Hi,

 

I've got a client who wants to add a shopping cart to her site. We're not talking amazon here. It's a relatively small e commerce project with a total of approx 50 products for sale.

 

I haven't done this before and I think it's about time I did. It's a small enough project to get me familiar with the challenges involved I think.

 

So my questions are:

 

1. Can anyone recommend a good, reliable and cost effective package that you can buy and adapt apply to different websites. I know these things exist but it would be handy to save time researching if someone here has already been through that process.

 

2. Would it be possible to apply a bespoke design throughout the site with such a package. I don't want to design something that looks great until you get to the e commerce pages (which then look like something out of the darkest days of the eastern bloc).

 

That's it for now.

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

Jo

Obvious choice for small business is paypal but they do charge something like 1.5% on every order which is stupid but is easy to use.

 

second alternative is to build a shopping cart yourself using php, asp or whatever and then you need to look into propex or worldpay or something like that... i think...

 

or search for a prebuilt one.

another option is to check with your web host. i'm with heartinternet, and for the package i have they offer alot of free software to be used with your websites that can be installed to your server, some of which include shopping cart solutions.

 

another solution i would also recommend is looking into Shopify. it's inexspensive and completely customizable for bespoke designs. theres also a good tutorial i came accross recently for designing for shopify here

Obvious choice for small business is paypal but they do charge something like 1.5% on every order which is stupid but is easy to use.

 

second alternative is to build a shopping cart yourself using php, asp or whatever and then you need to look into propex or worldpay or something like that... i think...

 

or search for a prebuilt one.

 

He didn't mention payment gateways at all.... propex = protx.

 

I'd recommend you take a look at "magento" or "presta shop" both free.... My personal vote goes to presta shop!

He didn't mention payment gateways at all.... propex = protx.

 

I'd recommend you take a look at "magento" or "presta shop" both free.... My personal vote goes to presta shop!

 

 

Sorry, long time since i've done anything like that

another solution i would also recommend is looking into Shopify. it's inexspensive and completely customizable for bespoke designs. theres also a good tutorial i came accross recently for designing for shopify here

Thanks for that. Easily the most well-made shopping cart system I've seen. Seems simple too.

www.magentocommerce.com is a free open source (check out the tautology!) eCommerce shopping cart.

 

I made a site for a client using this and it is very powerful indeed.

 

Took about 1 week of reading the documentation before I got the hang of templating for it.

 

www.ragazziclothing.co.uk is the site in question.

 

Of course you can also build your own cart as mentioned before and integrate it with something like paypal.

 

Check out www.developer.paypal.com for examples on how to work with their integration system.

 

If you know PHP or any other server side languages, it's really a case of sending over a few variables to PayPal for them to process the order.

 

Or you could just use the custom button maker in PayPal and copy the code to your site to sell a few products, but 50 products steps the mark for me into CMS territory.

 

Good luck

I saw that site the other day, it was on the site you pm'd to me, It's awesome (although check it in chrome), didn't realise it was magento.

 

Magento's awesome, truly is, but the documentations shoddy. I've not had time to sit down and do a bespoke site completely from start to finish.

 

You got any links, tips or anything for me?