# Which shopping cart and site platform recommendation for a non web designer?



## jogador74 (Feb 24, 2010)

Hi guys. I've been browsing the forums and read a few different recommendations but wasn't sure about some back end details that weren't really brought up in questions/answers provided so far. So here goes:

I am no web designer and have no knowledge of html, css, php or any of that stuff, so building a site from scratch is out of the question and I would rather not pay a bunch of money for someone to put it together for me.

I see a few different shopping cart options mentioned in these forums like zencart, bigcartel and others, but was wondering if those carts were for use with html sites or...more specifically, how can I utilize these carts when I have no web building experience? Is there a web design platform that I can use that is very novice friendly and allows me to import/install these carts for use?

I have used a wordpress template for a little while and tried using prestashop cart with it, but could not find good instructions to work out some of the installation issues I was having. I then went to the gold cart plug in and remember having some issue with that too (cannot recall exactly what). I then moved on to using shopperpress for a short while, but I really disliked not being able to get rid of the shopperpress advert/footer on the page.

I am currently running wix.com platform and it is a flash based site. The thing I dislike most about it is the fact that I cannot pull up my site on a mobile phone and I will be doing quite a bit of work on the road and would hope that my customers would be able to pull up my site to show their friends/family using their phones or whatever as well. Along with that, the stupid shopping cart does not allow various size/color selection and I have no straight forward way to input shipping. Just a pain basically.

My shirt designs are front and back so the cart I need will have to allow for multiple images uploaded (I remember ecommerce gold plug in promising I could do this, but when I used it, only one image showed out of the multiples I uploaded). 

Anyway, long post, but any help would be greatly appreciated. I have gotten a lot of good feedback from customers and potential customers on the shirts and now I need to get my site to be as appealing and customer friendly as possible.


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## tyzfknit (Oct 3, 2010)

Hi,my friend,what needs to be explained that,although zencart uses php format,it still could be show as html,this is a technology called pseudo static.And I think zencart is a relatively simple website construction tool, suitable for beginners.

And if you just want to show your products on your site,it's a vivid way,but if you want your customers find your site through your product keywords,it's not friendly to search engine using flashes too much.


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## kontrolldkhaos (Nov 18, 2010)

Hey now! I was ABSOLUTELY in your shoes a few months ago! I don't know about HTML coding and I never care to. All I want to do is focus on my artwork and getting it onto the publics backs. 

my websites are www.breedlife.com (bigblack bag) and www.kontrolledkhaos.bigcartel.com

I am currently using 2 sites, Online Portfolio Websites for Photographers, Artists, Designers, Art Directors & Creative Professionals. Manage your own online HTML, non-flash portfolio web site. (as my gallery) and bigcartel.com (as my shopping cart). Big Black Bag is EXTRAORDINARILY easy and they offer a lot of cool features! I use photoshop to design my opening page and some other portions of my website and it was easy to upload, with no problems. As you can tell if you go on my site, you can upload music as well. If you do not have a "switch sound file converter" I suggest going to CNET to find a copy you can download for free to turn MP4's into MP3's, that is if you decide to have music on your site. 
Bigcartel.com took a little time for me to get into, but once I did, it was ALL I NEEDED! Big Cartel links back to my original website, you can do a promotional code for any specials you would like to run, you can have sales, prompt up all the sizes of your tees with good information and pictures, etc. 
I tried Big Cartel 3 TIMES before I realized that it really was the ONLY site you needed! And again, I designed both my sites with ABSOLUTELY NO HTML CODING, or no other coding! Just uploading pictures and putting them in order! 

Hope this helps!


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## jogador74 (Feb 24, 2010)

Yea I hear ya. Going to move away from flash. Looks nice but the functionality I need isn't within my reach. 

So zencart is a web design tool then? I've looked at so many I can't remember which tool does what. I'm basically needing a great web design tool designed for ecommerce, suitable for true beginners that allows me to set up shop wo too much hassle. Some tools that some of you may have used upon start up


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## blankCLOTHING (Feb 20, 2008)

I'd say go with bigcartel. I have yet to use it to it's full potential, but I think it looks good. You can add your own URL, which is a huge plus. With little hmtl research, you can probably do some cool stuff on it. I have only experimented with the free version though, but I am planning on buying a few months to open my own shop.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

here are a few,, Ecwid: E-Commerce Widgets Ecommerce Solutions | Avactis: Ecommerce PHP Shopping Cart Software OpenCart - Open Source Shopping Cart Solution the first and last are free


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## Beolight (Jan 21, 2012)

I then moved on to using shopperpress for a short while said:


> Is this still the case?


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