# ECommerce Software?



## skylandprinting (Jul 3, 2007)

Are there any recommendations for E Commerce software? We want to get our stuff online on a website, but find it hard to get anything worthwhile. And OSCommerce seems to be a royal pain in the butt, although I have messed with it a little bit. ANY help would be much appreciated.


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## josephfrancis (Apr 18, 2008)

Hello I build sites fulltime.

There are two I would suggest which are paid versions.

The first is Viart. It is brilliant software and very powerful with a super fast search engine.

www.*viart*.com

The second is Avactis. www.*avactis*.com

Personally I have spent countless hours investigating and playing with carts and those two above in my opinion are the best.

If you want a free cart you can take a look at Magento - Magento - Home - Open Source eCommerce Evolved

Good luck with what you decide.

Joe


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## fdsales (Jul 1, 2007)

Also try Ecommerce Hosting - Web Hosting with Free Shopping Cart. They are a hosting co. w/ free shopping cart software.


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## josephfrancis (Apr 18, 2008)

fdsales said:


> Also try Ecommerce Hosting - Web Hosting with Free Shopping Cart. They are a hosting co. w/ free shopping cart software.


The only problem with this approach is that in most cases you do not have access to the coding files hence you can be held to ransom if prices go up or the servers slow down. If you have a cart with 500 items it will take a while to add and imagine if you had to do this gain on to another system. The best approach I think is to use your own hosting which you can get for $5 a month or so and use a third party shopping cart this way if the host gives you any drama like a price increase and so on you can move to another host without any problem simply by copying your database contents and files and reloading again on a new plan.

Hope this helps.

Joe


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

If you found osc too much zen has the same functionality but is better developed and heaps of help available.

Cubecart is also another one although not supported as well (without paying)

The main advantage of osc and zen is they are open source so the code is available and plenty of people who have made modifications then make those "mods" available free to do yourself.


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## josephfrancis (Apr 18, 2008)

In my opinion if you want good software you need to be willing to pay for it.

I tried all of these open source software systems and my suggestion is to try them yourself then do a comparison with Viart and you will see what I mean. One real negative with open source is that hackers will know how these systems work.

Things to test for is ease of use via admin, ability to edit the templates and the ability to remove modules via admin rather than hacking the code or adjusting a template. Other stuff to look out for is the ability to adjust discounts and shipping and the ability to incorporate UPS that would auto calculate the shipping cost per product. There is no comparison with Viart and this is after I had spent 20 plus hours testing and playing with different systems.

Avactis Shopping Cart includes an Australia Post module for Aus customers using the system.

The advantage with Viart is you can use a product code to search for an item or you can use normal text word for searching search. I am using this software on a website that has over 9000 items and you should see how fast teh search feature is.

One open source shopping cart that may become the most popular within 12-24 months may be I think Magento which one cool feature it has is that you can run 10 websites with 10 carts installed but they all run off the one system on checkout time. 

Hope this helps.

Joe


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

It uses the same php scripting as most OS packages but without the available mods. If it works for you great.

Magento may do, guess we will see.

There are several posts on this sort of thing that cover other considerations like what happens if your not happy with the cart (talking about paying a designer here) or they retire/leave/change jobs etc.

It would be worth hitting the search or having a flick through the ecommerce threads


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## josephfrancis (Apr 18, 2008)

Viart is a professional development company based in the UK who have an office and a number of staff. I believe the same goes with Avactis Software. Magento has a team as well and they have a professioanl edition you can purchase. All three are not back yard operations.



> It uses the same php scripting as most OS packages but without the available mods. If it works for you great.


 If your talking about the current Open Source systems yes I believe this to be the case.

Magento is an entirely different setup.

As explained above I have spent many days researching installing and playing with different systems and personally on a professional basis Viart and Avactis are the two best packages going around and are the only two systems I will use when setting up new ecommerce websites for clients.

Avactis has less features than Viart but is powerful as well and I think will do nicely for a T Shirt Biz.

Viart has a free edition for 50 items and the basic system is only $149. Viart also has an editon which I use which has a helpdesk, forum for $349 and its all in one.

Good luck with it all. 

I hope this helps.

Joe


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## netter (May 7, 2008)

Depending upon your budget... don't overlook shopping cart products written in asp.net . Here are two of them (StoreFront Shopping Cart Software & E-Commerce Shopping Cart Solutions & ASP.NET Shopping Cart Software with search engine optimization (SEO). BV Software Shopping Cart Software). These carts can be pricey but you won't fall to the limitations that scripted carts have. These also run on Microsoft operating systems and not unix.


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## bbode (Aug 22, 2007)

I'd recommend Shopping Cart Software, Online Store Software, E-Commerce by 3DCart

I've been using them for my site, and have been really happy with them. I think their best feature if being there to answer the hundreds of questions I had for free. 

Bryan


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

Having now spent a considerable amount of time with magento I would seriously avoid it at the moment unless you are from a programming background.

If you intend to build or customise the site yourself it has no where near the support documentation or available help that any of the others do. Even installing the available "extensions" can cause issue's and is not very straight forward. (This program is mainly used in conjunction with linux so if you are familiar with that it may help. My hosting is on a linux platform and there are still issues.

It depends on your budget and what you are willing to spend. How much you spend on cart software is only a small percentage of the picture. Personally I'd spend less on the software and more on the marketting, I'd bet you grow your business quicker that way. Doesn't matter how good your site looks if nobody comes to visit.


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## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

Cube Cart has served me well - 100% free, free tech support via the Cube Cart forums, huge modification community with their own dedicated forum, many mods are free and the paid ones are extremely cheap, the code is 100% open source, and the templates are fairly easy to modify.

Because it's PHP based and because there is a large aftermarket for CubeCart, you can always have someone custom code features for you if you really need something done that CubeCart doesn't offer. However I haven't found anything I've needed that wasn't readily available via the modification community.

If I were you I wouldn't pay for any cart until you check out the free ones available. I went through a few other carts and chose CubeCart.


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## guest29928 (Mar 30, 2008)

If you want to spend some money, I would recommend Volusion. We use it and like it. Another company that uses Volusion is all the Christian Audigier/Ed Hardy companies--- if you want to check out what it can look like.

Another really nice one is at aspdotnetstorefront.com. We might have gone with that one because of all of its features, except for the cost.

Zencart is free and used by some larger companies, like Affliction (afflictionclothing.com)

Let us know which one you pick!


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## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

Another one is pikistore - Create your own tshirt store which I think is also a fulfilment service, but I'm not sure because I haven't used them yet - worth a look though.


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## peteVA (Nov 11, 2007)

I will average installing about 5 CubeCart shops a week for clients. It's all most anyone needs.

There are coders and web designers who promote other stuff, and magento is new, but extremely difficult at his point, unless you are a coder and used to working with open source software. Their main target seems to be larger hosts and developers, not a one time user.

There are a lot of folks who think t's got to cost to be any good, but I will bet that between CubeCart, OSCommerce and ZenCart there are more working carts on the web than any ten other packages.

And you own it. You are not tied to any host, you can move whenever you want. You have full access to all of it, there is nothing proprietary about it and you are beholden to no one. There is a tremendous amount of free support on the forums. No need to pay for anything, unless you may want one particular feature that is missing and there are plenty of folks in the business of providing free and low cost mods for specific situations.

Don't be mislead by those who tell you you need a paid solution or a custom site. It's just not so.
.


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## guest29928 (Mar 30, 2008)

peteVA said:


> Don't be mislead by those who tell you you need a paid solution or a custom site.
> .


I don't believe anyone was giving misleading advice. It seems as if the original poster was asking for opinions, and people were responding accordingly. And most if not all replies have included carts that are free. 

I suggest the TS, look at all the free ones first. Most of the ones that cost money offer a free trial also. But between the free ones, if you arent too big and dont need a ton of toys, you should find one that works perfect for you. Many free ones are great and as said, you get the code!!


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## guest29928 (Mar 30, 2008)

Here is a few good sites that may help, first is a blog that compares a lot of carts and talks about pros and cons of each the other 2 sites review carts.

good luck.

on this make sure you read down into the replies, much more info on lots of carts.
scriptygoddess » Blog Archive » Cube Cart vs. Zen Cart

Research over 200 shopping carts at Shopping Cart Reviews

Shopping Cart Review 2008


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

Well put PeteVA.

I think Magento in the future has great potential, especially the multiple stores, single checkout. But it isn't there yet.


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## mumzie (May 9, 2008)

I use Zen cart for multiple stores. It's fairly easy to learn - yes, some of the features are a little obscure to find, but most everything I've desired is there. 
Most mods are free, others are very inexpensive.

And - most importantly - if you do embroidery - zen-cart has an attribute that you can price PER LETTER. For example, on one of my store sites, you get the first 10 letters included in your embroidery - over that, we charge per letter. Functionality is built in to zen cart.

Additionally - the community has published a book - they sell it for $40 - it's a great HOW TO on setting up a site.


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## manfromdet (May 20, 2008)

Technology has caught-up with accessibility. There was a time that a safe, reliable shopping cart solution was out of reach financially for most people, or just didn't exist. Now, picking a solution has become more a matter of preference rather than a matter of what"s "better".

I've been using X-cart for 3+ years and I've found it to be stable with LOTS of features. Sure, there have been a few problems: It has a bit of a learning curve to customize and setup. But what I think makes it an excellent choice is user community support. Many good hosting companies have servers specifically configured for this cart, and there are a LOT of 3rd party providers for customization; so much so that it seems to have become a cottage industry on it's own. X-cart listens to and works with these people, so there really isn't much X-cart cannot be configured to do.

Please note, I have absolutely NO affiiliation with the company, and I realize my choice isn't for everybody. Just my 2 cents.


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## 3mrhythm (Apr 27, 2008)

i love oscommerce .. its free and works great.. completely open source and easy to customize.. there are a ton of add ons and such that are all free too. 

my site is done with oscommerce and i had an online paintball store that i just sold that was also setup with oscommere


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## Ernie (Nov 2, 2007)

josephfrancis said:


> Hello I build sites fulltime.
> 
> There are two I would suggest which are paid versions.
> 
> ...


Joe,

Is Viart a template cart that a novice can set up? And would you send in a few links to websites using it?

Thanks,
Ernie


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## Donnie (Dec 6, 2007)

I have been using an open source CMS system called Joomla for a couple of years now. It has a E-commerce system called Virtue Mart. The neat thing about Joomla is that it is free and is web based. No additional software needed.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Donnie said:


> I have been using an open source CMS system called Joomla for a couple of years now. It has a E-commerce system called Virtue Mart. The neat thing about Joomla is that it is free and is web based. No additional software needed.


I am leaning towards this solution for my new cart. It has an abundant amount of templates that like very web 2.0.


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

I use joomla and am very happy with it... virtuecart for basic stuff is ok. I am try another open source cart ssytem for joomla at the moment which seems much more flexible. 

But depending on what you want to do you could also use cubecart, magento (I'm still sitting on the fence about this one), zencart, OS Commerce etc. Joomla or drupal type set ups give you more freedom I think to add content easier, which of course helps with seo


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## simpex (Jun 26, 2008)

hi Joe maybe you can help I think its about time I get a site. if I go with joomla will I need anything else I am totally ignorant about website design. but I am quite literate and have a keen interest to learn. I do sell stuff on ebay but thats not my site. thanks


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

simpex said:


> hi Joe maybe you can help I think its about time I get a site. if I go with joomla will I need anything else I am totally ignorant about website design. but I am quite literate and have a keen interest to learn. I do sell stuff on ebay but thats not my site. thanks


Sam,

You will also need a shopping cart. 

If you plan on using a joomla template, there are some that have the cart already included. However, you can add a cart to any Joomla template.

Here are some of the better known Joomla template providers:

Joomla Templates and Joomla 1.5 Templates from Joomlashack
Joomla Templates and phpBB3 Styles - RocketTheme
Joomla Templates | Joomla Template Club - IceTheme
Template Plazza Demo Website
YOOtheme? - Joomla!? Templates and Extensions - Blog

And here is the Joomla shopping cart VirtueMart: Your free e-commerce solution. - Welcome...

Justin, what is the name of the other cart you are considering for Joomla?


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## rosabi (Feb 26, 2009)

what is the security like for the joomla virutecart or other opensource cart solutions?


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## laggardlady (May 5, 2008)

I've used oscommerce, cre loaded and zen cart. Cre loaded is no longer free to use, oscommerce I find time consuming having to add all sorts of contributions before using.

Zen cart can be used straightaway, everything you need is already installed, it's easy to use and plenty of templates available which are easy to install, so I would recommend zencart which is of course open source.


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## Donnie (Dec 6, 2007)

rosabi said:


> what is the security like for the joomla virutecart or other opensource cart solutions?



Security is always what you make it. Password creation should be mixed with Cap and small letters and numerals. If you are taking credit cards, you will need a secure certificate for your site. With virtuemart, you have many options including paypal and numerous shipping methods.


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## RUSSGAIL (Jun 10, 2008)

Wow! After reading all the post here I think
that we must start looking around at carts.
The free and low prices I see here are something.
I pay $399.00 a year for our just-add-ecommerce
shopping cart.


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

Freeway is another option for Joomla. It seems to be a based around oscommerce but with a much easier to install and use interface. It also comes with almost everything ready to go, if you are using a payment gateway. This of course also reduces you risk and liability.


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## scoll7567 (Jan 8, 2009)

I tried both sitecube and 3dcart and 3dcart seems to work much better for me. As I'm far from a programmer


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## stateustees (Sep 15, 2009)

I would handsdown recommend CS-Cart They are a Russian company. At first (2 years ago) I was skeptical because they are based in Russia but then realized the support was awesome when you purchase. The software is amazing. You pay $265 and it's yours for 1 license. I never had any problems with the software.


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## marcmarcmarc (Jun 20, 2009)

I'm just creating a shop with oscommerce. I'm not a programmer and that's not the best thing now for osc. It's a big mess right now. But I'm gonna stick with it because of the great choice of add-ons. There are add-ons that are essential for my concept. So for me, osc is a big mess but because of the great add-ons variety still the favourite solution.


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## pdpatch (Aug 30, 2009)

I would stear clear of anything that starts with a blog or cms type of software that Joomla or word press is. The security model is not designed for E-commerce and can get you in trouble when taking credit cards as payments.

All the carts mentioned have a problem with inventory management, when it comes to crafting your products. They force you to use attributes and options in a way that does not let you track you actual shirt quantities.

There are some add on's that can be used to add quantity tracking to attributes for the OSC clones and loaded carts. But personal I don't think this is the best way to go.

One thing to remember about Os commerce is that it is intended to be an ecommerce engine, and have things added to it for the type of cart you want. Some contributions are easy to add otheres are not. So most people look for a loaded version. where someone who has more advance programing skills adds the contributions. The next step is a Clone that kind of looks like OSC but is not, it's had changes to the core code to make it work better with the contributions, Zen cart is a clone. 

Also the problem with OSC based carts is that OSC still uses a lot of code written for php 3. which does not always work well with PHP 5. Zen cart was rewritten from the start to use later version of php4 wich makes it work better with php 5, although not perfectly better then most others. But Zen cart is being redone with php 5 and 6 in mind.

Yes I am a programmer and coder.
No I am not with Zen cart, but I know them
But I am now doing my own code, but it will not be ready till near the first of the year. So I won't even mention what I am working on.

Tom (aka zip1)


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

Magento is free and has full attribute tracking features


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## Lopsta Ecommerce (Sep 23, 2009)

I'm into ecommerce, online fashion sales and consulting since about 5 years. 
I have tried a tested a lot of carts, but of course not all of them.
right now my best suggestion for an ecommerce site is drupal with ubercart. it might be equal to joomla with virtuemart, as i don't want to start drupal vs. joomla flamewars  Just that i don't have a lot of experinces with joomla.

Lets face it, most shops will sooner or later be extended with different kind of site functionality. best example is a blog or a user forum. 

drupal ubercart and joomla virtuemart are part of a cms. i think that's a main advantage, as you can build all your website elements around the shopping cart itself. be it a forum, wiki, answers sytem, blog, you name it. you just have one fully integrated system. your can auto crosslink from blogposts to forum articles to products in your catalog. it is really true that the only limit is your imagination.

i decided to use drupal, so i can only speak for that. it is even possible to have a crm build into the same system, that means customer contact requests can be generated with the same login and when you answer the requests you can see a full order and contact history next to the message. 

Another reason i like the fully integrated CMS based ecommerce solutions is that for each part of your page visitors only need one single login. your store customers are already reagistered for forum and blog, that's very good to encourage user participation and let them create user generated content.

for maintaining the site you only need to monitor and update one single system. not a shopping cart, a blog, a forum, etc. ofter a handfull of system maintaining updates can be a pita. not talking about security risks if you fail to do so.

the best thing of all: the system is openosurce and free to download. 

drupal.org | Community plumbing
Ubercart | drupal.org

drupal is one of the fastest growing cms communities out there, you have a system that lots of people can work with. that means it is very unlikely that some developer stops working on a free shopping cart script and you have to deal with expensive migrations to new systems. 

there is also #drupal-support and #ubercart channels on IRC, very helpfull and active.

Regarding the security: you can run Drupal on SSL, but most ppl use payment provider anyway, like paypal or authorize. so the encrypted part os done by a specialized partner. For security reasons i would never safe CC data on my system. EVER.

Feel free to send me a PM if you need more help with Drupal or Ubercart.

Jan


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