# Good Grief! Computer / Shopping Cart Help



## jacsma (May 14, 2006)

This is gonna be a little long, but pretty interesting ... I think.

I've had a pretty basic site for a couple of years. Using Mals's Cart and Paypal Pro, hosted by Yahoo. Store designed with Webplus.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been shopping for a better way. Since I know NOTHING about PHP, CSS, MySQL, or anything related to any of these things, I'm not all together sure what I'm even looking for. 

I need something that is fairly simple to use. I think I need something that is database driven? The problem I'm trying to solve is: Just for example, if I wanted at this point to add an extra size, and I want all shirt designs to be available in that extra size; I'll have to go into each 'add to cart' button to make the option changes. Same applies if I wanted to have a sale: I'll have to change the price in each 'add to cart button'.

Yesterday, I found PDG shopping cart, which offered a 30 day free trial without even paying up front. They installed it on my server (Yahoo) and emailed me to say that I need to call Yahoo to release some kind of permissions or something, to get the cart software to work. To shorten the story a bit and skip a couple of calls and emails .... "Unfortunately, it turns out that PDG Software programs are not compatible with Yahoo's UNIX hosting at this time. Yahoo hosting does not allow the permissions required on the server to operate PDG Software programs.
Fine. No problem. I Told them to just uninstall and I'll find a different route.  

I realized around lunch time today that I hadn't had an order come in since yesterday evening. I went to my site to check it out, and lo and behold ... My site isn't there. 
I went to log into my control panel to see what the problem was, and my Yahoo password has been cancelled. I had my Yahoo ID and password _long before_ I decided to use Yahoo as my site's host. 
I tried to log into my Yahoo groups; I'm told I _have no_ Yahoo groups. I'm a member of a couple of small business groups on Yahoo, and get daily digests of the messages there, and they haven't been coming today. 
AND .... ready for this? Even though it makes absolutely no sense to me..... : I responded today to a couple of customers' emails. Both of their emails bounced back to me, apparently because they have @yahoo.com email addresses. The bouncing error reads: "reason: 554 Message not allowed - UP Email not accepted for policy reasons." The emails that I sent them were not coming from a Yahoo email address. I replied to their emails from my Road Runner account via Outlook - yet, I can't email anyone with a yahoo email account? How much freakin' sense does this make?

Customer service rep tells me this afternoon that my account has been deactivated due to 'abuse'. Abuse? What kind of Abuse? "violating terms of service agreement". Okay, what did I violate? He can't tell me, and the 'abuse department' has no phone number. I'll have to write to them to get an answer. I did. I haven't heard back from them. I can only assume they got made that I tried to use the PDG shopping cart? I'm sure they'd prefer I use Yahoo Merchant's services, but I didn't realize that was a requirement for using them as as host.

So ... Them killing my site is not even a big deal to me now. I can get another host. It's true I'm losing income right now, but I'll get another host and get back up and running. I'm actually more upset that I can't access my small business groups, and how the hell am I suppose to contact my customers that happen to have yahoo email addresses?

Can anyone offer any ideas for me regarding shopping cart solutions? I'm looking at Shopsite Manager, but am afraid I'm not smart enough to handle it. I've looked at cubecart and zencart, and KNOW I'm not tech savvy enough to get either of those up and running on my own. 

Sorry so long folks. Just had to vent I guess.

I'm at a loss. Literally. lol. 

What's a girl to do?

Pam


----------



## mrad (Dec 23, 2006)

Cubecart deosn't seem that hard & it's free. Perhaps you should investigate that one further, I think they have tech support that can help you get it loaded. I'm no techie but they should be able to help you.
Good Luck!


----------



## jacsma (May 14, 2006)

lol. You don't know who you're talking to.

I downloaded Cubecart before posting here. When I opened the file, I had no idea what to do with it. I opened the read me file, and it started off by telling me to upload the database or something. Um .... not elementary enough for me. I need "click this button. Now click that button. Now type this here. Now click submit" type of instruction.


----------



## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

Wow, you're taking this a lot better than I would  Congratulations on that at least.


----------



## careless heart (Feb 13, 2007)

i would give zen-cart a try. its free and if you find a hosting service that supports it they will most likely set it ip for free.


----------



## JPD (Nov 8, 2006)

Many hosts have something called a "Fantastico Installer" setup for their customers. This will setup various programs automatically for you, it just takes a few clicks of a button. I know my host offers CubeCart, Zen Cart and OS Commerce (I use Cube Cart).

Once it is installed, the customizing isn't that difficult to do yourself, or if you want to pay someone to do it for you (there are approved companies who do the upgrades of their products on the cubecart.org site) and it isn't pricey at all.

Once you have your secure certificate, a good host will setup everything else for you.

I hope this info helps and I'm sorry to hear about what happened with Yahoo. I tried to have a CubeCart installed on a GoDaddy hosting account and I ran into some brick walls as well. It seems they wanted me to use their shopping cart as well.

Eric


----------



## jacsma (May 14, 2006)

_"I know my host offers CubeCart, Zen Cart and OS Commerce (I use Cube Cart)."_

Who is your host?

_"Once you have your secure certificate, a good host will setup everything else for you."_

If I'm using Paypal Pro, I don't need an Secure certificate, right?

_"I tried to have a CubeCart installed on a GoDaddy hosting account and I ran into some brick walls as well. It seems they wanted me to use their shopping cart as well."_

Glad you mentioned that. My domain is registered with Godaddy, and was thinking about just going ahead and hosting with them too. 

As for how well I'm taking this. Hmmm .... had a little melt-down yesterday for about 5 minutes. Still pretty P.O.'d that I haven't heard back from the 'Abuse Department', but being upset isn't going to fix the problem. 

I'd like to go ahead and get a new host, even without the new shopping cart, but am hesitant to do that - not knowing which cart I'm going to go with and whether it will be compatible with my host or not. 

Want to know what makes this all a little more sick? I just dropped $1500 (that's a lot for me) on my first shipment of private label shirts and onesies and they just arrived on Thursday evening. Now I'm sitting here with no freakin' website. 

lol. Life. You gotta love it. (or jump off a bridge). lol

Pam


----------



## mrad (Dec 23, 2006)

Don't worry Pam, someone here will help!


----------



## careless heart (Feb 13, 2007)

try checking into sashbox.net for a hosting service. they seem reasonable and have the fantastico installer. they will also set everything up for you at no charge. the offer several other open source e-commerce as well. 

all you have to do is set up your store. for that i purchased "e-start your web store with zen cart" the author is hoek and the isbn # is 978-981-05-6591-6

so far everything is easy to understand. i have built numerous websites but have never gotten into the e-commerce end of it. so, this is somewhat new to me as well.


----------



## jacsma (May 14, 2006)

My daughter has a yahoo email address. Now I can't even email her. How ridiculous is that? MY email, the email that is sending - has nothing to do with Yahoo. I can't email anyone with a Yahoo email address ! I just can't even hardly believe that.

grrrrr 

no, wait ....


----------



## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

Pam,

Did you try getting another email address, besides the one you have right now? Maybe gmail, hotmail, or something?

If they have blocked your IP (or something similar) it won't help, but you might give it a try.


----------



## jacsma (May 14, 2006)

Seems they only blocked that one email address. I sent my daughter another email from a different Road Runner email address, and it hasn't come back to me.


----------



## JPD (Nov 8, 2006)

I host with alphaomegahosting.com 

With any host you choose, make sure they know you will be using a shopping cart and which one.

I don't know about Paypal's setup, I use my own merchant account & gateway to process payments on my stores.

The funny thing is, I was so frustrated a few weeks ago with all this, but now the sales are coming in and we are printing/shipping almost every day!! 

Eric


----------



## graffitiman60000 (Jan 5, 2007)

I have a cube cart hosted by godaddy , the free version did not work well and
i also had to upgrade the hosting by godaddy to the linex thing , I payed cube cart to install , my problem was getting pay pal pro to work right ,but all three folks worked with me paypal , cube cart and godaddy . I also had a third party (markscarts ) add additional mods to make my site better for selling custom materials . my ongoing cost now is the yearly godaddy cost
and the paypal monthly fee. All is well now .


----------



## burgensteen (Jun 24, 2006)

Yeah, I just set up a CubeCart install, took about a month to mod the store, the support is excellent and like it was stated before if you have 'fantastico' on your hosting its easy as pressing a button.
My store still has lots of design and product work left to do, but it is quite easy to do.
Check it out in my signiture, like I say dont expect anything spectacular but it shows what is possible with CubeCart with some very basic adjustments.


----------



## julia44 (Mar 11, 2007)

I use zen cart for one of my stores and will be using it on my next store too. The forum gives fast and great answers to any question and I have seriously confused them sometimes too. I had major issues one time and pm'd back and forth with a moderator on how to deal with it. After about a week I think you will be fine and find it very easy to manage. Just my 2 cents.


----------



## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

If setting up the cart itself is a stopping point, it may be worth outsourcing the initial shopping cart setup, and then having that person show you how to use the cart.

I've used both shopsite and cubecart, and if I had to do it again, i'd save the money spent on shopsite and use the free cubecart. If there's something I couldn't do with cubecart, I'd hire someone from their forums to do it for me and still save money over shopsite 

You might also want to try shopify or bigcartel


----------

