# The BEST eCommerce solution is...



## pookness (Jul 20, 2008)

Trick question! 
(Hey, at least I got you to open this post. I hear its a tough crowd here!)
There are alot of terrific solutions out there but the best solution depends on individual considering their level of experience, time they are willing to put in, and what they want to get out of it.

That being said, I need your help in determining the right solution for me. A little about myself:

*I have no experience with HTML/Coding/website design/graphic design. I do have an eye for what looks good.

*I have built a personal website for myself using GoDaddy Website Tonight. I have found that solution is easy but does not have a good eCommerce solution.

*I am not against having the same company host and manage my site, but I have heard it is better to have separate.

*I have dreamweaver so I can change a feature of a website (eventually), but I don't know how to use it now.

*I don't want to hire a webdesigner because I don't have thousands of dollars plus I want to have my hands into creating it from the get-go. I don't want to depend on someone else to make any changes to my website.

*I initially plan on using Paypal as my merchant account. Depending on the level of success, I might switch to another way.

I've done preliminary research on a few solutions and this is what I've found:

->Zencart and Cubecart: Requires basic knowledge of coding/html (which I don't have)
->Bigcartel: Similar to Zen and Cubecart, but has more of a foreign customer base.
->3d cart: $35 a month, for what, I still am trying to discover
->Volusion: pricey. Looks like a comprehensive solution, but read up it is time consuming. Their $500 templates are so generic, other template websites offer the same for a lot less. 
->Pikiware: As of yesterday and today, could not get on to their website.
->Yahoostore: $35 a month.

I am beginning to understand that the above choices vary in what they offer (ex: Cubecart offers a shopping cart solution, but does not offer hosting/actual mercant accounts like Volusion.)
But its starting to get very confusing for me in what each solution offers vs. what I need. At this juncture, I feel that I need something more comprehensive than just a shopping cart solution, but I don't want to pay out of my be-hind in just launching this website. I am willing to learn, but don't want to take the next 3 months learning to design a website. I guess I am looking for a solution that can be flexible as I learn more. I probably need some hand holding at first, but would like to do my own thing as time progesses.

I would appreciate any and all thoughts/opinions on what they feel would be the best solution for me.

Thank you in advance for your reply.


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## The Mad Designer (Dec 29, 2007)

If you dont have the money for a real web designer, then you should have the time to do it yourself because thats what its gonna take. Lots of time to learn. If you dont have the time, then you'll need the money to hire a real web designer. If you dont have any html/graphic skills then the choice for you is to use godaddy's ecommerce shopping cart with website tonight. the task of just installing an open source ecommerce application to your server could be overwhelming for someone with no experience with websites.


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## Daniel Slatkin (Jun 25, 2008)

Piki was doing a big update they are up and running again.


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## Catbox (Oct 3, 2007)

web design isn't rocket science(i'm living proof of that...lol)... but it does take effort and time... there are a few templates that are really cool
joomla... wordpress... etc... they have tutorials on setting them up including the data base and shoping carts etc...


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## pookness (Jul 20, 2008)

Catbox said:


> there are a few templates that are really cool
> joomla... wordpress... etc... they have tutorials on setting them up including the data base and shoping carts etc...


 
A friend of mine told me about wordpress, but all I saw were blogs, but not eCommerce templates. Are there eCommerce templates? I guess I have to look better on their website.

Thanks for the advice...I will definitely check out joomla and wordpress (again)!


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## pookness (Jul 20, 2008)

I will check out piki now. Thanks!!


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## pookness (Jul 20, 2008)

Do you know by chance if pikiware is like cubecart and zencart in that you need to know some coding or is it more "dummy" friendly?


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

Have you checked out Shopify? It's pretty much dummy-proof. I would say that or BigCartel is pretty much the best choice for someone in your situation.

Even if BigCartel has a "foreign customer base" it doesn't matter, because the majority of your customers are going to be coming from your direct advertising.


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## pshawny (Feb 27, 2008)

You could go with cubecart. Version 3 is free & then you could hire a web designer to tweak your site. You don't have to spend thousands to get a nice looking site, maybe $100-400 for a descent custom looking skin. 

My hosting is through servage.net, they are inexpensive and have been great over the last few years. 

Payments can be processed with Paypal. You could also get a virtual terminal account with Paypal or ProPay. Then your customers can pay with credit/debit card without leaving your site & you can process the card online.


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## Daniel Slatkin (Jun 25, 2008)

pookness said:


> Do you know by chance if pikiware is like cubecart and zencart in that you need to know some coding or is it more "dummy" friendly?


 
It's pretty dummy friendly


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## Malu (Jun 1, 2007)

I have IX Webhosting. I've had no problems with them and they've always responded quickly to my questions. Oscommerce is the shopping cart that comes with the hosting. Of course, to change the look of the cart, you need a little html knowledge, but the rest of the management is pretty simple. I am, by no means, an expert on html. You might find these tutorials helpful.http://www.w3schools.com/


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## thedarkknight (Jul 22, 2008)

Im starting my e business and have been looking at various cart systems I have plumped for os commerec probably... As I was using go daddy but they do not let you put os commerce up so changed to host gator.
Though we are going to start small with small runs I hope one day ill make it.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> I am willing to learn, but don't want to take the next 3 months learning to design a website





> I don't want to hire a webdesigner because I don't have thousands of dollars plus I want to have my hands into creating it from the get-go. I don't want to depend on someone else to make any changes to my website.


You are really limiting your options 

I would try bigcartel or shopify. There you just upload your product images and tell them what your PayPal account is. They setup most of the rest.

But if you want something that is professional, then you may want to consider hiring someone. If you don't want to take the time to really learn what it takes to make an attractive, professional site, then that may reflect on what your customers think when they see your website that you made yourself.

Not spending money now may cost you sales once you launch.


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## pshawny (Feb 27, 2008)

I would surf around online looking at different websites for features & layouts that you like. I like that idea, oh that looks stupid, etc. Test run a few of the free e-commerce software packages to see what you like and don't like about each one. 

Only you know what you want in the end, but it's your customer that decides to buy or not. Make the website with the customer's shopping experience in mind & you will succeed. Good Luck!


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## dragonikita (Apr 10, 2008)

pookness said:


> I am willing to learn, but don't want to take the next 3 months learning to design a website.


If you don't want to spend a lot of money on a designer and you are limited on time to learn the skills required to design it yourself, I would look for a cart that offers some free templates. They won't be anything amazing, but they will give you a good start. Most free templates provide a solid framework and a variety of colors to work with. Once you find one that you like, you can tweak it to your liking little by little as you learn HTML/CSS.

There are plenty tutorials online that first show basics of HTML & CSS, and eventually expand into more complex topics. If you have a friend that is a designer, it may be worth your time to ask them to show you "the ropes" as it is usually easier to learn from someone with experience.

As far as the shopping cart selection goes, based on your limited technical experience, I would recommend going with a cart that provides both hosting & the eCommerce solution for you. This way you don't have to deal with two different companies while you're trying to settle in. In addition, if you do this, you will most likely get the installation for free (depends on the cart) and won't have to worry about inner-server workings that could really screw things up and put you in a bind. Keep in mind that pretty much all hosted solutions (the same company handles your hosting & your software) use a monthly fee with a first month special. 

The two hosted solutions I would recommend looking into are Volusion and CoreCommerce. Volusion is the more expensive of the two, but they have been in the 'hosted eCommerce solution' business longer than CoreCommerce. CoreCommerce started out as an 'off the shelf eCommerce solution' (meaning they sold you the software at a one time fee and you had to get a server, install it on there and manage it from there on) and launched a hosted solution early this year. I have used both and personally prefer CoreCommerce because they're cheaper, seem to offer more bang for your buck, have decent templates, and have features that I find very useful that are not in Volusion (although Volusion has features that are not in CoreCommerce). But the bottom line is that you have to look at all the options that are available to you and decide which one is the best for you. Based on what you said earlier I would definitely recommend a hosted solution, but ultimately it's up to you to decide whether Volusion, CoreCommerce, or some other cart that I've never heard of before has the perfect price/feature balance for you.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helps you out! Let me know what you decide to go with and how your experience with them turns out 

-Kita


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## SBEMedia (Jun 26, 2008)

As a Piki customer, I recommend Piki!! They are big enough to give you all the functionality of a large corporation but down to earth enough that you can actually get someone to help you if you need customer support.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

SBEMedia said:


> As a Piki customer, I recommend Piki!! They are big enough to give you all the functionality of a large corporation but down to earth enough that you can actually get someone to help you if you need customer support.


Pikiware is not an ecommerce solution for someone who is starting their own clothing line and they want a basic "shopping cart" solution.

It's more for people who are doing printing and want the ability to offer fulfillment options or an online t-shirt designer to their customers. That's not what this particular thread is about.


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## Yazakisan (Jun 19, 2008)

If you dont have any coding experience, like Kita said I would look online and get familiarized with at least HTML. HTML is fast easy, and if done correctly very fun. Just keep in mind when ever you program keep everything nice and organized, the last thing you want to do is have a huge sheet of code and be looking for a misued semi-colon or something.

If you dont want to learn how to program a cart, you should be able to use your new found knowlege of HTML to integrate an already made cart.

Other options are to start a google store, or paypal has a "buy button" you just copy paste the code into the website, that's pretty handy.

there are a variety of solutions. just gotta look at what you can find.

**sorry about the suggestion of piracy please disregard that previous comment**

well some good programs to pick up at the store or even off of ebay or something would be dreamweaver or frontpage depending, i would recommend dreamweaver because of the multiple views and split views to see how your coding effects the page, as well as the GUI that really does make it a click and paste world for people who dont want to have to learn to program.


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## AaronM (Mar 28, 2007)

thedarkknight said:


> Im starting my e business and have been looking at various cart systems I have plumped for os commerec probably... As I was using go daddy but they do not let you put os commerce up so changed to host gator.


I have os commerce on one of my sites that I host with GoDaddy. In fact I got it by installing it from their applications page. I have been enjoying getting to know os commerce.


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## kedkennels (Feb 25, 2010)

Just went to the core Commerce site and its not looking to bad. Seems pretty simple.


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## n.signia (Nov 21, 2007)

I've really liked bigcartel. I think you'll find it easy to use.


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## jpgraphics (Aug 26, 2010)

Great Site!


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## The_Goods (Dec 3, 2010)

"The BEST eCommerce solution is..." the one you dont have to worry about, but lets you focus on your core competence (be it designing, sales, production, whatever).

Now I can understand if you dont have the funds to go the whole hog with a custom site, but really, is any form of coding what you want to be spending your time doing?

Methinks not.


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## peightal (Aug 21, 2010)

I looked around at different shopping carts also and almost went with wordpress but in the end I went with Bigcartel's diamond package and really like it. I have no experience in coding neither but I am learning. There are thousands of tutorials out there to help you out. I'm always changing something on my site to try to make it better. Next I want to get friends and family to model my products. Good luck.

Peightal
www.oatmealnation.com


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## lyssagale12 (Dec 23, 2010)

Catbox said:


> web design isn't rocket science(i'm living proof of that...lol)... but it does take effort and time... there are a few templates that are really cool
> joomla... wordpress... etc... they have tutorials on setting them up including the data base and shoping carts etc...


Hello
I am also a living proof. Joomla and world press have tutorials on setting them include data base and shopping cards and we get, what we want!!!

motivational business speaker


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## uncletee (Feb 25, 2007)

we have big cartel for one of our sites, we don't have to many products for that one. we just are building a new site with 1 and 1 .com easy like big cartel but you can add tons more stuff, and they have an ecommerce package that hosts and has a shopping cart. again lots of work getting all the designs into it, good luck uncletee.


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## RawDesign (Mar 23, 2010)

GoDaddy has worked me so far.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

pookness said:


> A friend of mine told me about wordpress, but all I saw were blogs, but not eCommerce templates. Are there eCommerce templates? I guess I have to look better on their website.
> 
> Thanks for the advice...I will definitely check out joomla and wordpress (again)!



Some people use wordpress as sort of a front end. Often made the "home page", wordpress enables you to make announcements, introduce new products, etc. From wordpress, you can then link to your e-commerce site. People who are unaware think of the url, hosting-site, wordpress, and e-commerce cart as a single site.

BTW I use os commerce. No comment on what shopping cart/e-commerce solution is better. Just use it as is. 

Finally, the best e-commerce site is the one that has the features you are looking for (or need) AND one you are comfortable with because you need lots of updating. So, try them out.


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## Peteski2 (Dec 10, 2010)

I would take a look at magento. There is a community version which is open source. It was built from the ground up as an e-commerce solution. There are some pretty cool themes out there that you can download for under $250. This theoretically would save you some learning of CSS and HTML.

Magento - Home - eCommerce Software for Growth


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## sertac (Oct 15, 2010)

Hi pookness 

i was same as you.(till two mounts ago)
And than found Prestashop e-commerce solution.French guys were made it in 2007.
Complately free and shopping chart included in this program.

visit this site Prestashop 1.3 beginners guide - Prestashop 1.3 beginners guide there is a guide for beginners.But guidebook is not free.

There is a forum for prestashop (E-commerce Forum - PrestaShop Forums)
and you can find lots of free template in net

Goodluck 

ps:sorry for my bad english


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## printkeg (Jan 6, 2011)

I am surprised that no one recommended Shopify.com. I tried their system out and they super easy to get started on. It was easy to setup payment method, tie it to my UPS account and set up products. The other two I liked were BigCommerce and Volusion. 

On our print website, we combined Wordpress (for the content management side) with a custom e-commerce solution. It has some limitations, but should work great for a startup if you have the money to pay for a programmer. 

Chris


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## edward1210 (Nov 7, 2009)

pageBuzz Website Hosting & Small Business Websites for $10/month
Try this one


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