e-commerce system compatible with Mac OSX

[mermou]

Hi everyone,

I am in the process of setting up an online gift boutique and am really confused about how best to set up the store itself. I don't know any coding and am a complete beginner when it comes to the techy stuff, so please bear with me.

Just as an example, the type of functionality I need would be akin to the following - daylab dot com and cutxpaste dot com.

To give you an idea of the kind of features I would like:

1. Design - I want the layout to be completely customisable to my own design and branding, rather than working within a limited framework given by a provider or their skins. I personally don't like the look of OSCommerce sites, but understand if you get someone that knows what they are doing, this can be changed to suit your own needs. Has anyone experience with this software? I've been put off by the fact that it is open source and there appear to be loads of bugs reported on the website.

2. I am working on a MacBook Pro, so the software would need to be compatible with this (OSX). From what I've seen, this limits my options as many systems are compatible with Windows only. I've been looking at iSell through Macdock, which I like because it is Mac-based and has the design advantages that come with that, but am put off by the lack of info on their website and the fact that it is an American programme.

3. Just fyi, I will be accepting payments through PayPal.

So in essence, I am not needing a website I can put together myself as I will get the initial layout / design / set up done by a techy person. However, I will need to be able to update it myself with new products, offers etc.

I wondered if anyone could offer advice on the best way forward?

Thanks so much in advance.

[kulture]

Do not be confused by the e-commerce package server requirements vs your client operating system. You can have a windows based package so long as the client side (i.e. the admin etc) is web based. Basically if you can browse the internet and buy things from internet shops then you can use most e-commerce packages.

You cannot use e-commerce packages that have a windows backend, but I suspect that this is the minority.

So you need to choose a techy and a package. One will depend on the other. It MIGHT be better to find your techy first and get their advice based on your product range and requirements. There is little point in getting a package and then finding that there is no one you can find who knows the package. That said many packages have good forums and are a good place to advertise for a techy requirement.

So tell us a bit more about your needs and I am sure there will be lots of suggestions. For example, how many products do you plan to sell? What postage options do you require (i.e. are they all a similar weight or a vast variety)? How many different categories would you envisage? Would you want a product to appear in more than one category? What volume of sales etc do you anticipate in time?

[phoog]

Hi
I'm no expert but for what it's worth I'd go with joomla and virtuemart as in my very limited experience it appears to give you far more options re design/layout and as a non tech I find it pretty easy to admin
it also works out of the box with paypal !
if you google...
virtuemart
joomla
and for layouts joomla24

[Astaroth]

As has been said, the limitations on software for ecommerce sites is the OS that the server is running not your back end machine.

It will be easier to design certain sites on certain desktops because of testing etc (eg .Net would be more difficult to design for on a Mac than a PC) but it doesnt prevent it from being done as long as the server supports it.

I am equally not a fan of oscommerce but to be fair to it, and other off the shelf solutions, when you are trying to be everything to everyone you simply are going to have bugs. Some bugs are going to be due to user errors, others due to every changing technologies, others due to buggy third party plug ins and finally true bugs in the system which simply are going to occur when creating a project of this size.

[Jamest]

Hi

Sounds like the questions I was asking a few months ago as we're also Mac based and wanted design control. Check out our site, www.1770.co.uk this was produced effortlessly by David at www.internetretailer.biz from a photoshop mockup I sent him. The software is being upgraded to give us more flexibility to alter the design and layout ourselves.

Good luck

J

[awebapart.com]

Design - I want the layout to be completely customisable to my own design and branding, rather than working within a limited framework given by a provider or their skins
Then you definitely need at least a semi-bespoke custom solution if you want a 'completely customisable' advanced ecommerce solution. For these type of solutions, realistically you have to spend at least over a grand. Even semi-bespoke custom solutions (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=278560) will have some limitations in how they are customisable, you still have to design the overall system with the underlying ecommerce system's features and constraints in mind, but having access to code means that they are more customisable (at a cost) than other off-the-shelf customisable systems or services.

I personally don't like the look of OSCommerce sites, but understand if you get someone that knows what they are doing, this can be changed to suit your own needs. Has anyone experience with this software? I've been put off by the fact that it is open source and there appear to be loads of bugs reported on the website.
osCommerce should only be used a base for developing a final system. In its base default form there are serious bugs and shortfalls, which you or your developer needs to fix and address as part of developing the final system. A lot of bugs (and fixes) are reported on the oscommerce site because it is an open project, and because it is open enough to allow anyone to post on the site, you don't get the same openness with Actinic or any other closed source supplier. There are other reasons for osCommerce issues too, basically anyone can upload a contribution however poor a developer they are, so you need good developer judgement as to what contribution you decide to add. Contributions can also interfere with other contributions, but contributions (and the bugs/issues related to them) are not part of the core osCommerce system.

The cutxpaste.com site you mentioned, is developed using osCommerce but it is not the default osCommerce system, it is a semi-bespoke custom system that has used osCommerce as its base to develop a final system.

Personally I wouldn't recommend you embarking on a semi-bespoke custom osCommerce project at this time, since what you develop, your brand new system, will be obsolete and be legacy code once osCommerce v3 is released next year. We use our custom version of osCommerce as the embedded shop section of the hosted ecommerce service (http://www.awebapart.com) we offer to our clients, but because this is a hosted managed service rather than a one-off semi-bespoke custom development service, our clients don't have to worry about the osCommerce v3 upgrade or their system becoming obsolete, it is our responsibility to improve and upgrade the system.

I am working on a MacBook Pro, so the software would need to be compatible with this (OSX).
If you go for a solution which is web-based (e.g. osCommerce, Joomla/Virtuemart), which has web-based admin screens and content management screens, then you should be OK.

I will get the initial layout / design / set up done by a techy person.
You shouldn't get a person who only has technical skills to design your website. Design and graphics skills are required for the layout, but preferably still with an understanding of the features and constraints of the underlying ecommerce system. This can either be provided by the one company who have access to people with both skills, or by a couple of companies. For instance for semi-bespoke custom ecommerce projects, trulyace.com and bluecubemedia.co.uk are a good team who work together well, one providing the graphic design the other providing the technical design, development and implementation, a recent joomla/virtuemart ecommerce project of theirs is mentioned on another forum (http://www.shell-livewire.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18199). With a joomla/virtuemart ecommerce system, it is like an osCommerce system in that everything is web-based (admin screens etc) so you should be OK on your Mac.

[mermou]

Thanks everyone for your replies - I appreciate the help and it's certainly helped in giving me a sense of the way forward. I certainly think oscommerce is worth exploring further from the sounds of it, as if I could find a techy to customise it to my design, it might be a low-cost way of getting my site up and running. More sophistication could follow as my business develops.



So tell us a bit more about your needs and I am sure there will be lots of suggestions. For example, how many products do you plan to sell? What postage options do you require (i.e. are they all a similar weight or a vast variety)? How many different categories would you envisage? Would you want a product to appear in more than one category? What volume of sales etc do you anticipate in time?

Thanks for your reply. To answer your questions, I am looking at selling about 70 products initially, but this will grow once I've established my web presence. The postage will just be standard for UK, but I would envisage increasing these options in time. There will be five product categories at first. I guess I would wish for a product to appear in more category if possible.

I hope this helps.

Thanks everyone!

[Harry's Boy]

We currently use Actinic Express for our web shop, which is web based and very good. However, there are a couple of things we'd like to improve on, and the natural path is an upgrade to Actinic Business or Catalogue. BUT, these are only PC based systems, so we'd need to migrate everything onto a PC, or use Parallels or similar. Does anyone know of a Mac based ecommerce system that is as good as Actinic? Thanks:)