New Ecommerce Website

[ElliottG]

Hi

I am starting a new website and I am not sure what shopping cart to use.

It will have about 8,000 products. I know a bit of HTML and have an Actinic website already that I did the design for.

It will also have to be able to handle csv import. (for price updates and product upload.)

I have been looking at

Magneto
pros - lot more add on
pro - Ebay link
con - server hungry
con - More design work to do (but lots of templates)

CS-cart
Pro - Out of the box design to start of with
Con - no Ebay link

also been told about Open cart or Prestashop

If anyone could offer any advice what would be better to go with.

 

[AmazingGiftBoxes]

I am using Opencart and it is very easy to use, there is a lot of extensions and themes which are cheap as chips.You can integrate it with Ebay, Amazon, Mailchimp and so on......

There is a big community of users so when you get stuck you will always get help on oc forum.

There is bunch of modules that offer csv import/export, the only thing I am worried is about amount of products but you can visit oc forum and they will tell you if opencart can handle it.

Visit their website and have a play with their demo.

Google my name to see my oc website.

Good luck.

Jerry D

 

[Websitehandyman]

I'm in the process of moving my site from creloaded which I've used for years but now need to buy an update. Moving to Cs-cart which I bought cheap instead of that update. I've installed the new v3 and having installed in before I'm still very impressed.

So those are the two I would recommend, creloaded has been a bit off over the last few years due to venture capital getting involved but in Feb the old owner took back control so I'll be watching that space as they plan to move completely away form the oscommerce code.

Back to cs-cart the csv import is very good and in fact I've already decided thats the way I'll maintain my products. I'll create csv files for categories and store them on the server. I'll then update those in excel test them on my local machine before triggering the import in the admin page of cs-cart.

The only issue I see is V3 only currently has one skin at the moment as it was only released a few weeks ago. That's a big let down on 2.* which has over 20 skins to choose from.

I think for the price cs-cart knocks the socks of any other cart I've used. Not a big fan of Magneto, neat it has ebay but as you say it's so hungry for resources. I'm sure the will be a few people here to back it up but for the are a number of options better if you really need a powerful shop on a limited budget.

 

[DesignsOnline]

Hi ElliottG,
have you considered having a website built for you to your specifications?
That way you get exactly what you want, and it is unique to you.

You might also want to check http://UkEcommerce.com They are putting together a sort of guide site to ecommerce options.

 

[Sparx]

Hi ElliottG,
have you considered having a website built for you to your specifications?
That way you get exactly what you want, and it is unique to you.

You might also want to check http://UkEcommerce.com They are putting together a sort of guide site to ecommerce options.

On there 'Ecommerce Developers' page they only have 1 recommendation which is you..?

 

[DesignsOnline]

Yes im a site sponsor

 

[webstore]

Hi I am starting a new website and I am not sure what shopping cart to use. It will have about 8,000 products. I know a bit of HTML and have an Actinic website already that I did the design for. It will also have to be able to handle csv import. (for price updates and product upload.)

In my opinion if you want the ultimate then it has to be Magento CE (Community Edition) especially as its so SEO friendly. There's probably more extensions that have been written for Magento than any other on-line shop system and the fact that there are extensions for integration with Google Shopping, eBay, Amazon and Facebook Aradium on-line shops is a good example of this. Furthermore, Magento CE 1.7 also includes an Apps generator for iPhone, iPad and Andriod but set-up and ongoing Apps hosting is only through Magento Inc (owned by eBay) and you have to be sure of a doing a decent level of business to justify costs.

If your 8,000 products have a lot of options, attributes and multiple categories to be linked to you will not find the standard Magento CE import routines will not be up to the job of doing that and you'll need to invest in some .csv import extensions that will cost you $99~$250 approx according to which ones you purchase - but well worth every cent given you will save countless number of hours.

Also there's loads of good themes to purchase from the likes of Templatemela, TemplateMonster and ThemeForest.

That's all the positives - the only downsides I am aware of (can't deny that I am a Magento newbie) is that Magento is RAM hungry and everytime you make changes you need to remember to clear the appropriate cache and re-index when necessary albeit that's all easy to do in /admin and you'll need Zend installed on your server before you start your Magento install.

Bottom line is that Magento is probably better future proofed than any other on-line shop system. Please feel free to PM if you need any further free advice.
.

 

[ElliottG]

Hi

I have been playing with cs-cart all weekend and I realy think it is a great cart.

As for Magento I am trying to install it on my VPS but not having much joy.

The problum i am having is installing mcrypt

If anyone got any pointer let me know as i am going round and round.

Elliott

 

[urbantis]

Hello to all,

I´m new and I am about to make a online store with products that I am already selling on ebay, etsy, etc. and I use paypal to check out
Since I have no idea, I would like to ask if you can guide me on what to choose. I have read good reviews about store2go and magento , but I ´m not even sure if they are the same thing. And magento is more expensive that store2go.
What I would like to have is an online store and to use paypal to check out if possible.

Looking forward for your answers.

Regards.
urban

 

[webstore]

I guess you've checked out the list of Magento requirements at http://www.magentocommerce.com/system-requirements and http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/magento-zend

 

[ElliottG]

Hi

I have seen this already. The sever is OK apart from not having mcrypt install. I have spend over 3 hours trying to install the dame thing.

 

[j600com]

Yes im a site sponsor

...and own the site

 

[ElliottG]

Hi

Is anyone willing to install mcrypt on a VPS. (I am willing to pay)

 

[Websitehandyman]

Hi

Is anyone willing to install mcrypt on a VPS. (I am willing to pay)

Try this;

find the php.ini

\bin\php\PHP****\php.ini
change ;extension=php_mcrypt.dll
to extension=php_mcrypt.dll

 

[ElliottG]

Try this;

find the php.ini


\bin\php\PHP****\php.ini
change ;extension=php_mcrypt.dll
to extension=php_mcrypt.dll

Dont have a file called php.ini on this domain

 

[Websitehandyman]

Dont have a file called php.ini on this domain

Well you do if you are running php but you could try creating one in the root and adding that line. Not sure if it'll work but worth a try.

Not knowing anything about your VPS I can't tell you where it might be but if you are using Kloxo you can add the module in the admin panel I think under configure domain php.

 

[Babar]

Magento Commerce, OsCommerce and Xcart are good ones. But i would suggest to go for Magento. The CMS can also be integrated with your external data inventory, courier services, order management systems, multiple payment processing systems, analytics packages or data feeds automation for external marketing campaigns.