Posted: 9/4/2009 4:25:17 AM EDT
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Odd question for GD, I know, but then again all questions here tend to be weird, so here goes...
Does anyone have any first-hand experience using various forms of online e-commerce websites? The majority seem to offer hosting and shopping cart solutions packaged together, paid on a monthly basis. I've heard of, but not actually found any, decent companies that sell the shopping cart software package itself to the client business for a one-time fee. To any web developers here: which route is preferable? And for the former, what online providers offer the best shopping cart software/interface, pricing, and reliability? Yahoo looks to have a rather nice monthly service; has anyone here used it for their business? |
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If you are asking software engineers for help the answer is you write your own shopping cart! There is shopping cart software out there that you can buy, I'm sure there is even some freeware shopping cart software out there. The only problem is you are left installing it, which most hosting companies won't let you do unless you rent the entire server from them. Also you will have to configure it to talk to your merchant account gateway. Being able to connect to your merchant account gateway will cost a monthly fee because you are constantly using their service. The easiest way is to use the prepackaged solution and just pay the fees. Doing business is expensive, hiring a software engineer to build a custom solution is even more expensive. |
| give this a shot: http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&words=ecommerce |
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Zen Cart Open source (i.e., free), lots of web hosts offer scripts to install it with no hassles, but can be a pain to set up if you're not a computer type. Still, if you're willing to invest the time to learn it, it's a good piece of software. Of course, simply putting up an online store doesn't mean that anyone will see it. You have to market it so people will come and give you those magic credit card digits. |
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At the hosting co. I work for Zencart is pretty damn popular. Magento seems to be the new Zencart, however in my experience it's a resource hog on shared hosts (read: the affordable ones) and not as easily configured.
Stay away from OsCommerce. It's pretty lacking in the security section. (As in, if you have a file with too high of permissions it shows it on the fucking front page, and it requires register_globals, and uses some loose code.) Cubecart is one we've seen emerge recently ,can't say I've seen much with that––There's also a Joomla plugin that's easier to use, I can't remember what the plugin uses though. I want to say Cubecart. |
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Quoted: At the hosting co. I work for Zencart is pretty damn popular. Magento seems to be the new Zencart, however in my experience it's a resource hog on shared hosts (read: the affordable ones) and not as easily configured. Stay away from OsCommerce. It's pretty lacking in the security section. (As in, if you have a file with too high of permissions it shows it on the fucking front page, and it requires register_globals, and uses some loose code.) Cubecart is one we've seen emerge recently ,can't say I've seen much with that––There's also a Joomla plugin that's easier to use, I can't remember what the plugin uses though. I want to say Cubecart. VirtueMart. It's got its limitations, but it's a very good extension. When you figure the time you'll spend setting up Joomla, then setting up VirtueMart, you don't save much any effort over Zen Cart. If all you need is an online store, I'd go with Zen Cart. It's been out for a while and has been beaten up pretty well. Good software. If you need an online store plus lots of other content (lots of how-to articles, a calendar, etc.), then Joomla/VirtueMart is a great way to go. Don't know too much about Magento or Cubecart. I've seen 'em offered by web hosts, but will have to check them out some day. (edited to add some info) |
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Depends on how much Yahoo! charges. Your costs for domain name registration and web hosting will be something like this: $10.16 per year for the domain name $41.52 per year for hosting (this is at A2 hosting when you pay for 3 years in advance) So, your monthly cost would be $4.31. If I'm not mistaken, Yahoo! charges about $40 per month, a 1.5% transaction fee, and a $50 setup fee. You can also find web designers who will set up Zen Cart or the other solutions for you (I am one of them, in fact) if you don't want to DIY. Find one for a flat fee –– no need to pay hourly rates unless you want lots of custom work or you want someone else to do your data entry for you. It's definitely more work to DIY, and you won't have all the "hands off" bells and whistles, so you'll just have to consider how much you think you can sell online versus how much it'll cost. |
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Quoted: Its pretty simple if you break it down.Would it not be much simpler just to go with something like Yahoo's Merchant Solutions and pay a monthly fee than to acquire, install, and setup shopping cart software onto a site that's you're already paying someone else to host? Option 1 You can pay Go Daddy or Yahoo a monthly fee to use their site software with a small learning curve at about $49 per month. Option 2 Use Zen Cart and not pay a monthly fee ( other than a minimal hosting fee ) with a much larger learning curve. If you have the time, patience and intellect you can make it happen on the cheap using a Zen Cart Solution. Time is Money - Money is Time. |