Online shopping carts.

Anyone out there using an online shopping cart? I am looking for suggestions and while I thought I was quite computer literate, have done my own sights using html etc - the whole shopping cart thing is pretty challenging. Tons of abbreviations that I don't know. Scripting things.

I downloaded zen cart, but it seems to be limited in layouts, but I don't care if I can get it working. So far I haven't even figured out what I need to put on my server to get it open to preview the thing.

I am on a Mac. OS10.3.9 and 10.5, and it appears that if not on a server I can't even preview you it. ???????

I am used to being able to test things with a couple of browsers on my computer before uploading.

If there is some sort of good tutorial online or recommendations for a different way to do this I would appreciate the pointer. I am building for two different sites.
One with about 40 products that come in four sizes.
Only adding new designs occasionally like every month or three.
The other would have about 100 items but I expect to add two or three items
every month. These items have four or five options each.

I did search the forums and found nothing. When I search the net I get 4 or 5 million entries for shopping cart tutorials. So I am hoping to tap the collective for real world experience without wading through thousands of dubious links.

TIA.

but make sure the customer can see shipping charges before entering a credit card.there are so many off-the-wall ridiculous shipping charges that i walk away if they are not visible first

I don't post here often but had some experience with this so though I'd share:

I've tried zen cart and os commerce and other variations on this sort of solution and I finally gave up. As you mentioned the setup is complicated to actually get the software working and you're limited to a certain template and it may or may not integrate well into your site. It just didn't work for me.

I finally found a simple shopping cart called Roman Cart that makes it really easy to get the online store up and going. Basically you build your site conventionally and then pass your product info off to roman cart when a user clicks the "Add to Cart" button and roman cart handles things from there. You can customize the roman cart pages so they look exactly like your website pages so the users don't know they've been passed off to a different site. You'd need a merchant account setup through authorize.net or something similar. I believe you can also use paypal but not sure.

Anyway, its at romancart.com . Hope this helps - it may or may not work for you but its worth checking out.

If you are not experienced in the shopping cart and comfortable with the Linux (which most of the Open Source stuff is for) then I would come up with a list of things you are looking for and then select one of the offerings (OSCommerce, Zen, Agora, and some others are the leaders.

http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solut...le.php/3668061
and
http://webtecker.com/2008/04/22/8-be...art-solutions/
and one more added:
http://www.designvitality.com/blog/2...ce-web-design/

provide some basic info on the offerings and a few differences. Some are stronger for different types of businesses (like soft goods- clothing is much different than say hardware store items, etc.)

Once you have a cart package selected, then sounds like you are going to want to go shopping for and look for a web hosting plan that supports your cart selected- which is a little easier as you now want to pick one that has your cart supported. There are tons of companies that have hosting plans though and reliability and up time as well as support can be the most important things to consider. You will either need to do some of the work on-line to get the data up and test and or think about your own server since you are on Mac (and limited to what is supported on the OS for shopping carts). You may if you have a Intel Mac with plenty of power be able to do a virtual server with one of the virtual machine packages out there).

Also once you have the cart package selected then you can do some searching for templates or see what is out there in standard layouts.

PM me if you want to get started with a Web Hosting plan.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I will keep messing around and see if I can get something, anything working.

For a site template with cart, check out ecommercetemplates.

Great support and they constantly update.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Looking at a lot of different things.

Does anyone have a site up that they have designed using these?

Nothing like real world sperience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by carvedog

Thanks for the suggestions.
Looking at a lot of different things.

Does anyone have a site up that they have designed using these?

Nothing like real world sperience.

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Ours was and is constantly being messed with and updated. Check out the ecommercetemplate forums and you'll see how well they support everyone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alpinord

Ours was and is constantly being messed with and updated. Check out the ecommercetemplate forums and you'll see how well they support everyone.

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Sorry I didn't see the link in your sig the first time. I checked your site. It looks clean.

So it looks like the template is a one time fee $150 or so and then you put in your products?

It also seems like I may have to setup an online processor or can you set this to send info to you for manual processing? I already have a terminal at my shop.

I anticipate selling mostly art online. My wife is developing a line of kids and women's clothing that is starting to sell nicely. So here we are.

Thanks again.

There is a $30 fee every 6 months if you want to stay current with the updates. I think there is a generic template with a cart that will allow your own site design. Our site has been stripped and revised from the original template. If I were to do an overhaul, I'd consider the generic approach. The template really helped, however, while on a steep learning curve. You can add products via an administration area, or csv upload or a 3rd party app like Navicat. The admin approach is straight forward and best for starters.

It's been a while since I looked at processing set ups and options. You'll have to check out the support pages to answer that better. You can set the cart to email orders and then you call or get calls to process payments over the phone.

As Rshea pointed out, your host needs to accommodate the database. Servelink has been unbelievably friendly and helpful.

Over time you might want to add 3rd party tweaks (add ons or mods). There are some nice enhancements available and ecommercetemplates keeps adding stuff via their updaters that are well worth the semi-annual fee.

HTH

Quote:

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Originally Posted by carvedog

Thanks for the suggestions.
Looking at a lot of different things.

Does anyone have a site up that they have designed using these?

Nothing like real world sperience.

---

There are thousands of sites with any of the open source carts listed above. Go to the oscommerce web site as an example and click through to their list of users and examples. The templates are offered either free for the download at some sites (but most want code or a link staying that shows them as the designer), or some are purchased and paid usage. With the paid usually there are 2 prices- one to use it along with anyone else out there they can sell it to for that design and layout. The other option is for exclusive or customized template that would be exclusive use. Exclusive is much more pricey unless all they do is make a few changes to an existing popular design they have sold a number of times.