Choosing a Shopping Cart

[Ozzy]

Getting started in E-Commerce - Choosing a Shopping Cart

So you've decided you want to get into e-commerce, and you need an online shop. Where do you start? In the first of our Getting Started with E-Commerce series of articles, we look at the best way to choose the right cart for you.

1) The List:

The first thing to do is draw up a list of things you need the shop to be able to do, then find a cart that satisfies that list. The sort of things you could include are:

1) Automatic email receipt to customer
2) Stock control - you enter the quantity of each item you have so that it's automatically made out of stock when finished
3) Automatic thumbnail image creator
4) Integration with a wide range of credit card processing services
5) Ability to create categories and sub categories to suit your products
6) Easy template creation so you can change the look of the shop easily
7) Ability to change between one-off orders or forcing registrations when ordering
8 ) Mailing list facility (though this is easy to set up separately)
9) Search facility (if you have a lot of products)
10) Backup facilities so you can have your own backups instead of relying solely on the hosting company

2) Self- or Remotely Hosted

Once you have drawn up your list, decide whether you want your own shopping cart or a monthly hosted service. There are advantages and disadvantages for each, but if you can, go for your own cart. If you don't have the cash to stump upfront for your own cart, hosted services can be useful but you may find in some cases that their range of templates are a little limiting, and you may well find other shops using the same or similar templates, which is not ideal. In some cases they can also work out quite expensive, though they are ideal for someone with very little technical knowledge.

3) Administration

You will also need to decide whether you want to manage the shop online (through an admin area) or offline (on your PC). Online management means you can manage your shop from anywhere, which can be useful. Offline management usually means you set up your cart on your pc, test it there and manage it there, then upload it to your web host. These offline systems sometimes include a complete contact management system as well, but at �300+ they may have more features than a small shop would require, and may therefore be a bit pricey if you're not using many of those features.

4) The Budget

Next is a budget. What is the maximum you want to spend, either upfront or on a monthly hosted service? Are there various levels of upgrade with the cart so you can start small and add features as you need them, which may suit you better? Some shopping systems are free, for example Mals-e and osCommerce but they do require a bit of technical knowledge to get the most out of them. When you're thinking of a budget, always bear in mind that even though you may save money now on a cheaper solution, in a few months time if your shop is successful and you have to upgrade to a different cart, it could cost a fair bit in both time and money.

5) Choose a Language

Another consideration is whether to go for a Javascript, PHP or ASP based cart. If you don't already have hosting then it's not an issue, however if you do have an existing website then it would be wise to bear this in mind, so that everything works well together. You could, of course, always host your shopping cart on a different server to the rest of your website, so this is more of a preference than a requirement when choosing your new shopping cart.

6) The Legwork!

Now you can start going through the list of shopping carts available. There are literally hundreds, but not all will satisfy your list above, so it's important you use that as your guide. One of the primary deciders will be your credit card processing service, so your list should include who you are going to use for that. See Choosing an Online Payment Processor in next week's issue for more information.

Some popular shopping carts are listed below. Please note that this is not a definitive list, nor are these necessarily recommended by Managed Web.

Free:

Mals Ecommerce - http://www.mals-e.com
osCommerce - http://www.oscommerce.com
CubeCart - http://www.cubecart.com/
phpShop - http://www.phpshop.org/

Commercial:

Actinic Catalog - http://www.actinic.co.uk/
JShop - http://www.jshop.co.uk/
Evolve - http://www.lynx.net.uk/
Ekmpowershop - http://www.ekmpowershop.com/
Erol - http://www.erolonline.co.uk/
Get Trolleyed - http://www.get-trolleyed.co.uk/
Cactus Shop - http://www.cactushop.com
ClickCartPro - http://www.clickcartpro.co.uk/
Squirrelcart - http://www.squirrelcart.com/
BazaarBuilder - http://www.bazaarbuilder.com/

As you will see if you do a bit of research on these sites, choosing the right e-commerce system for you can be a bit of a minefield, though if you've drawn up a list or requirements as described above it will be a lot easier. Don't just go for the first option or the cheapest - it may not necessarily suit your new shop. Good luck!

Written by Managed Web - http://www.managedweb.com

[kyber]

Brilliant introduction, many thanks.

My brother is looking at buying a shopping system this very moment. I initially pointed him at Actinic but having played with the trialversion, it seems much trickier than it should be to add a few custom fields and similarly to import from his existing Access databases. He runs a specialist online bookshop and needs to add fields for Author, Publisher, format, pages, etc. I shall have a look through the other options your have listed.

I have looked through OSCommerce before and considered building it but am concerned about needing to code customisations and making a long term rod for my own back as it could then diverge from the code base in future updates. It is php based and traditionally the open source community has not been good at splitting content, presentation and code logic. However, there are a number of people selling and supporting OSCommerce based solutions though so it may be worth a revisit. I think he will have a preference though for something mainstream and well supported in the traditional manner.

Stuart

[kyber]

Having spent some considerable time evaluating the various products mentioned in the original post, and doing far more PHP/Perl coding than I intended, my final choice came down to two products not mentioned in the original list:
X-Cart (http://www.x-cart.com)
Lite Commerce (http://www.litecommerce.com)

These are from the same company, a Russian programming team. Both are written in php and use established templating systems. You get full source code and can make adjustments as required. There is also a cost effective and quick custom development service and they also carry out installations.

For my brother, I chose Lite Commerce as his business did not need the greater capability of X-Cart. It is worth being aware that Lite Commerce is not a cut-down version of Lite Commerce but is a modular package written from scratch.

Stuart

[Tickety Boo]

The package I use is from www.ecommercetemplates.com. Available for ASP or PHP and is crammed with features and felxibilty. I downloaded the users manual first read it thoroughly then decided to purchase. It cost me about £65.00 for a PHP template that's completely editable in Dreamweaver and has the MySQL database, full search etc all there.

And the main thing also is support for the product. Check out their forum, it's awesome and I have asked 5 questions and had answers back within 4 hours at the most. Also there are a lot of 3rd party developers for this software with some brilliant add-ons.

It knocks the rest of them into a cocked hat, and as for Actinic forget it. The generated HTML and code etc is cluttered, clumsy and not that good.

I design websites for a living and now when clients need an e-commerce solution I don't bother coding my own I purchase the template edit it accordingly and away we go. Much more profitable for all concerned.

[Anonymous]

e-commerce - setting up a site.

the introduction to this thread was great for those who are new to setting up online shopping.

From experience the one i found easiest to use for my own needs as well as my clients is OSCommerce.

It can be a little daunting if you are design newbie when you first open the read me file but if you are patient the results are well worth it.

MAKE SURE YOU CHECK YOUR WEB HOST HAS MYSQL AND PHP SUPPORT -

its a common query people come to us with. they get the software and are all excited about building a webshop only to find their hosting service wont support it

[Entrepreneur]

Two more criteria that you can add to the list:

a). Susceptibility to hackers.

b). Ability to show the customer the final inclusive total price *before* asking for personal details (other than location, to evaluate shipping costs). Amazingly the basic version of osCommerce fails to do this and (in my opinion) loses many potential sales as a result. No mildly sceptical person is going to enter his credit card details without knowing the invoice total.

I'm currently using Mal's Ecommerce but it doesn't do everything I need and I'll be changing to a custom package in the future. However Mal's price is right (I think it's $6,95 per month for the "premium cart") and there's a support forum. But you have to understand HTML and there's no direct support for a product database.

[visagephoto]

I was looking around my local computer suppliers and asking for reccomendations on online shopping cart options and was advised that in addition to purchasing suitable software, I would also have to upgrade my hosting package to include a secure (encrypted?) data facility. Is this correct or does the software provide everything I need including any neccessary security features

[DotNetWebs]

Hi Alan

If you want your customers to enter their credit card details into your site you need to have the site secured by an SSL Certificate. This ensures that the data transmitted from the browser to the server is encrypted. This is a function of the web server and not the shopping cart software.

There are several ways that that you may achieve this:

Your hosting package may already offer you space on your provider's shared secure server. The advantage of this arrangement is that it is cheaper than getting your own certificate. The disadvantage of this arrangement is that the URL of your shopping cart will look something like “https://visage-photography.securewebhost.com/checkout.asp”. Because the domain is a shared domain some customers may perceive this as being less ‘professional’ that having your own secure space.

In order to have your own secure web space you will need to purchase your own SSL Certificate. This would allow you to have a shopping cart URL like “https://www.visage-photography.com/checkout.asp. The disadvantage here is that it is more expensive and there will probably be restrictions by your web host as to what, if any, certificates can be installed on their shared web servers.

Both of the above methods have the same degree of security. The choice comes down to how you want your site to be perceived and how much you are willing to pay for that perception.

The cheapest method of all is to not actually take the credit card details on your site but to transfer you customers at the payment stage to a third party such as Pay-Pal. Unfortunately this method has the lowest perception by customers but may be a cost effective way of getting started in e-commerce.

There are several other factors that may influence the path you wish to take but I hope I have given you enough to begin with.

Regards

Dotty

Ps Most shopping cart software will also encrypt the credit card details but this is more to do with securely storing the data rather than transmitting the data. The cart software resides on the server and it cannot encrypt the data until it arrives at the server hence the need for secure transmission.

[visagephoto]

Thanks Dotty

I had read in the forums that shopping cart software can cost in the region of £300 - £600 (any you would reccommend?) therefore I assumed that it was a complete sollution and encrypted data transfer was included.

Of the three options you stated, Paypal, Nochex etc. is the least likely route I would take. My site is hosted by oneandone and while I'm not sure about installing my own certificates on their system, my hosting package states that shared SSL is included & dedicated SSL certificates are optional. I would assume therefore I could just purchase suitable software & bolt it on to my site?

Finally if I upgrade my hosting package to one having 1.5Gb of web space and 3 free co.uk domains could I then post more than one individual website within this 1.5Gb space, each with their own url but using the same shopping cart facility.

Thanks again

Alan

[DotNetWebs]

Hello Alan

There are many factors you need to consider when choosing a shopping cart. For example is your site hosted on a Windows or Unix server?, does the software require database support or write permissions on the server? do you have an existing merchant account and will your chosen cart support it? etc

It is probably best to speak to your host and see what carts they support and then seek opinions on those.

Regarding your secure space you can you use your existing hosts shared SSL space or you could ask them for a dedicated certificate. This is effectively the same as having your own certificate as I described earlier except that your host purchases it and installs on your behalf. This is normal with shared hosting, you will not have sufficient permissions to install your own certificates on a shared server for obvious reasons. For the same reasons you might not just be able to ‘bolt on’ your chosen shopping cart, again speak to you web host.

A couple of other points:

A dedicated certificate is likely to incur an annual charge.

You will need a merchant account and this will have start up and annual costs.

Regarding your query about multiple domains and a single shopping cart. This is technically possible but again you would have to talk to your host. There is also likely to be licensing issues with the cart software. I.e you might need three separate licenses.

I would say the bottom line is speak to your host and see if they have en existing solution that would suite your needs. If they don’t or you want a more bespoke solution then you might want to speak to a company like mine or any of the others you will find on this board. Although obviously this would be a more costly solution.

Finally just to clarify a previous point you said:

I had read in the forums that shopping cart software can cost in the region of £300 - £600 (any you would recommend?) therefore I assumed that it was a complete solution and encrypted data transfer was included”

The shopping cart software does not in itself carry out encrypted data transfer. All it does is tell the browser to communicate with the server via SSL. E.g https instead of http. This is also the point where the little yellow padlock appears. In order to do this without generating warnings you need an SSL certificate.

Regards

Dotty

Ps It’s a shame you are in Glasgow. I am getting married in July. I could have done you a deal, pictures for websites! I have already come to a mutually beneficial arrangement with our Caterers!

[visagephoto]

Hi Dotty

An e-commerce site is something I'm hoping set up in a few months or so, therefore I have plenty of time to look into the issues which you pointed out.

I agree, I've always said it's a shame I'm in Glasgow :)

Thanks for the advice & I hope everything goes well for you both in July.

[jasonj]

"[quote="kyber"]Having spent some considerable time evaluating the various products mentioned in the original post, and doing far more PHP/Perl coding than I intended, my final choice came down to two products not mentioned in the original list:
X-Cart (http://www.x-cart.com)
Lite Commerce (http://www.litecommerce.com)"

We use x-cart for all our ecommerce websites which has proven to be very effective.

[Bathead]

Hi,

Is anyone using Roman Cart? If so, how do you rate it?

[Pilfo]

We have used RomanCart from the very start....HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

It's entirely FREE if you just wish to accept payment by cheque/postal order. However, you can upgrade for only £40-00 per year to accept payment using other methods.

We integrate with Protx as the PSP and also have a Merchant Account with our bank. Setting up the Merchant Account was the most difficult part, and of course quite expensive!

Pilfo

[davidjones]

Id go with the ekmpowershop online shop system (http://www.ekmpowershop.com) we have now used it with over 5 customers sites (i work at a design firm) and the results have been great.

Its really easy to use so our clients have no problem managing their stores, and the design and layout gives you the ability to enter in 100% of your own HTML code so we can just design the stores and then hand over the username and password to our customers.

[PowerBasket]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post here.

I have joined this site to rasie awareness of a new business, Power Basket.

http://www.powerbasket.co.uk

It offers a complete hosted shopping cart software. Its 100% unique and has features other scripts don't offer, such as a built in help desk!

Check the site out now for more information!

There is NO set up fee!

Only £19.95 per month

10% DISCOUNT CODE: PT213 (limited time)

http://www.PowerBasket.co.uk

[kyber]

Hi "PowerBasket",

Welcome to the forum. This is not the usual place to post introductions [unless this thread has been moved to the right place] but no harm done. It would be nice to have a name rather than just a brand to talk to.

You have a very interesting proposition and it will be interesting to see how many people take up your new services.

Please do remember thought that this forum is primarily about sharing knowledge and supporting each other and not about promoting your own products and services. That is a side benefit when everyone sees what a good chap/lass you are. You can learn a lot on this forum about marketing your business and sustaining growth. So far you have posted a quite a few responses that basically say to use your service.

Your story of how you identified the opportunity, developed your offer and established your business would be of interest to many of the members so please do consider sharing your knowledge and experience.

Stuart

[gcmorris]

Hello,

There has been a lot of feedback on this. Here is some more. I have been selling Point of Sale and Accounting software for more than two years.

For people starting a business, I recommend using a PayPal for credit card processing. The startup cost is low (nil) and they offer a very easy method of integrating buy buttons onto a web site. There are some horror stories about PayPal, but I have found them to be quite responsive. PayPal are good for international work, taking payments in several currencies and being available in more than 40 countries.

PayPal can also be good for making payments to suppliers, particularly internationally. The cost of bank transfers is huge, and they take ages. PayPal is instant and costs nothing to the sender.

For a "serious" website, I suggest that you need to take credit card payments directly. Some customers will not use PayPal or cannot use PayPal (this is not available for buyers in many countries, including Cyprus and South Africa). However, the commission charged by PayPal is much less than most credit card payment systems.

I searched long and hard to find a suitable credit card system. I believe that a big name has much more credibility. For this reason, World Pay takes a lot of beating. I bank with Barclays, so I decided to use ePDQ. I am not sure that I made the right decision. ePDQ is aimed much more at the bigger more complex web site. I found there payment system complex and cumbersome to implement. They also seem to have a few issues with service outages.

It is twice the work, but I recommend two payment systems. Once for credit card payments direct, and one for systems like PayPal. If you take payments internationally, you may need to have one payment systems in GBP and one in USD.


Graham Morris

www.ezisolution.co.uk

[Dynamic-Xchange]

I would suggest the DXGlobal Payment Console for use as a shopping cart of choice.

. : What Is The DXGlobal Payment Console? : .

The DXGlobal Payment Console is one of the most exciting services to be provided by the DXBusiness range of services. The DXGlobal Payment Console allows businesses to integrate a single payment method onto their web site and simplify their transactions between their customers. With over 30 payment services and over 50 payment options the DXGlobal Payment Console is just the solution you're looking for.

By providing a central management console for your payments you can eliminate the need to have multiple payment buttons on your web site and allow you to present your checkout in a clean and professional manner.

Best of all, the DXGlobal Payment Console can be used and implemented for FREE and even better still, allows your business to claim a bonus on the payments processed through your DXGPC!


. : Who Can Use The DXGlobal Payment Console : .

Any registered DXBusiness can make full use of the DXGlobal Payment Console for their web sites. Features provided within the DXGPC allow web site owners and developers to seamlessly integrate multiple payment services with minimal coding. By providing your customers with the broadest range of payment options you make your customers experience more enjoyable and keep them returning again and again.


. : Where Do The Funds Go? : .

As the DXGlobal Payment Console is a gateway between your web site and external payment services, the funds remain in your external accounts or services. This provides you with some unique benefits:

- Never worry about checking multiple services to see if a payment has been processed as all your payment logs are contained in one easy service.

- Use only the service you feel comfortable with or maximize your service acceptance. By providing you with the option to customize the services that you wish to accept you can add or remove a payment service within minutes.

Visit - https://www.dxinone.com/?DXLink=103373 and then click on the 'Find Out More . . .' link below the flash presentation.

Also to find out more information about DXBusiness Services click here:

http://www.dxinone.com/DXBusiness/General/General.Overview.asp

Hope someone finds this useful.

[Dynamic-Xchange]

Following on from my previous post an integration guide has been released to aid people in the setting up of the The DXGlobal Payment Console into your own website.

https://www.dxinone.com/GDTDownloads/PDF/DXGPCUserGuide.pdf

Hope someone finds this useful.

Best Regards,

Simon.

[verus]

If you are a newbie, however, please pay attention as these website promotional strategies are what you will need to employ over and over again every time you have a new product to promote. Apply these basic techniques and the bedrock of success is laid for you. You can create your own html website using dreamweaver or frontpage. But if you are willing to spend some money for a kick start, I recommend JUMPA.COM.

This site builder as far as i concern provide some kind of e-commerce features in which new entrepreneurs can kick start their online business.

Try it first before you decided to opt-in! Good luck then.. :)

[CarlF]

another one definitely worth considering is VP-ASP (www.vpasp.com). It takes a bit of getting used to, but is much more configurable than many other solutions i've seen.

they're now offering a free version too

best regards

Carl

[ellist]

Hi,

The shopping cart that I have used and would recommend is Shop Director from Polyspaton. Very simple to use and easily editable HTML templates. It may not be as sophisticated as others, but always seems to do the job for my clients.

[TechFox]

What do you think of the iG Shop free shopping cart software at http://www.igeneric.co.uk ?

[eshopcreator]

Hi all

Please add www.eshop-creator.co.uk (http://www.eshop-creator.co.uk) to the commercial list.

Going on general release to the public shortly and a very comprehensive solution, current pricing is high, general release pricing structure being developed for affordability prior to release.

watch this space......

[level200]

I have used candypress.com in the past, its a windows based cart and is very easy to customise.

Has anyone else used this?

[Surf_Anonymously]

I use osCommerce, and its always done well for me.

Cheers

Dan

[Yorganic]

The thing to look out for is how search engine friendly is the system is. I could tell you but I'd have to shoot you! But, the easy way to check that out is to do a few searches in Google and see how the various systems fair.

Some are definitely not search engine friendly and some are not but come with plug-ins that make them more appealing to search engines.

Yorganic Search Marketing
______________________________________
Ethical Search Engine Optimisation & PPC
0870 383 1303 :: info *at* yorganic.net

[Pete Williams]

I have just launched a new site using ekmpowershop it gives a complete shop building and e-commerce shopping cart solution and is extremely simple to use.

A lot of the main payment providers are already built in.

[Zoviet]

You can choise - CS-Cart Shopping cart software. Only $125. It's a complect ecommerce solution with custom development and web-design service. But you can easy customize your cart itself. PHP|MySQL bazed. If you're going to customize site itself i think it's a best solution with very low price. I've choise it and i think that it's a powerfull script with excellent outlook and usability. ..

My site - qplayer.ru
Cart site - cs-cart.com

[UniTechnology]

Hi All,

Have a look at unitechnology .co .uk - UniTrader 2006 is an entry level DIY e-commerce package designed for business users.

It is fully template driven and the range of templates is very good. You can also get completely bespoke template.

You can see some of our customers' sites - both based on free template as well as bespoke ones (see Happy Customers section).

Your feedback is much appreciated and if you can let us know what you think it would be great - enquiries at unitechnology .co .uk


Kind Regards,

Pavel.

[jbarsalou]

HI,

I am trying to select an ecommerce solution. I have specific design requirements so need some flexibility and customisation possibilities. At the same time I am looking for a reasonnably priced solution.

I have been hesitating between:

Xcart
Actinic
Early Impact
Storefront

Which one or any another would you recommend from experience?

Thanks

Jules

[UniTechnology]

Hi Jules,

Please have a look at UniTrader 2006 (you can download it and give it a try for free).



Regards,
Pavel.

[bhav]

try clickcartpro used them a few years back and found the software intuitive and flexible.

[EddieUnitech]

Hi Ozzy,

Any chance of adding us to your list www.unitechnology.co.uk (http://www.unitechnology.co.uk)

We provide complete DIY e-commerce solutions and .net magazine gives us a higher rating than actinic express.

Great information being provided by you guys!

Eddie

[extremelyhappy]

don't use 1shoppingcart. they've got the worst customer service. I've left 3 messages and no call back and emails were not replied.

[Kenix]

I think X-cart is basically easy to use, even for people without technical skill like me. Except that it can be quite costly as compared to other carts.

I am thinking of trying cubecart for my 2nd website, anyone can feedback if this is as user-friendly as x-cart?

[jmds]

I think it would be worth adding Joomla! and Virtuemart to the list at the start of this thread. By using them you can have a website with an integrated shopping cart system.

[awebapart.com]

Obviously there are hundreds of products/tools/services in this area and it can be confusing.

If non-technical people want a medium (over a dozen products) to large shop (hundreds of products), my advice would be to go with a one-stop-shop application service company that handles everything (except the payment provision) including hosting the site. All management of the shop is done online using web-based forms from the application service provider's website. That way everything is backed up centrally, there's only one company to call for support (and that company cannot blame anyone else), and your system should be updated and upgraded as part of the service since you are effectively renting/subscribing to a service.

This is the type of market my company has entered into with our awebapart.com sitebuilder service. We chose this area specifically because we felt that logically this is the best way a company can provide a low cost and good value service to clients wanting an advanced online shop.

There are a number of companies operating in this area all priced around £20-£25 per month including hosting, and the good thing with most of these companies is that from their websites you can visit existing live UK client shops which are using their service and some allow you to try before you buy. All this adds to minimising your risks.

These companies include:

ekmpowershop,
easywebstore,
awebapart

You've probably heard of the first two already. We have been keeping relatively quiet since we started piloting our service over a year ago, but we are heading for a service launch early 2007.

I cannot comment on how the easy the other stores are to customise and set up with products, but our service is definitely aimed at non-technical users allowing them to customise and manage their shops, and it is based on our own professionally customised (and user-customisable) version of osCommerce.

[Antonia @limeone.com]

Do any of them apart from Actinic allow PDF downloads ( immediate). We are still looking for this for all our electronic products.

[openmind]

Do any of them apart from Actinic allow PDF downloads ( immediate). We are still looking for this for all our electronic products.

Ours will when we go live. Thanks for the quote btw :)

[awebapart.com]

Do any of them apart from Actinic allow PDF downloads ( immediate). We are still looking for this for all our electronic products.
Digital product downloads (like pdfs) is a feature supported by osCommerce, and since our solution is based on our own professionally customised version of osCommerce, we support this too. In fact we have provided some extra customisations in this area to also allow for large downloads from external purpose built download sites like www.fileburst.com (http://www.fileburst.com)

We have one client who is currently using the digital downloads feature:
www.instantmagictricks.com (http://www.instantmagictricks.com)
(where the end product download is a video file)

Digital downloads is something my company has a vested interest in anyway, since we started off in 1998 as a games development company developing and selling our PC games online via product download, and as such we are planning to move our old site to our new platform too.

[Antonia @limeone.com]

Thanks for this, any chance of anyone providing us with a quote? We do not want another web site we want to integrate a shopping cart which allows us to sell our PDFs and other digital downloads as they are purchased.

[awebapart.com]

Antonia, I've just sent you an email.