So recently I wrote the forum about making a shopping cart email the owner an order instead of processing credit cards. I have a follow up question for you now.

 

My client already has an existing site where I would be incorporating this cart into. What I really need to have a button next to the existing items where they can add it to a cart. I don't want to have to implement a whole Zencart installation and rebuild the whole site. With a company like Paypal you just put their button next to what you want to sell. But she wants the results of the cart to be sent to her with the customers information for her to get in touch with them. Any advise anyone might have would be very helpful. Will this be hard to do? I have to write a contract for her and email it to her before the middle of the week.

 

Thanks Chaps!

 

-Seth

The easiest way to get this done is to set up a shopping cart system and run the products from there. Of course this means setting up a cart system and copying all the product data across but that is what adding ecommerce to an existing site is about usually! If your client needs all the cart features like customer emails be sure to give them the best solution you can, not because one is the cheapest.

 

There are no short cuts

The easiest way to get this done is to set up a shopping cart system and run the products from there. Of course this means setting up a cart system and copying all the product data across but that is what adding ecommerce to an existing site is about usually! If your client needs all the cart features like customer emails be sure to give them the best solution you can, not because one is the cheapest.

 

There are no short cuts

 

 

Thanks Bluedreamer for getting back to me. So I guess I would need to reconfigure the whole product catalog over. Hrm, that seems like a big task. Is there a cart that is the easiest to customize that is free? I think you suggested cubecart last time, but the one that's supported isn't free. Trying to keep the overhead down.

You won't find a free cart with "official" support and you'll always have to rely on the community forums for answers and help - and that is never guaranteed. Cubecart is the easiest cart to skin/customise and you've always got the paid version to upgrade to if you need to.

 

As for the product catalogue adding all the products is part of the setting up process, adding could be done by you or your client. How many products are we talking about?

You won't find a free cart with "official" support and you'll always have to rely on the community forums for answers and help - and that is never guaranteed. Cubecart is the easiest cart to skin/customise and you've always got the paid version to upgrade to if you need to.

 

As for the product catalogue adding all the products is part of the setting up process, adding could be done by you or your client. How many products are we talking about?

 

Quite a bit actually. It's all the availablity for the season for the flowers and other perennials. Thanks for your help. I guess I'll have to charge her significantly more for than I was planning on doing.

No problem, always glad to help.

 

Shopping cart setups do involve a helluva lot of work, and much more than people usually anticipate. I've got one project on the go where the customer is sorting out their own product data. They thought it would be quick and easy (4k products) despite me telling them otherwise, and now they've started getting the data together they're already 4 weeks behind!