Shopping cart options

[Brian Turner]

I'm finally having to set up my first ecommerce site for myself - been looking at options, and so far OSCommerce and Zen Cart seemed the front runners, with Zen Cart being especially well recommended.

Am going to install Zen Cart and see how well it runs, and keep you updated on how my experiences go with it.

[garyk]

If you want to use paypal you can integrate it for free and its quite straight forward https://www.paypal.com/IntegrationCe...dard_home.html

Gary

[Brian Turner]

Well, I have to say Zen Cart is a lot more complicated than I initially expected - the templating system is bloody awful - I don;t think they could have made it any worse on purpose.

I've installed a SEO mod that so far looks like it's working, though there's a warning of possible issues with that and Paypal integration, which is definitely something I need to watch out for.

No help yet on the forums after a day after raising the question - seems the community isn't as active as I might have expected. Also looks like they've recently been hacked, which means most of their forum before mid-May is gone - and all the references with it.

Will struggle on with Zen Cart, but am not enjoying playing with it as yet.

[WSC-Will]

As you're finding out for yourself, free shopping carts do not equate to no cost!

Have you considered the likes of X-Cart or JShop?

[Brian Turner]

I think I'll slug it out with Zen Cart a bit longer - confusing it is, but persistent I am, hm.

X-Cart almost looks like an OSCommerce variant - Jshop seems to be no longer available except as a hosted solution.

[TWD-Tony]

I sware by Zencart - I have used it in about 90% of client ecommerce solutions and they seem to love it too...

It's weird how you say their support forums are quiet - I have always found help (in a decent timeframe) in the past...

[WSC-Will]

Under the hood of X-Cart is a powerful beast brimming with functionality already built-in; well tested and supported by dedicated developers. Skinning is easy with tokens to drop into your layouts.

JShop Server isn't only a hosted solution and they've offer a developer license for unlimited installations. I think this is a JShop-powered site.

[Brian Turner]

I'm just so frustrated with Zen Cart - I choose it on recommendation, but the templating is insane - I just can't get my head around it, as there appears to be multiple template files doing the same thing. I remove a footer banner from the footer file, but it doesn't disappear - apparently I have to go to a different subdirectory to remove the code for that.

I hadn't budgeted for third-party development of the site, but I may be tempted as I can't figure out this system at all, and I've wasted 2 days so far just trying to do so.

EDIT: I raised my comments in the Zen Cart forums - think I've probably just alienated the development team from all future help.

[Brian Turner]

Just to keep you updated - I finally felt like I was beginning to find my way around Zen Cart - then I found a very nice pre-built OSCommerce template at Template Monster, which was already integrated into the template.

So I bought that.

Currently just tweaking and customising the template - still a bit of a learning curve involved, but not at all as steep as with Zen Cart. May be good practice, too, for moving onto Zen Cart at a later stage.

[numnutz]

I suggest you try Cube cart from www dot cubecart dot com they have a free option or you can pay some money to remove their copyright banner its reasonably easy to modify if you have some php/mysql and the are a host of pay for and free modes for it.

nn