I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use something?

-Ben

Wagg wrote:
> I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
> facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
> post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use something?
> 
> -Ben


Hi Ben,

There several you can use for this: 2 I have used myself are

Os Commerce

Zencart

I actually prefer Zencart as the support is very good and its free,

Look here at a site I did for a customer for what it can do:

http://www.bengeorgephotography.co.uk

Choose the aerial shop

George

On Sep 25, 3:09 pm, Big George  wrote:
> Wagg wrote:
> > I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
> > facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
> > post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use something?
>
> > -Ben
>
> Hi Ben,
>
> There several you can use for this: 2 I have used myself are
>
> Os Commerce
>
> Zencart
>
> I actually prefer Zencart as the support is very good and its free,
>
> Look here at a site I did for a customer for what it can do:
>
> http://www.bengeorgephotography.co.uk
>
> Choose the aerial shop
>
> George

Cheers, will give them both a go. Do you have to take paypal as the
only payment method? I see in the OS one that you can use amazon, but
I also have a worldpay and I will be having a credit card machine put
in soon to do them directly.

-Ben

Wagg wrote:
> On Sep 25, 3:09 pm, Big George  wrote:
>> Wagg wrote:
>>> I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
>>> facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
>>> post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use something?
>>> -Ben
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> There several you can use for this: 2 I have used myself are
>>
>> Os Commerce
>>
>> Zencart
>>
>> I actually prefer Zencart as the support is very good and its free,
>>
>> Look here at a site I did for a customer for what it can do:
>>
>> http://www.bengeorgephotography.co.uk
>>
>> Choose the aerial shop
>>
>> George
> 
> Cheers, will give them both a go. Do you have to take paypal as the
> only payment method? I see in the OS one that you can use amazon, but
> I also have a worldpay and I will be having a credit card machine put
> in soon to do them directly.
> 
> -Ben


Both take numerous payment methods but best checking
software support for whatever payment options you have in mind.

I'm sure both have the option for worldpay so would have no problems
with that option.

George

Big George wrote:
> Wagg wrote:
>> On Sep 25, 3:09 pm, Big George  wrote:
>>> Wagg wrote:
>>>> I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
>>>> facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
>>>> post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use
>>>> something? -Ben
>>> Hi Ben,
>>>
>>> There several you can use for this: 2 I have used myself are
>>>
>>> Os Commerce
>>>
>>> Zencart
>>>
>>> I actually prefer Zencart as the support is very good and its free,
>>>

As an alternative, are there companies that host the whole thing for you, do 
the record-keeping and credit card stuff and just send the proceeds on to 
you at the end of the month? Possibly also doing fulfillment if you want 
that?

Wagg wrote:
> On Sep 25, 3:09 pm, Big George  wrote:
>> Wagg wrote:
>>> I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
>>> facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
>>> post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use something?
>>
>>> -Ben
>>
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> There several you can use for this: 2 I have used myself are
>>
>> Os Commerce
>>
>> Zencart
>>
>> I actually prefer Zencart as the support is very good and its free,
>>
>> Look here at a site I did for a customer for what it can do:
>>
>> http://www.bengeorgephotography.co.uk
>>
>> Choose the aerial shop
>>
>> George
>
> Cheers, will give them both a go. Do you have to take paypal as the
> only payment method? I see in the OS one that you can use amazon, but
> I also have a worldpay and I will be having a credit card machine put
> in soon to do them directly.
>
> -Ben

I've set up a couple of sites using osC ... it's open source (free) and has 
good fast support via the forum.

Like all ecommerce solutions it takes a bit of getting used to, and is quite 
tedious if you have a lot of products... but osC is pretty easy to configure 
and there are thousands of add-on modules available to customise it to your 
requirements.

You will need at least one but preferably two SQL databases (one for your 
live site, one for testing) .. and when you start getting visitors you may 
find bandwidth is a problem if you opt for a cheaper hosting solution.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:10:15 -0700 (PDT), Wagg 
wrote:

>I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
>facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
>post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use something?
>
>-Ben

Look at Zencart.  Free and with very active user forum where the
developers hang out as well.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/index.php

Very configurable package, still be actively developed.  Plenty of
add-in modules, either free or commercial, to deal with credit
cards/Paypal etc.

To take credit cards, you would need a merchant account which can cost
about £20 a month and a payment gateway like Protx - now taken over by
Sage.  For hosting try 

www.cyberprog.net  

Cost for an ecommerce site per annum with SSL runs to about £110.
Zencart pre-installed, which you then mod yourself.

On Sep 26, 12:41 pm, "GB"  wrote:
> Big George wrote:
> > Wagg wrote:
> >> On Sep 25, 3:09 pm, Big George  wrote:
> >>> Wagg wrote:
> >>>> I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
> >>>> facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
> >>>> post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use
> >>>> something? -Ben
> >>> Hi Ben,
>
> >>> There several you can use for this: 2 I have used myself are
>
> >>> Os Commerce
>
> >>> Zencart
>
> >>> I actually prefer Zencart as the support is very good and its free,
>
> As an alternative, are there companies that host the whole thing for you, do
> the record-keeping and credit card stuff and just send the proceeds on to
> you at the end of the month? Possibly also doing fulfillment if you want
> that?

I looked at theat, but have to pay a monthly charge for it, all well
and good, but if I decide to move or some other reason it stops. I'd
rather use the space I have already have and keep it in there.

-Ben

On Sep 27, 9:02 am, no-one  wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:10:15 -0700 (PDT), Wagg 
> wrote:
>
> >I want to start selling things online off my own site in a cart
> >facility. Can anyone reccomend anything? I dont know where else to
> >post, and I am sure there are some people in here who use something?
>
> >-Ben
>
> Look at Zencart.  Free and with very active user forum where the
> developers hang out as well.
>
> http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/index.php
>
> Very configurable package, still be actively developed.  Plenty of
> add-in modules, either free or commercial, to deal with credit
> cards/Paypal etc.
>
> To take credit cards, you would need a merchant account which can cost
> about £20 a month and a payment gateway like Protx - now taken over by
> Sage.  For hosting try
>
> www.cyberprog.net 
>
> Cost for an ecommerce site per annum with SSL runs to about £110.
> Zencart pre-installed, which you then mod yourself.

Thanks for the info. Already downloaded it, just having some FTP
issues now, which should be fixed soon.

I've around 12,000 (give or take a couple of hundred), items, but need
around only 200 to get the site working. The site is up and running at
the moment, but I only take orders if people email me or call first, I
dont have anything up and running on the shopping side... yet...

I have a database that is managed on the website for stock control
which works fine. However I will probably have to re-write it to use
the ecart facility.

I looked at cyberprog when I first started this, but a lot of my
domains were already with someone else, I have no idea how hard it
will be to transfer the main ones over, but they arent due for
webspace renewal till around Feb next year, so it gives me between now
and then to sort this.

I have no problem with doing it myself and learning as I go along, but
the cost is the driving factor. I have no problem with buying
software, as long as it works right. But I will give the two of these
a go, as soon as I get my FTP access back!

-Ben