# cheapest shopping cart (that I can build from scratch)



## cody (Oct 28, 2006)

Hi, I'm having my friend build my online product pages from scratch with html.
What is the cheapest, or free, shopping cart, that I wouldn't have to use their cart layout. I dont want a layout, I wanna have it built from scratch for the cheapest price.
advise?
thanks


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## pwapparel (Feb 16, 2007)

Paypal buttons would allow you complete control. Although you wouldn't have the same features of inventroy, etc.


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## marcelolopez (Jul 16, 2007)

With Zen Cart (as well am many others out there) you can go as far as your skills ( or your friend's skills) allows. 
They are highly customizable, free e-commerce packages.
And the price is good, free.
There is not point in try to re-invent the wheel.
As the previous poster said, with an e-commerce package you have inventory capabilities, and a zillion more cool features.


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## splatkin (Nov 8, 2008)

Magento is completey customizable if you need it, or know how, and it's loaded with features, and it's free.


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## rainbrunn5 (Oct 20, 2008)

OXID eSales | OXID eShop Community Edition | Products


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## GRFXARMY (Apr 23, 2007)

I have set up my store with Oscommerce and its all free with alot of community support.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

I use oscommerce as well and LOVE it.. there are more addons than Zen Cart, but Zen Cart coems with a few things already installed.. In my opinion, oscommerce has a lot more room for growth IF you rely on pre-written addons.. If you are going to custom code things (which seems almost useless if it already has been done and is available) than ANY opensource cart is good.


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## Mar (Feb 13, 2008)

Try www.appee.com.


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

Big Cartel Bringing the Art to the Cart


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## orangealexander (Nov 27, 2008)

As a professional art director in the interactive advertising space, I struggled with this question for a while. My first site was a straight HTML site, utilizing the shopping cart within the PayPal umbrella. I quickly realized that this was quite annoying for my customers. The PayPal shopping cart opens in a new window in the browser, and was confusing some visitors. 

After an exhaustive amount of research, installing OSCommerce, eBay ProStores, ZenCart, Magento, and Joomla (a CMS with PayPal integration), I decided to build it myself, with a little help. If you are familiar with Adobe Dreamweaver, and have a light knowledge of PHP, you can get a plugin that is an eCommerce engine. It's called eCart, from WebAssist. It's a little pricey for a beginner, but it's not outrageous. It allowed me to build the site I wanted, while not having to worry about the shopping cart, checkout pages and a direct tie-in to PayPal.

I have now rebuilt the site for the third or fourth time from scratch (I tend to do this every six months or so). I redesign it because that's my profession, and as the site's number one visitor, I get tired of the look and feel. The site just relaunched about a month ago, and I am already tired of it. It's too simple, and lacks the brand feel that I have tried so hard to build. But, that's my full-time job speaking.

Here's a link to the WebAssist tool. WebAssist eCart Dreamweaver Extension


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## cpetrauskas (Nov 29, 2008)

Magento:
Magento - Home - eCommerce Software for Growth, Powered by Open Source

Open source (but not community developed) with a very active and international user base. I investigated a number of other solutions and, in my opinion, until you start spending serious dollars you won't find an out-of-the-box system within an order of magnitude in terms of features and usability. Extremely flexible (and rational) templating system.

C.


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