E-commerce question?

[macklord]

I would really like to know what is a good e-commerce program?

I want to start my own shop online website . :)

free if possible

or small fee will be fine also

[Maggilove]

I use osCommerce... found it easy to install, loads of contributions available to help with customisation, good friendly support forum... and it's free... :D

[UnderDog]

Don't forget, you probably want to take credit cards, not free. You can go full-blown and get a merchant account, or use a 3rd party merchant account to process for you and pay even more. You can even use paypal with a 2.9% fee on each credit card transaction. Thats what I use on my site, where I rent out a vacation townhouse for weekend/week rates, so I don't mind the 2.9%. Actually that fee is not that bad. In countries other than the US, you can get 'myStore' - ImagineNation.com, its a storefront and backend setup my father wrote, mostly used by over-seas customers due to the larger barriers to entry in foreign countries to taking credit cards.

- Mel
www.OurPoconoPlace.com

[janeybird]

If you're here on bluehost, you already have one (or two..) for free. I just started setting up my store using zen cart. It's free. It can be automatically installed for you.
hope this helps,
jane

[Degsey69]

If you are new to ecommerce then try CubeCart, it is very well supported by bluehost.

CubeCart forums hhtp://www.cubecart.com helps the newbie out with questions on set up mods etc. It is very well supported with free and paid mods which are very reasonable.

The available skins for it are cheaper than oscommerce.

The major factor is that it is free if you show the copyright to Devillon Ltd or you pay $69 which takes out the copyright notices and gets you support from that company as well.

I use it and it is a good cart to use

Regards

Derek

[petcampbell]

I also use cubecart, unless you have a large store, in my opinion Os is more hassle than its worth.
cubecart works well with pay pal, and I use 2checkout for CC payments.. works great

[vegasgwm]

Yeah, I agree with petcampbell. I tried oscommerce. It's good, but too complex, robust and difficult to modify. Cubecart is small, but does the job for a medium ecommerce site. I like the simplicity in the setup and programming.
The engine is just supposed to be just a tool, to build your store. With oscommerce it feels like you have to be a senior programmer, to modify even the smallest thing.

[Maggilove]

With oscommerce it feels like you have to be a senior programmer, to modify even the smallest thing.

I disagree. I'm not a programmer, and I had no trouble at all extensively modifying osC from day one. Six months down the line, I was able to create a complex custom mod for a friend's osC site... and I still don't "speak" php... :p

[bmac]

Well, i'm doin pretty fine with zen cart, there is a lot of documentatin at their home site that explains almost everything youwant to know.
But i'm a programmer, not a designer, so perhaps it's easier for me...
:)

[scottcrew]

I use AgoraCart...it is already available in your cpanel
It is very customizable and they have excellent support.
A powerful eCommerce solution with extreme flexibility.
They just released a new version for beta testing...
You can read more about it at:
http://www.agoracart.com

HTH!

[mantisinc]

I am using oscommerce, and I really do think it is fantastic.
If you would like any help, feel free to PM me!

[Crysties]

Quoted from Degsey69
"If you are new to ecommerce then try CubeCart, it is very well supported by bluehost."

I just move my CubeCart to bluehost but so far I have not been able to get logged in to the admin panel. I have changed so many things in MySQL and global.inc.php that I may have ruined every thing. I keep getting a MySQL error 1045 or 1044

MySQL Error Occured
1044: Access denied for user 'mydomain_login'@'localhost' to database 'mydomain_cartdb'

At my old site they did not put the domain name in front of the MySQL. Then I read a forum post that said don't forget to sign up as a user which is "mydomain_login. I still can't get in and I have been working on this for two weeks.

What have I done wrong or where do I go for help?

[Maggilove]

Did you add the user to the database? There are three steps to setting up your database on the MySQL account maintenance page...
Create the database in the Databases section
Create the user in the Users section
Add the user to the database, with all privileges, in the Databases section


Most "access denied" errors occur because step three has been missed.

[thebeard]

I would really like to know what is a good e-commerce program?
I want to start my own shop online website . :)
free if possible
or small fee will be fine also

zencart is what I use. It's Free. I looked at Agora, osCom, etc., but zencart seemed to be easier to modify. Any commerce package you install is going to take modification. It will try your patience if your not a programer, but it can be done.

If you take credit cards you'll probably want to be a secured site, SSL. This will cost you. Doing it "right" takes a dedicated IP and SSL certification. All can be done through BH. There are older threads you can search about thiese issues.

[WomenFly]

ClickCart Pro 6.0. If you are serious. Written in 100% PHP and xhtml 1.0 Strict compliant. Multiple database integrations including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite and Microsoft SQL Server. It costs $200. The manual sucks but it has a great support forum and a wiki that is growing. Robust, stable and feature rich. Retail and wholesale pricing supported. Many payment gateways as well as realtime shipping with USPS, FedEx or UPS. Other shippers will be added. Just about all OS platforms supported including Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and Caldera. Did I mention integration with QuickBooks and PeachTree?

We used a hosted cart (EasyCart) for 5 years before we "graduated" to our own cart. The transition was challenging but smooth. More info at: http://www.clickcartpro.com/ or http://forum.kryptronic.com/

My advice: Figure out what you want your site to do and what features are "must haves". Look at existing sites built with the cart software that meet your criteria and lastly, read the customer support forums for each cart.

We wanted realtime shipping and tracking for both UPS and USPS and the ability to create html pages on the fly rather than static pages and we selected ClickCartPro.

George