The shopping cart is one of the most important aspects
of your website. In order for your customers to buy from
you, it must work perfectly. It must be secure, and also
integrate with UPS or USPS shipping services. Here are a
few of the more common shopping carts:
Software Shopping Carts
We recommend software based solutions. You pay
for the software once, and don't have to worry about monthly
charges or fees.
Quikstore-$199.95
Software enabling users to develop static or database driven
ecommerce sites. Easy to use, easy to customize, and gets
you up and running quickly. This is what I use for most
ecommerce sites.
X-Cart-$199.00
Software enabling users to develop very flexible database
driven ecommerce site. Very easy to get started, with almost
unlimited options for your store. Very popular shopping
cart.
ECommerceTemplates-$115.00
and up
Low cost template based PhP/MySQL shopping cart. Very hard
to customize, as these are templates.
OsCommerce-FREE
Open source software enables users to develop database driven
ecommerce site. Very little help in installing software,
and if you have problems, good luck. Very difficult to customize,
unless you are an experienced user. Recommended for experienced
webmasters, who know PhP and MySQL inside and out.
Miva Merchant-$595.00
Software enabling users to set up Database driven ecommerce
sites. Must have miva merchant capable web hosting to develop
store. Proprietary coding, so not easy to customize.
Third Party Shopping Carts
These are an option for beginning ecommerce sites,
however, they are not recommended as third party transactions
can have many issues. They can hold up your transactions,
their servers can crash, and many other stressful issues.
Google
Checkout
Insert some code into your pages to generate a Buy Now button,
and then when user buys, they go to google secure checkout
site.
Transaction Fees: .20 per transaction Plus 2%
Paypal
Insert some code into your pages to generate a Buy Now button,
and then when user buys, they go to paypal secure checkout
site. Not recommended as third pary transactions can have
many issues.
Transaction Fees: .30 per transaction Plus 3%
