E-Commerce Software For Mobile Phone Store

[benh777]

Hi everyone,

I have an assignment to build an online store for a mobile phone retailer. The site needs to be able to sell different types of contract with different types of phone.

I have created stores with Actinic Catalog before, for companies such as garden centres. However a mobile phone store selling different contracts and phones linked together requires a more complex shopping cart / e-commerce software application.

I need the site to be similar in functionality to mobiles.co.uk or phones4u.co.uk

I have looked through many shopping cart software's portfolios but haven't managed to find any example stores with the functionality i need!

Can anyone help in suggesting a shopping cart software package that has the ability to create such a site fairly straightforwardly and in a relatively short space of time??

Thanks,

Ben

 

[mayo23]

I would say that this is going to require some bespoke coding, primarily because of the mix of products with airtime. The problem with off the shelf systems is that they are too inflexible with customer's specific needs.

You're competitors have definitely had bespoke carts built to suit their needs.

I would suggest using an open source shopping cart system (I personally like to work with osCommerce, because it is stable and easy to code) and change it to suit.

However, you will need to be pretty good with php and mysql to achieve what you want.

Hope this helps.

PM me if you need any further advice

 

[Red Eye Media]

I'd be very intersted in knowing what extra functionality you would require.
What exactly would you want from your shopping cart system?

 

[benh777]

Thankyou for your replies!

The functionality I need is for customers to be able to select a network and then phone or vice versa. But I guess I could make the phone as the product with the contracts as options, and also the contracts as products with phones as options.

The main thing I need is for each phone a page where you can select the different contracts easily, much like: mobiles.co.uk/orange-lg-cookie.html
Also a menu system where customers can select exactly what they want, by phone / contract or both e.g. phones4u.co.uk/shop/shop_contract_main.asp

What I'm looking for is a Shopping Cart package that has the flexibility to create such pages easily.

 

[garysumpter]

Try Magento...

 

[paretowasright]

I would look at Magento,Interspire and Tiger Commerce but you will need some customisation whichever.

 

[shopintegrator]

Hi paretowasright,

The Shop Integrator ecommerce solution (www dot shopintegrator dot co dot uk) will give you the ability to create a product in your online shop that has up to two sets of options lists assigned to that product. If needed, you can also have any of the options alter the base price of the product if required, increasing it or decreasing the base product price.

So, in your mobiles.co.uk site link used as an example, the network tariff is the product, the list of phones are the first set of options and then the free gift is the second list of options on that product. (or however you want to combine the product/options lists)

You can use the Shop Integrator ecommerce solution when you put the site together yourself or we have access to web designers who could quote for you for the whole wesite if you wish.

Best wishes,
ShopIntegrator

 

[bcmedia]

Joomla and Virtuemart would produce a beautiful looking mobile phone site but as mentioned your customisation needs would require bespoke coding.

Further to that, before you begin walking down any path, you need to flesh out what it is you want your store to do - when I read the words "I guess" I sense that you do not have a concrete idea in your head as to the specific functionality of the site. I would remedy this first then choose your platform based on what meets your specific needs the best.

With out that done I think you could be walking into a expensive mess