# Magento Cart



## 90chevytruck (Aug 24, 2007)

Has anybody successfully opened up a site using Magento Shopping Cart?

I really like all of its features and is perfect for me.

I installed it and added some products, but I have no idea how to skin it.

If anybody can help me out please give some input.

Thanks.
Chris


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## rainbrunn5 (Oct 20, 2008)

haven't done any designs on magento yet, but this guide might help you.

Magento - Designer's Guide to Magento - Open Source eCommerce Evolved


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## pwapparel (Feb 16, 2007)

Magento is a completely different beast when it comes to OpenSource carts. There is so much that it can do, but it definitely has a HUGE learning curve.

It would probably be best to pay someone to design it for you.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

magento is also not quite as stable as the other carts because its fairly new.. working with the design of any opensource cart isnt technically "skinning" because you actually alter the code and create your own look from scratch basically.. Its not like a wordpress blog where you just upload a folder and click APPLY THEME.. you have to create your own look.


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## MentinkiZM (Apr 16, 2008)

lindsayanng said:


> magento is also not quite as stable as the other carts because its fairly new.. working with the design of any opensource cart isnt technically "skinning" because you actually alter the code and create your own look from scratch basically.. Its not like a wordpress blog where you just upload a folder and click APPLY THEME.. you have to create your own look.


Actually most open source carts besides OSCommerce and a few others do offer a template system. Drupal, ZenCart, Cubecart, Mombo, all those opensource systems are either carts themselves or can have carts and they have a "drag and drop" skin/template system. Magento does have a skin system, but your right about having to still code. There skin system is unique and rather hard to use, but once you get it, it is very powerfull.



90chevytruck said:


> Has anybody successfully opened up a site using Magento Shopping Cart?
> 
> I really like all of its features and is perfect for me.
> 
> ...


I am about to release a website that my team designed in Magento. This will give you an idea of how you can use it and what can be done. If your looking for functions of the cart itself they do have TONS of addonds in their forums, most of which will have to be hard coded (editing the actual cart files) but once you do a few you will get it easy. The skin system is a bit overwhelming at first glance, but once you start getting it you will notice how easy it can be. I would be willing to help you with some small stuff like placement of a objects and things like that, but because we, like you, are new to magento because magento itself is rather new, we can only help with what we know so far as well. 

Dont give up. Once you get it, you got it. Read there doc's and the forums, those have been the best help for us.


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## 90chevytruck (Aug 24, 2007)

MentinkiZM said:


> Actually most open source carts besides OSCommerce and a few others do offer a template system. Drupal, ZenCart, Cubecart, Mombo, all those opensource systems are either carts themselves or can have carts and they have a "drag and drop" skin/template system. Magento does have a skin system, but your right about having to still code. There skin system is unique and rather hard to use, but once you get it, it is very powerfull.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks alot. But the thing is I have minimal amount of web design and coding experience.


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## MentinkiZM (Apr 16, 2008)

Well, Magento's website has some skinns you can download for free and it pretty much installs for you and you can just select it. Change the header image and your good to go. It will give you a shop while you read up a bit on skinning it.


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## utemtu (Mar 3, 2008)

I also use magento @ [my site]

The site took many many hours to create, and we oursourced some of the technical coding work. That said, if you have the time to invest, you can create a GREAT site with Magento, however the learning curve is very steep.

If you love the functions of Magento you can either download one of the many different themes in the community area (some free, some charged) and modify from there, or you can pay someone to create a theme for you.

hope this helps


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

Magento is definately not the most stable, and as it is still in the development stages there can be some painful learning curves.

Another issue is covered above a bit, in that you need to "hard code" things, problem is once you do that upgrading becomes very painful. (eg to a later version with security patches or new features) Although Magento is a little better than osc or zen for this (It has it's own way of adding features, unfortunately they can also crash the store!) It can also be very slow and is not as tolerant of older servers etc.

Another option is virtuecart which requires joomla or mambo, both seem quite good.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

90chevytruck said:


> Thanks alot. But the thing is I have minimal amount of web design and coding experience.


Magento is probably not the cart you want to use if that's the case. You may want to try a site that doesn't require any coding for you to start selling like bigcartel.com or shopify.


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