vord

I've got a new client! This is very unusual for me as I like to avoid clients whenever possible.

The guy wants a shopping cart. He's not the average guy selling stuff on the internet - his support is fantastic as are the quality of his goods. I buy from him often and that's how he persuaded me to look into on-line stores for him.

We're only looking at a quick set up and neccessary modicications job. It's important to me the site is search engine and user friendy, so that the work he pits in in propogating the store will reward him. Of course he wants sharp, slick and good looking too (which is important to me too).

Anyone have any recommendations for on-line store software?

percepts

how many products does he have in his catalogue?

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An old dog learning new tricks

Terra

osCommerce and Zen Cart are the two obvious old big boys of online shopping. Sharp and slick however are not words I'd use to describe them.

Magento is the new kid on the block but only in beta. With its file size it qualifies as a big girl, but it looks promising (and maybe the developers can impose a diet?).

Shopify is a hosted solution.

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Underground, Overground, Wombling Free!

vord

I don't know exactly how many products the guy has, but he's the sort of guy that will go into detail, so I'd expect 500 or so.

Hosted solutions would probably be out (normally they are expensive long term and poor for search engines). Magneto I'd not heard of - I'll check them out, thanks. Spotted ClickCartPro earlier as well. They are UK based, but I've not checked them out properly yet.

Could have another look at the big boys too. Must admit I've not checked them out recently. Had been hoping there was a new boy on the block or something had become a bit standard - I've not looked into shopping carts for a couple of years, but last time Zen was my favourite.

percepts

Unless you really want to get into playing around with php code and writing addons yourself, and if this is just a one off, i.e. you don't intend to do this sort of thing often, then I'd suggest you buy a package and just worry about designing a template for it.

There are many to choose from but a major factor will be, which payment gateway and will he want to take telphone orders using credit card. Next you should consider how the transactions will get to his accounts package cos if he has 500 products he's going to need one. Now you will start to see that there is a lot more to this than just installing a freebie with a new template. I hope you are ready for all that. That is why a package which has all the interfaces to common accounts packages such as sage or quickbooks will be a simpler option in the long run.
And if its done well, the transacations can update the accounts package directly so its real time and if the accounts package also has stock on it, then he can do stock updates from his local machine without having to go through a web interface.
You need to research all of that and whether the packages are best suited to the UK market and software assuming the UK is the target market.

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An old dog learning new tricks

red-defender

I'd have a look at Actinic Catalogue. It has been around for years. I built an Actinic site about 6 years ago when one of my clients was given a free copy of the software by Business Link. It was pretty easy to set up, even then, although it was almost all JavaScript driven. Nothing came of it as he decided not to sell on-line as he could not spare the time to deal with the orders!. The program looks a lot better now, and can handle a good selection of payment gateways.

Personally I use VirtueMart now for e-Commerce sites, but remain open-minded about other solutions.

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Kelvyn,
Jenkin Hill Internet, Keswick in the North Lake District

kirklees

Have a serious look at Viart I find it easy to install, lots of features like CMS, Basic Forum, Help Desk, lots of product / category options etc and I think much nicer to use than oscommerce.

SEO. I have created sites with Viart that got well indexed quickly (6 days in for the most recent one) with hundreds of pages on google.

I continue to be impressed with the product and I am not an expert in php.

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David.
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Vger

Take a look here:
TerraNetwork | E-commerce | ReadyCart Online Shopping Cart Software

Vger

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pursuit

if you don't mind to have your shop look the same or similar to others, then go for an off-the-shelf cart. or if your are a creative web designer ocmbined with an experienced coder (or you have two in one), then go for osCommerce, it is easiest to modify and make it your own, completely different from others. Many other open source carts are known to be very difficult to modified or lack of adds-on. and forget about the hype of the so called OOP - it is for the developers to show off they are following fashion (well, in fact a 40 year old fashion), it brings no extra obvious benefit to a business-oriented shop owner, who would not understand or be interested in it. It is P(profit)OP that your clients are interested in.

sticky

hehe, a lite version is now available!

If had to choose right now it would be between either:-

http://www.jshop.co.uk/ - ok naff site but great features and seems quite flexible, although it's a damn shame their support forums are only accessible for paid customers now...

http://www.tradingeye.com/ - pretty neat and clean, has a decent amount of features but only really suited for shipping to the UK right now I think.

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Business :: Sticky New Media
Pleasure :: Critshot - The Archers Mark / World of Warcraft Hunters

"Frames and Marquees? Who was your previous web developer, Krusty the Clown..?"

pursuit

neither of jshop or tradingeye is free or open source. osCommerce (the latest version minu 1) could certainly be modified to look and work just like that with something that is unique to you so that you don't get the feeling as living in a flat in a council block.

sticky

What's that got to do with it?

huh?

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Business :: Sticky New Media
Pleasure :: Critshot - The Archers Mark / World of Warcraft Hunters

"Frames and Marquees? Who was your previous web developer, Krusty the Clown..?"

vord

Thanks for the suggestions there - you've come up with way more than I'd found. Interesting that there isn't a concensus of opinion about the best cart too. I'd wondered if an industry standard might have emerged.

Very good point about stock management too.

pursuit

Just tried to save someones time to follow the link who may not think a paid cart was an option at all (like me) as there's quite a number of brilliant open source carts out there.
The council block? well, IMH, the way they are built makes them look dull and almost the same

RoryB

I'm in a similar boat with a new client asking us to build them an e-commerce site, I have looked at zen cart and oscommerce before, do you good people think it is best for them to settle on a payment gateway before settling on a cart system? I noticed for example that there seems to be a Protx add-on for ZenCart but I couldn't find one for OScommerce, though I am sure there is one. Paypal is another one they are looking at. ClickCart looks solid and has a wide range of payment gateways including both of these, is that really what you are paying for in comparison to the OS carts? All of them claim to be customisable, does anyone have any experience of this?

Vger

There is most definitely Protx integration for osCommerce, and you don't have to get UH to install Pear Crypt Blowfish - which you have to do with the Zen Cart version.

If you want an off-the-shelf cart with lots of extras and a non-standard look then take a look at our own cart - ReadyCart:

TerraNetwork | E-commerce | ReadyCart Online Shopping Cart Software

Vger

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Working with computers is a bit like getting old - the longer you're around the more wrinkles you find!

RoryB

Thanks, I will bear that in mind it certainly looks quite nice!

Charles

You might also want to take a look at CubeCart eCommerce - Free online shopping cart software. as they have both ProTx and PayPal integrated into the shopping cart!