Shopping cart reccomendations please

[jeowind]

We are currently scoping out a new all-in-one e commerce site for our stores and would like some candid feedback on some of the more prominent ones. First, some background on what we have/need:

- We have beginner to intermediate level programming and graphic design skills.
- We run moderately busy sites (less than 1000 visitors per day) that generate moderate sales per day (less than $1000)
- Our price points are low ($20-$50), margins are decent, and we tend to operate in the "impulse buy" world of online shoppers.
- We are spending WAY too much time now with order processing, inventory control, shipping, site maintenance, and other activites not related to the growth and promotion of our stores.
- We like flexibility, but do not want to spend the majority of our time programming. For example, we want to be able to shift the look/feel of the site, add specials/coupons, highlight products, etc...

Now, what we've been looking at:

- MonsterCommerce
- Volusion
- StoreFront
- Yahoo
- X Cart

Any help is definitely appreciated as we do not want to make a change only to have to switch again 1 month later. What have you found to be major pros and cons of these? Do you have good or bad experiences with them? please do not flame one of them due to a single incident. We'd rather hear facts supported by opinions than the other way around.

Thank you all in advance

[henry0]

Zen-cart is an OsComm clone however it is a better version
Major problem with both is that if you tweak them in depth it becomes hard to update your ecomm solution without messing your updates.

[debvh]

May I hitchhike onto the recommendations thread? I am also looking for a shopping cart and I was leaning toward x-cart until I found out that they don't support the specific setup I need.

I sell services, not tangible products. Ideally, I would like for customers to be able to log in to their account in order to have access to a "resource" web page for the particular service they have purchased. Not all the content of the page will exist yet at the time that the purchase is made - part of the service includes my posting of the various "resources" as determined by the needs of the customer over a certain period of time.

Thanks.

[bwnbwn]

By far the easiest to use is cart32 as I am in the same boat as your sites and just bought it got it working real time processing emails sent all in one easy to us package
if you haven't already done so it is worth looking into 800.00 get about all your sites under one cart

[edited by: lorax at 9:13 pm (utc) on May 4, 2006]
[edit reason] No URLs please [/edit]

[furman]

I just installed CRELoaded standard version, it's OSCommerce with a lot of add ons installed saving me the hassle. I have seen some sites that have used it quite well.

[Peter Cornstalk]

SoftSlate Commerce screams compared to osCommerce or Zen Cart and you can use it free for up to 100 products. It is all JSP templates and is all OOP with extendible classes. You can customize anything without upgrades breaking it. Runs great on Tomcat.

[Carey]

Has anyone looked at ShopSite cart?

[watercrazed]

I have to take exception with cart 32, unless you are a real programer it is very restrictive in adding dymanic elements to your website,