Have an Ecommercie Design - Now I Need a Shopping Cart?

Can it be integrated?

[andmunn]

Hi Guys,

I just had a template designed for an online store i'm developing. The template includes a main index page, a subpage (with product listings), and a "catalogue" page (where the individual product description is).

Which shopping carts could I use which would allow fairly seemless integration with the above?

Andrew.

[minnapple]

Will the product line turn often?

[webtress]

Take a look at ecommercetemplates they offer a generic shopping cart to intergrate into your design with a product listing page and product detail page. It is not dependant on your product line. I'm sure there are others out there but this one is the easiest to work with when using your own design.

[digicam]

To be honest it is better to do it the other way round, pick the cart which meets your needs then program the design around that, as they tend to support different technologies, html, css, templates, ect.

[lorax]

There is no easy answer. It's almost like asking what car should you buy? Personally I think you'll be better served if you can identify what features you need/want. If you don't know about web related features like pageviews and conversion then focus on common business needs. Items like what you've sold, how much you earned this month, etc. Identifying these will help us help you. :)

[andmunn]

Thanks for your detailed replies.

The products i'm selling will likely be on a continual basis - i.e// no turnaround. I will sell them indefinately (until my ecommece store closes down).

The template i have is coded in simple HTML + CSS, so hopefully this could mold to most shopping carts...no?

Finally, I do not want "advanced" functionality... i want something simple. VERY Simple:

1. Can calculate sales tax at a certain provicne.
2. Shipping Calculor (fixed at % of every purchase)
3. Simple Inventory Management.

That's about it. Simple, easy, fast...and most importantly, i can integrate it into my design.

Anyone have such suggestions, or where i can start looking?

Andrew.

[evaddnomaid]

Your requirements sound pretty simple. The only hard thing is calculating the tax rate for the province, and you can get that with a Web service (see [informationweek.com...] for info or do a Web search for "sales use tax Canada Web Services").

If you happen to want Perl code and plan to use PayPal let me know and I'll write a script for you. (Or maybe I'll write it anyway; could be fun.)

[jklivin]

X-Cart should do everything you are looking for. Fairly simple integration into the look/feel of your template.

[andmunn]

With Xcart (and other carts for that matter), can you have a different look entirely for your main page (index page), and for the "subpages" (i.e.// category page).....

By different look, i mean for the main page it ill just be a nice clean look, while the subpage will have the menu on the left (as will the product page)...

Andrew.

[bekyed]

If you want something simple that works well and gives you orders to download,print packing lists, add products easy enough.
Try actinic catalogue 7
This may siut you.

Bek.

[edited by: lorax at 11:13 pm (utc) on May 10, 2006]
[edit reason] removed URL [/edit]

[lorax]

>> The template i have is coded in simple HTML + CSS, so hopefully this could mold to most shopping carts...no?

For fully functional carts like X-Cart, osCommerce, etc you'll need to dig into the code and change their templates to what you want. You can't simply apply your template - unfortunately.

It sounds like what you need is more of the back end - the actual cart (as oppossed to a catalog/cart combo like X-Cart and osCommerce provide). You may be able to strip what you need from the ecommercetemplates or from a freely available cart script someplace. In either case, you'll need to do some code work to make your stuff blend with whatever you use. Here're a few free PHP carts [google.com] you can download and dig into to learn how they built the actual cart.

[imstillatwork]

I enjoyed writing my own cart. I got the features i wanted, and learned alot along the way.

things to know, no matter who makes it..

any form submited is a potential hazard.
any url varaible is a potential hazard.
any cookie read is a potential hazard.

so test the snot out of a new script that your thinking about using.