kind of design flexibility I'm after. It's also a hosted solution which suits me. Has anyone used them, and if so, how would you rate them?

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

From what I can see there are a lot of free open source products out there but most of them seem to give you a set of templates to pick from. Does any one know of any good CSS based e-commerce solutions out there?

 

Hi Mike,

 

Most of the open source products out there are CSS-based, i.e. you can create a completely new template/style by editing the stylesheet. I personally have experience with OSCommerce and Zen Cart, both of which I highly recommend for their flexibility. You can use templates with these too, of course, but there's also no reason you can't create your own!

Thanks.

 

I don't like the idea of installing and hosting the software. Is that what you do. How do you find it?

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

Thanks.

 

I don't like the idea of installing and hosting the software. Is that what you do. How do you find it?

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

 

ZenCart (et al) must be installed on your webhost's server; whether you choose to buy the webhosting on behalf of your client (like with a reseller account) or make them buy it, the situation will be the same.

 

It's not really software per se (although someone might argue it fits the definition ); what you're installing on your domain are the files to make the site work properly - PHP databases, content management system, etc. This would be the case with all shopping cart programs... even those you've designed yourself. In this case it's just a series of web pages pre-scripted for you.

 

Assuming you have your own domain, I recommend creating a new folder and downloading ZenCart to that folder simply as a test. Then you'll be able to poke through the various directories and see what files there are and what they do (payment modules, language packs, etc). It might look a little more innocuous after that.

I've used Zen Cart and found it very adaptable, once you get the hang of the template system. Its written in php but don't let that put you off, there's an extensive user-based forum to cover most of the possibilities. The style sheets also cover a lot of ground. There is a book available which covers the admin side of Zen Cart and, whilst useful in parts, I wouldn't buy it again.

I outsource my hosting and use Fasthosts and Heart Internet. The latter I use for E-commerce, Fasthosts charge too much for the extras. Installation shouldn't be a problem with a good FTP client. I use AceFTP 3 (Its free).

I did look at Oscommerce but decided against it, more to do with the php coding than anything else.

A designer friendly CSS solution that is remotely hosted is Shopify at www.shopify.com. It's a great solution as it's aimed at people without much Internet knowledge. I'd say if you could sell something on eBay then you would be able to manage an online store with this. The only downside is that they take a small percentage of every sale plus you, the freelancer, would not actually be doing anything!

 

I'll let my little secret out of the bag and tell you what I've successfully been using for the last few eCommerce customers... www.magentocommerce.com. It really is incredible... CSS designed... single page checkout... ship to multiiple addresses... marketing tools... and most importantly search engine optimisation support. It looks real nice to boot!

Mike,

 

Zen Cart is pretty good, it's free, relatively easy to setup and has lots of modifacations. I would also reccomend that option if your on a shoe string budget.

 

If you can afford $229 for some eccomerce software then you have to check out X-Cart. They have created what is claimed to be the worlds best shopping cart software. This extremley powerful shopping cart offers true flexiability, wide range of features, very easy to manage stock, invoicing and accounting synchronsisation. The installation wizard make setup and maintenance of the shopping cart as easy as point and click.

 

X-Cart is CSS and XHML Compliant, so midifying the style sheets is a doddle. Every div has a class or id so you can customise the templates to your exact requirements, from the store front to the ceck out success page.

 

Check out this shopping cart

Click here!

I don't like the idea of installing and hosting the software. Is that what you do. How do you find it?

 

If you go down the hosted route you're always at the mercy of the provider, if they go tits up you lose all the sites. If you host them yourself you can quickly transfer to another host if you get major problems.

 

As for what cart system(s) you choose to use needs some thinking about...

 

1. Do you go for one cart to suite all your needs? Some carts may be OTT for one site but not enough for another

2. Do you need developer support? With free carts problem solving rests with you using whatever info is available (usually forums), with commercial systems you get professional help

3. Remember your end customers, because it's them that will have to understand and use the cart admin. What works for one may not work for the next, some cart admins are intuitive to one customer but confusing to others

4. Whatever cart(s) you go for the quality will reflect on your business

 

Personally I'm a big fan of http://www.jshop.co.uk/, it runs on html/css templates which are very easy to modify to any sort of style/look, and has all the features that exceed the needs of most of the ecom sites that I work on. They do a developer licence for unlimited sites as well which makes it very attractive.

 

Here's some commercial systems to look at:

 

LiteCommerce - several extra addons, table based templates but relatively easy to convert to CSS, some issues with ioncube and file corruption

X-cart - tons of features, let down by terrible out of the box templates (table based), tons of 3rd party addons

Pinnaclecart - top notch system on a par with Jshop

Avactis - nice promising system, default templates table based but easy to convert to css

Cubecart - css out of the box, free or commercial versions, many addons

I would reccommend CubeCart, you have to buy a lisence but its good software.

Does anybody use www.templatemonster.com for ecommerce templates? Plenty of designs on there at around $100 for Zencart, OSCommerce and more.

 

Dont be put off by the price, especially if you're building a large ecommerce site where the returns will be good!

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