16 replies to this topic

[estoreseeker]

Greetings,
I am just entering into the field of internet marketing. I am a small businessman, dealing in gifts, toys, fountains and home decorative items. I have a catalog of around 600-700 products. I am looking for a good hosted shopping cart solution. It must facilitate;
catalog management, online shopping cart, support for all online payment methods, customer management, sales notification information system, product inventory, easy to maintain administrative panel, professional look of website.
I heard about hosted shopping cart solution particularly monster commerce and b2bparadise, but i am confused, i think such type of solution provides little flexibility.
Thank you ...
estoreseeker

[etrafficers]

Check out netsuite small business. I think you'll find they have the flexibility you are looking for in addition to functionality of all the items you listed and a whole lot more.

Cheers

[josh1r]

osCommerce is good

http://www.oscommerce.com

[idrive]

I did some research on ecommerce shopping cart options and chose OSCommerce based on what I read online. In the end, I regret my choice and we now outsource to one of two companies to set up shopping carts. OsCommerce left some security holes and I am finding a lack of information on how to perform certain tasks.

But that's just my input influenced by my IT team ;-)

[Randy]

Welcome estoreseeker !

As you have found, it's a critical choice and also one that is fraught with importantl issues.

For my money I prefer a cart solution that is totally hosted on my site, rather than moving customer off-site to some type of hosted solution. Of course that's just me, because I like to have control over as much as possible.

There are lots of hosts out there who provide shopping cart software with your hosting account, but honestly they won't have a clue about the marketing side of things. Speaking as a host who provides a shopping cart to anyone who wants it on my servers, even I don't provide that design or marketing side of the equation for hosting costs alone.

I've found over the years that if I purchase some software that is hosted on my site I can (usually) tweak it to fit my exact needs if need be, or pay someone who is intimately familiar with the cart to do so for me. Often that sort of manipulation simply can't be done with with cart software that is hosted by someone else. They're into it to make money for themselves, not for me.

The things you mentioned can be provided by almost any shopping cart these days, whether you host it or someone else does.

I would caution you however to come up with a complete list of potential requirements before making a final choice. Stuff like how easy it is to make the site attractive to the search engines as well as to your human visitors. What format you need your reports in ideally. (online or in csv or quickbooks or whatever format.)

It's much harder and much more expensive to change horses several months or even a year down the road than it is to get all of the bases covered right from the beginning.

[Raphael]

osCommerce is bloatware =)

Don't use it. We use it. I had to modify it. I should have taken shares in whoever makes Tylenol.

[Valerie]

estoreseeker,

Finest Shops (finestshops.com) is a possible choice for your research. They have very good customer service as well...

Valerie

[Scottie]

Mal's E-Commerce is a nice, hosted secure shopping cart solution that is free (or there is a premium version for $9 a month.)

There's is no payment gateway, it's just a shopping cart program that securely stores the order and payment info. It does interface with most of the major gateways out there.

[mshightech]

hi all
i am using one of the option u mentioned ie b2bparadise. I’ve used it for a year now & I’ve no complaints at all. It gives a wide range of options product category wise with easy to handle features.all I can say is I’m very satisfied. U can always talk to guys out there www.b2bparadise.com/index.jsp
have fun…………gud luk…………
martha

<edited to remove live link -- torka>

[estoreseeker]

thanks martha for your suggestions and confirmation. as you had also told me i had a nice little talk with the guys out there at b2bparadise and i saw their demo also .
actually i'm quite satisfied with the wide range of options they are giving. and i know thats safe also security wise.
and as randy has already mentioned that i should come up with a list of all the requirements before i look for the options and now i'm searching for them only.many friends have helped me.
and then i've already said that Coding is not the only headache. Design of HTML layout, quality of look and feel, website security for money transaction are few more.
All these stuffs can be handled by the hardcore technical person and its difficult for me. thats also an issue in my mind.
waiting for your replies
cheers

[Randy]

If you don't want or can't dig into the code, even getting down to HTML to configure a design and layout, my recommendation would be one of the Hosted solutions. A couple of those have been mentioned above, though they are by no means the only choices. I would suspect that all of those have the appropriate security procedures already in place, otherwise they wouldn't still be in business.

One I can vouch for is Mal's that Scottie mentioned above. Several friends of mine have used their system at one time or another and none of them have ever had any problems that I'm aware of. That said, I would still hazard an opinion that the vast majority of the larger hosted shopping cart providers would leave any major security holes.

[sweepthelegnate]

I would add...that while using a hosted solution can get you up and running quickly, make sure that your list of requirements includes things you would like to see over the long-term.

starting right from the beginning can save a lot of headaches midcourse



nathan

[mshightech]

halo estoreseeker,

The coolest thing about b2bparadise is there are literally hundreds solutions out there that can help you. Whether you just need a little free advice, or even help to build the site from the ground up, there are many who can help.
and as i had mentioned earlier too i've not had any regrets but only good experiences with them.

in my words b2bparadise may very well fit your needs.
but you should take the time to evaluate several options.

b2bparadise is a great shopping cart solution, whereas others like OScommerce may not be a perfect fit in some cases.
For example, my friend recently started working on a store that sells childrens' clothing. OSC had tons of features, but it did not have the ability to allow for multiple sizes of the same product (S, M, L, XL for example). Sure, there were add-ons that tried to address this issue, but weren't compatible with the latest milestone, etc... And if you talk about b2bparadise, they provide you the options like these also.
QuickBooks support was another important feature for her, and that was also sort of sketchy in case of oscommerce.
For commercial carts, take a look at x-cart and LiteCommerce (both from the same company). They are relatively affordable but i won't recommend them to you. As they don't actually fit your needs.
Shared hosting is fine, but you will need your own IP for SSL (OK - technically you may not, but for practical purposes, you do. Some hosts provide a shared SSL cert, some will sell you your own, some will let you buy your own and set it up. Check with the hosts you are evaluating to find out (also a good excuse to test their email response times and quality of support answers).
Just rememeber:start small, keep it simple then grow in size and complexity as business warrants and your experience allows.
good luck dear
martha

[Raphael]

OSC had tons of features, but it did not have the ability to allow for multiple sizes of the same product (S, M, L, XL for example). Sure, there were add-ons that tried to address this issue, but weren't compatible with the latest milestone, etc...

When we did something like that, we ended up having to list them all as separate and unqiue products. And in our case, there were over 3000 of them. (variants on a product theme)



Let's just say that my custom-written shopping cart won't have those problems

[Haystack]

There is a decent attributes hack for OSC now, but I wouldn't recommend it for sites with lots of attribute requiring products. It's also tedious to maintain inventory based on attributes, which is pretty important. "Whadya mean you don't have it in taupe?"