Shopping cart in my website

Masher87 · 23-01-08

I am about to approach somebody (friend of friend) about building a web site to sell a product of mine ? well 5 to be exact. I have a domain and business hosting service with a reputable company but need to understand the options I have to include a shopping cart on my site? must look professional

Any comments welcome - thanks

frogler · 23-01-08

Most hosting companies offer out-of-the-box shopping carts free of charge. You would only need to change the skin or template to have your own look.

There are many thread here on them, just do a search for shopping cart and you'll have a day's reading.
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riotin · 23-01-08

Had a search – thanks! Lots of threads, but most talk about `off the shelf’ shopping carts. I’m not sure if that’s what I want.
I appreciate that I can personalise the look by changing the Jpg`s but can you radically rearrange the layout? From my little experience in web design, you lay out your site with table/tiles and position the Jpg`s within each table to get the desired look. Can I do this with a `off the shelf, cart. If not, would my web designer have to design personalised scripts and programmes to control the site/orders? I do have a decent budget to ovoid unnecessary compromises!

Thanks!

squirtell · 23-01-08

CubeCart is the only shopping cart I am familiar with, so I'll only be able to talk about that particular cart.

Once installed, your given three skins, which, If I'm honest have never provided the look I was hoping for. However, that is not a problem. CubeCart is 100% template driven, meaning the HTML is completely separate from the PHP code. Your given quite a lot of flexibility to modify the look, its just having the knowledge to implement a skin once it has been designed (to some I assume this would be an easy task though). If you can't do this, there's a whole load of designers out there. Many who specifically work with CubeCart.

There are very few restrictions, its just a case of knowing what your doing.

lovebug · 23-01-08

Thanks. So providing my designer is up to the job!! There is no reason why the site could not look like a high end retailer’s site – within reason! It doesn’t for example plaster `Designed by Cubecart’ all over the site or anything like that?

wellter14 · 23-01-08

OSCommerce is possibly the widest used cart. I started with this and moved to CRELoaded, an enhanced version. Both carts are free and CRE does have upgrades to improved versions.

For more info on CREloaded, go here.

endor2 · 23-01-08

That's what it all boils down to. Spend a bit of time looking through them and filtering out the junk.

If you send me a PM, I'll give you the details of a company who specialises in CubeCart stores. There far from cheap, but their work is very impressive.

WingMan · 23-01-08

You have to pay about $80 to get rid of the single CubeCart link at the bottom of the page.

You can have carts that have noting to do with your site. They are just a place for people to put their bought items until checkout. You can keep the cart in the background and not use any of the site formatting that comes with it.

You can also use the free PayPal cart, which just adds "Add to Cart" buttons to your sales pages. If you have just a few items that will do fine, desing the site however you want.

You can also use Mal's eCommerce, another free cart that even includes an affiliate program. Again, just design the site however you want and add buttons to your pages.

A lot depends on what you are selling. Do you have sizes / colors / other options?

Keep in mind most people are familiar with the OSCommerce style cart, used by most all of the carts, both free and paid, with a header up top, menu etc. down one side, featured items, your cart, etc. down the other and a basic footer at the bottom. And of course, the goods offered in the center of this outer template.

Keep in mind that varying from that too much may actually hurt you, as people are going to buy where the setup is familiar to them. And they don't come to you because of the design of your shop, they come due to the promotion you do to get them there.
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chocoguy · 27-01-08

There are hosting sites that are offering a shopping cart as part of there service, one of which is Yahoo. Don’t bother making a shopping cart for your own, let the expert handle them.