# Looking for a site for a storefront/eccommerce



## runnergirlz (Dec 18, 2011)

Hi, all!
Looking to set up an online store front...We have the domain name already.

There are just soooooooooo many options! 
Looking for something easy to use and not too pricey monthly. Selling apparel and other items.
Please give us your advice and what you have found out!

Thanks so much!

Runner Girlz


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## SpecMat (Mar 15, 2011)

I have a friend that just started an online t-shirt store and used magento. The template he used was modern, and he was able to really personalize it, even the favicon. He had it up and going within about two weeks.


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## lakastama (Jun 24, 2011)

i am in the same boat and i have been searching for almost three months and break it down into two since i was looking for cheaper and functionality of the website. so far i have two choices: moonfruit and bigcartel. hope this helps

rex


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## tcrowder (Apr 27, 2006)

eCommerce Software | CubeCart

http://www.zen-cart.com/

Are just two of the free shopping carts available. Many web hosting companies offer one click installs for them too.


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## Hegemone (Oct 18, 2011)

I have had a good experience with joomla and virtumart. Again both free and highly documented. 


(www.)([email protected]) 1PartArt1PartTee.com


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## oshadz (Jan 3, 2012)

If you are still interested I can help. Please let me know if you want to discuss the details.


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## ohiofish (Jul 31, 2010)

Big cartel and Volusion are good....


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## brenden (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi runnergirlz,

I guess the first question is what type of site do you want? Are you wanting user to browse products or design online? Expecting them to be able to upload their own designs or add text?

There are a lot of solutions out there for generic sites (non designers, etc) or full industry specific solutions like DecoNetwork.


Cheers.


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## Domboslice (Nov 16, 2011)

To follow up on this original thread are there any advantages in regards to the payment processes of these websites? I know bigcartel uses paypal if I am correct. If I were to have a Web developer design my website which payment process would they typically use in the format of the website for purchases?


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## brenden (Dec 11, 2008)

The big items and barriers in online sales is payment and shipping.

In most parts a generic website or custom development job would use standard API's for services like PayPal. Now there are two ways to use PayPal. You can push your customer to PayPal which most sites do and is a poor experience as your customer leaves your site and ends up on paypal.com. The second is a fully integrated method that well designed platforms use where the customer never leaves your site and payment is made securely with PayPal by their API.

In some place PayPal can be a turn off. A consumer might think 'I don't have paypal' and go away. What they don't know is PayPal accepts credit card so you want to make this super clear. But again, is you use the API as we do in DecoNetwork you wont get that problem as it gives the user a choice to select PayPal or Credit Card (plus any other payment method you configure).

Shipping is the next item to be careful of. Customers like to know shipping costs and you want to ensure you don't lose a sale through inflated shipping costs. If you charge shipping want to make it affordable for the buyer. The problem is shipping costs vary depending if the customer is in your same town or over in Hawaii. This is where a live link to shipping providers via an API helps. We use this in DecoNetwork so when a customer designs a product in your online designer we get the actual shipping cost from your factory to the customers address so you cover your costs and ensure the local guy doesn't have to pay too much for shipping.


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## famfunllc (Jan 7, 2012)

We use BigCommerce and have been happy with it. 

Most SaaS (Software as a Service) such as BigCommerce, Magento Go, Volusion, etc give you free trials. Try them and see what you like.


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## rlarson10 (Jan 13, 2009)

I had used Zen cart in the past but one thing that I noticed was the SEO it was terrible. I had all stripped out as many server calls as I could and the cart still had slow load times. Anyway I recently switched to Big Commerce. it is easy to manage and give a lot of SEO options and different ways to market. it does have a monthly fee but not a transaction fee and you can modify templates to suit or need . They also have several companies that will creat custom templates if that is what you need. here is a sweet link Ecommerce Software & Shopping Cart Software Solutions by BigCommerce


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