The Wholesale Forums

[jazzman]

Hi Sigma,

The sheer strength of a customised shopping cart is not so much the appearance as the underlying functionality and how the underlying functionality integrates with the website as a whole. It is about providing optimal end user requirements as opposed something that does the Job really well.

A profesisonally designed website is composed of multiple layers or tiers ie 'n-tier architecture'. So in the case of a professionally designed shopping cart we have the following layers
Presentation Layer = HTML('Content'), CSS-Cascading Style Sheets('Presentation')
Business Layer = Code that handles business logic of shopping cart - calculations etc
Data Layer = The code that talks to the data base
Database = Data processing,manipulation storage and retrieval

So let me now make some sense out of this. When you use a prebuilt shopping cart, changing the appearance is just a matter of altering the CSS in the presentation layer, nothing else needs to change. So if its just the appearance you are changing its very straight forward and all off the shelf shopping carts should allow you to do this. So no change to any other layer other than the presentation layer means no need for custom shopping cart.

What constitutes a custom shopping cart however, is when extensive alteration is required in the business layer, such that this change will cascade into the data layer and ultimately the database itself. Notice, I have not said a word in this paragraph to suggest changing the presentation layer, because thats not what really dictates the need for a custom shopping cart. So its not really governed by a professional look, its governed by sheer bespoke functional power.

Why would you want to change the business layer? ie when would you need a custom cart?

Well let me list a few considerations...
You may want to....
Set up customised data tracking, ie track orders, discounts offered, related newsletters etc
Perform custom calculations for specific customers,
ie discounts for return UK customers,
special offers - show what others bought along with current shopping cart item
Offer customised advice about a particular product, perhaps to a particular type of customer.
The list is endless when you really start to think about it.

Having said what I think should dictate the use of custom v's off the shelf, I do appreciate cost and time are a huge factor in such decisions and ultimately one often needs to make compromises based on this. Talking of hitting the nail on the head, you well and trully did that when you said you get what you pay for. And sometimes if life we need to settle for not getting what we simply can't afford.

From what I have read on this forum, I think Pete is definately the man to keep you right if you want to get started quickly with something that will do the job and do it at an affordable price. And I have to say, from the little I have seen of CubeCart it looks like a very capable product.

Kind Regards

Jazzman

[sigma]

Hi Jazzman,

Yes, custom=bespoke and you can do exactly what you want. And get exactly what you ask for. This is what attracted me to this in the first place. However, for a brand new ecommerce site, I now believe this is the wrong strategy. I think, at least for my case, that I should start from the bottom of the pile with a simple and cheap site and as business takes off, improve my site. Then as the need arises, move to a custom site and spend as much money as I need to and feel comfortable with. I don't think there's any point in spending a fortune on a bespoke site right from the beginning. It might look great, feel great, make business smooth and even attract more customers than a template version but if the business doesn't take off, the amount lost will be great too!!!

I was reading through a website that has case studies of ecommerce sites. Someone posted the link earlier in this thread. The costs involved are simply stupid. Hosting £700 per month. Company charges them something like £40k to design their site, another one £14k. To think you have so many free tools on the internet and open source sofware. A good e.g. is Google Analytics. Completely free and even comes with an ecommerce toolbox. Even the basics of the SEO can be done by yourself. I've haven't done it myself, only read about it but from what I see, the most important aspects are keywords, page title, meta tag, good site structure, good contents, etc. with free help from google again - Google Webmaster.

I was asked to introduce myself. I intend on selling clothes online and stumbled upon this site while looking for suppliers. I know this is the wrong place for introductions but I'm trying to get read through the forum first. There is so much information and all very relevant that it's going to take me a long time. I wonder why they call it the wholesale forum? Surely, from what I have briefly seen, it's much much more than that?