The Wholesale Forums

[katietuesday]

Hi All

We are looking at starting a prom dress business... on-line. I need customers to be able to see a dress they like on our website, click on it, select colour and size, then go to an order form, then pay.

I have designed websites before but never had to do any of this and I'm stuck!

Do I need to get a company to do this for me? I can I build the whole 'shopping cart' thing myself? Then just offer my customers the option of paying by Paypal, cheque, or googlepay?

Sorry for being a bit slow here! Its all new to me.

[amazingfinance]

We can offer a web site design service with this, p/m us if any questions

[DIGIMANIA]

Have you tried oscommerce, which is free and quite easy to learn?

[Rinox]

Im a webdesigner. Don't bother paying a company. Use OsCommerce which is free and if there is an extra function you need you can pay a little for it.

[Pete]

It comes down to Time vs. Money.

Just as there is Toyota / Nissan / Honda, or Ford / GM / Chrysler there is CubeCart / ZenCart / OSCommerce, each with it's own group of supporters.

As someone with nearly daily experience with them all (Plus AgoraCart and a few others), I'd suggest CubeCart.

It's by far the easiest to set up. You can go through the setup choices in minutes, vs hours with Zen and OSC. And the options you'll need for size and color are possible. (There is a $ 19.95 optinal mod that makes options truly simple.)

It does not at this time take GooglePay, but I don't think the oters do, either, since GP is sort of insecure, as I understand it. It will do PayPal and a number of other methods, including print an ordeer form they can mail with payment.

I have a number of folks here on TWF who use CubeCart. They all start by asking me to help them set up the carts. When I explained that it was basically "fill in the blanks" and they would still have to give me the answers, so they may as well just do it themselves, that's what they have all decided to do.

So, it's truly time vs money. And as far as time is concerned, here is what you will have to do, either way -

Supply all sorts of basic site information - contact, taxes, shipping, payment accounts, etc. Also your images and database - designs, colors, sizes, prices, etc. All of this has to be prepared by you before you - or anyone - can enter it in the shopping cart. So, since you are going to have to "handle" all of it anyhow, why not just enter it yourself? It really is basically fill in the blanks.

Now, if you have designed sites before, you may want to customize the look of your cart, but that is simply designing a template for "around" the cart. You can choose from a few generics, opt for some free or for fee templates available at www.cubecart.org or design or hire your own.

But the basic setting up of the cart is something I always recommend doing yourself. (I even charge to do it and still tell people to do it themselves!)

Here's a link to an empty v3 (the free version) CubeCart admin area. Go on in and snoop around a bit, you'll see how simple it is -

http://smallbusinesshoster.com/cubec...dmin/index.php

User is admin, password is password

Check it out, it's truly quite simple. AND - IT'S FREE!

[anotheruser]

It does not at this time take GooglePay, but I don't think the others do, either

Zen Cart and Cubecart both have Google Checkout plugins. They all have free templates available, which make customisation a doddle in minutes.

Zen Cart has a UK template which mods defaults to UK formats, e.g. dates, 5 November comes out as we understand it here, 5/11, rather than looking like 11th May, 11/5, currency default comes out as £, z's removed and s's put in for correct spelling, no Zips, States or default United States which can't be eradicated, VAT for tax, UK, Channel Islands, Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh counties and many other UK mods which make life liveable again rather than wading through the American version of "well, it could nearly be English but it looks foreign to us and I can't find where to change it".

That more than makes up for any other ease of use features because for the non-programmer to have to change all that for a UK audience is a nightmare. It's bad enough for me and I have a reasonable knowledge of my way around an application including PHP and MySQL. Now, it may be there for CubeCart, but I haven't spotted it yet so I won't recommend CubeCart for UK use.

Seriously, it's fine and can be fun when we're dealing with each other but to the public at large it's confusing and a damned nuisance for those of us who have to deal with it and them.

[Pete]

Click the link I've supplied above. Everything you mention is right there, most of it on the first General Settings page. The developer is in the UK. Someone with the name Alistair could reside nowhere else. (Seriously, it's not a name I've ever encountered in the US.) BTW, he goes by Al and is active in the user forum.

UK / EU dates, no problem. GBP no problem. In fact you can show the pages in about a dozen currencies / languages, but still have the payment actually processed in the currency of your choice.

There are probably 200 UK cities / towns / counties already there. I can't imagine a more UK capable cart, to be honest. I've got dozens of UK users who get up and running quickly, often the first day.

And you don't have to make about half a dozen clicks on each setup option to get to the real meat of the setting. As I've said several times, it's basically fill in the blanks, not Click, Click, Click then maybe change a setting, click, click.

And there is not menu item after menu item. One list down the left of the site, no dropdowns, no confusing set part of it here, but go somewhere else to do the rest, as it is with Zen and OSC.

Spend 5 minutes on the demo and you'll see how comphrehensive and simple it is.

[anotheruser]

Sounds cool, Pete. I'll take another look - when I get some time. Busy throwing more products into my own shopping cat just now. And given the time I've put in designing logos, background images, converting product images to fit as I want them, banners from my hosting site, adverts to attract banner adverts etc etc etc, no I am not going to swap carts now!

[Pete]

I'd never suggest such a thing. I'm not trying to sell you, or anyone, any particular cart. After all, how much do I make on "FREE"?

But I am interested in overcoming the perception that CubeCart is not suitable for UK, or other countries. And it is way more simple to get started using.

As far as changing from OSC or Zen simply for the sake of change, I'd never suggest that.

BTW, here's a great FREE program for changing those image sizes - http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/index.php?2.9

[markcrook]

www.mals-e.com offer free shopping cart software and customers have an option to purchase through paypal or nochex. You can see how it works on www.mjc-media.co.uk or www.dog-ak.co.uk. You will need to build your site and add links from the buy it now buttons etc.

Mark