# Best E-commerce Package



## funkygator2

Does anyone know of any good e-commerce package that includes everything one needs to run an e-store? Help please!!!


----------



## tshirt0mania

funkygator2 said:


> Does anyone know of any good e-commerce package that includes everything one needs to run an e-store? Help please!!!


Hello. I believe the answers are right here but might take a wee while to trudge through. 

Off the top of my head - from what I've been reading around here, there are a few - namely Zencart, CubeCart, Bigcartel, and I hear even Wordpress has an e-commerce solution now. Check them out and see which one suits you best. Good luck!


----------



## SketchBox

check out 3dcart, I hear good stuff often. 3DCart Shopping Cart Features


----------



## the funk

If I could have zencarts back end, along with a few choice mods, along with wordpress's seo, blogging, and customer reviews power, and the dependent attributes mod from cubecart all wrapped up in one nice package for free with no copyrights, I would be really happy!

But other than that, your question is vague, what are YOU looking for? Every shopping cart has everything you "need", not always everything you "want" though.


----------



## Rodney

funkygator2 said:


> Does anyone know of any good e-commerce package that includes everything one needs to run an e-store? Help please!!!


Sorry, there's no "best" package that would fit "everyone's" needs, since everyone's needs are different.

What you need to do is research and figure out exactly what "your" needs are and then find the hosting and software thats your specific needs.

Some people may just need hosting and good software that they can customize with dreamweaver, some people may want to pay more for a point and click solution.

But if you read through the forums and search for ecommerce and shopping cart info, you'll find LOTS of recommendations for all types of different situations.


----------



## the funk

BTW, Mal's ecommerce has offers a free secure checkout page that can incorporate into your existing site.


----------



## Rodney

the funk said:


> BTW, Mal's ecommerce has offers a free secure checkout page that can incorporate into your existing site.


So doe's cubecart, zencart and PayPal.


----------



## funkygator2

Thanks for the great info. I will check them out. I am looking for a place where I pay a monthly price and they care of everything - you see I am not very computer savy, but I want to have my own t-shirt store online. I have read the process that one of the member has put on the forum about the steps to do your own web and store, but it all seems like a foreign language to me. I thought about going w/ yahoo but not sure after everything I've read. Do any of the ones listed above offer the whole package including the cart, ssl, webdesign, etc. Again, I am not good w/ the terminology. Thanks again for all your help.


----------



## utemtu

check out volusion [http://www.volusion.com/]


----------



## the funk

Rodney said:


> So doe's cubecart, zencart and PayPal.


What do you mean Rodney? Don't cubecart and zencart need you to have a SSL certificate installed with your webhost in order to accept cc's? Even paypals website payments pro requires an ssl to process cards not on their pages. Mal's eccomerce hosts the checkout page on their secure servers. Am I missing something?


----------



## Rodney

the funk said:


> What do you mean Rodney? Don't cubecart and zencart need you to have a SSL certificate installed with your webhost in order to accept cc's? Even paypals website payments pro requires an ssl to process cards not on their pages. Mal's eccomerce hosts the checkout page on their secure servers. Am I missing something?


Not if you are just using PayPal as the only payment method your shopping cart accepts.

You just integrate the shopping cart into your site and use PayPal to process the payments.


----------



## taglessthreads

funkygator2 said:


> Does anyone know of any good e-commerce package that includes everything one needs to run an e-store? Help please!!!


Check out Big Cartel » Bringing the Art to the Cart They have a free plan for up to 5 products so it is worth trying.


----------



## Dphflipper

funkygator2 said:


> Does anyone know of any good e-commerce package that includes everything one needs to run an e-store? Help please!!!


Howdy!

I use Shopping Cart Software by Volusion Ecommerce Solutions so it is what I recommend based on my experience with the shopping cart. 

Once you learn the admin side everything is intuitive. However, if you struggle with say, even basic HTML, maybe not the cart for you - which is OKAY. When I say I use Volusion, I should clarify that statement to mean the business pays the bills and the employees do the work, I'm one of the employees.

Beyond my recommendation, like stated above, do your research and know ahead of time the functionality you require.

If anything, choose wisely the system you go for, it can be difficult and costly to move to a new platform down the road.

Don't get yourself in a situation where you are operating as a sub-domain on another site - such as yoursite.anycart.com. Doing this means you lose SE rankings when you do move over to your own domain name.

Hope I helped...


----------



## guest29928

We also use Volusion. SO does Ed Hardy, Christian Audigier, Smet, etc etc.

You can check out our site to see some things that can be done with it.. We used very little HTML.


----------



## funkygator2

Thanks. I checked your site and I like the features. I will definately keep volusion in mind.


----------



## funkygator2

Have any of you use/heard about 1&1 Internet, Inc.
for ecommerse solutions?


----------



## Teeser

We've used Volusion for almost 3 years and are happy with it.


----------



## spidadesign

Get a custom built cart, it might be a little more money but you will get everything you need.


----------



## Rodney

spidadesign said:


> Get a custom built cart, it might be a little more money but you will get everything you need.


You can spend a lot less money and get everything you need from one of the many already existing carts


----------



## printpuller

Question.
I signed up with Shopify.
They have a monthly fee of $25 plus a 2% transaction fee for each sale. Does anyone know if this transaction fee is because they are acting as my merchant account or am I going to pay the 2% plus a percent on top of that by who ever handles my credit card account? I'm a little confused and don't want to get nickeled and dimed. If any one is familiar with how the money moves please inform and advise Thanks!


----------



## splathead

printpuller said:


> Question.
> I signed up with Shopify.
> They have a monthly fee of $25 plus a 2% transaction fee for each sale. Does anyone know if this transaction fee is because they are acting as my merchant account or am I going to pay the 2% plus a percent on top of that by who ever handles my credit card account? I'm a little confused and don't want to get nickeled and dimed. If any one is familiar with how the money moves please inform and advise Thanks!


I don't think they act as a merchant account. You have to use your own, like paypal, etc. So the 2% is in addition to whatever % your card processing company charges.


----------



## printpuller

I was wandering if my bank could be used as my merchant account and then find a gateway provider.
Are there any good e-commerce sites that don't take a percentage hit like Shopify but still offer good services?


----------



## Rodney

printpuller said:


> I was wandering if my bank could be used as my merchant account and then find a gateway provider.
> Are there any good e-commerce sites that don't take a percentage hit like Shopify but still offer good services?


Your merchant account will be taking a percentage hit.

Your bank account is totally separate from your merchant account.

Your merchant account will come with a gateway when you signup. 

To avoid fees, you would just need to setup your own shopping cart on your site instead of using a service. If you use a service, you'll have to pay service fees.

If you get a shopping cart installed on your site (like cubecart/zencart/oscommerce), then you pay a one time fee to get it installed, customized and setup, and you don't have to worry about monthly service fees from a shopping cart service provider or a shopping cart provider taking a percentage of your transactions.


----------



## printpuller

Do these others have limitations to how many items you can have on your site? We have a lot of items to potentially sell
Thanks


----------



## Rodney

printpuller said:


> Do these others have limitations to how many items you can have on your site? We have a lot of items to potentially sell
> Thanks


No, the shopping carts that I mentioned (cubecart/zencart/oscommerce) that you can install on your site do not have limitations or extra charges for the amount of items you can sell.


----------



## splathead

printpuller said:


> Are there any good e-commerce sites that don't take a percentage hit like Shopify but still offer good services?


look at Big Cartel » Bringing the Art to the Cart


----------



## printpuller

Rodney said:


> No, the shopping carts that I mentioned (cubecart/zencart/oscommerce) that you can install on your site do not have limitations or extra charges for the amount of items you can sell.


I will do my home work and check back in. I'n assuming these other services have, email veriafication, tracking, confirmation email... that sort of stuff as well?

Thanks so much for all your help have a great fourth!


----------



## biophase

I'd say checkout Volusion. The monthly fees may be high depending on what you are looking for. They have bandwidth usage charges also. However, if you're doing a small store you could spend under $50 a month. Their site and cart are very good and you have many many options. They have enough free templates that you could find one that you like and not spend $$ to make a custom template. If you are going with a merchant account it will cost you around $50/mo + cc fees.


----------



## funkygator2

Has anyone use Go daddy ecommerce?


----------



## jvanwest

I have heard great things about CubeCart.


----------



## CUSTOM UK

*After trawling through every demo version of all the popular e-commerce software, I found Cubecart to be one of the easiest to work with.*

*It is packed with features, it is not tied to any hosting packages, its highly configurable and best of all, version 3 is completely free.*

*Some of the mainstream commercial packages, left a lot to be desired.*


----------



## biophase

You guys should check out interspire's shopping cart. For $295, I think it's the best shopping cart system out there. You do not need any computer programming knowledge to set this cart up. I wrote a mini review on my blog last week.

Interspire Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software Live Learn Invest

here is a link to their site with a demo.

Interspire Shopping Cart


----------



## SoloStampede

If you dont want to fiddle around with html and installing scripts, blah blah.. Then I would go with bigcartel.com or shopify.com. Both offer a storefront, but shopify integrates with 3rd party fulfillment services: such as Fulfilled By Amazon, Shipwire, etc.

I plan to use Bigcartel.com, because its cheap and it offers everything I need. and my shirts will be shipped via efulfillmentservice.com


----------



## jackieg

biophase said:


> I'd say checkout Volusion. The monthly fees may be high depending on what you are looking for. They have bandwidth usage charges also. However, if you're doing a small store you could spend under $50 a month. Their site and cart are very good and you have many many options. They have enough free templates that you could find one that you like and not spend $$ to make a custom template. If you are going with a merchant account it will cost you around $50/mo + cc fees.



I have been doing my volusion research and i am completely new at this..and confused lol I'm setting up a small site, less than 20 items at first. i was looking at the cheapest package with volusion which is $30/month and if I go with their merchant account thats another $50? Is that right? 

Would adding an external cart help me avoid paying for the merchant account?
or am I not making sense?


----------

