Hello,
I’d like to start working on my first ecommerce site, and was hoping for some feedback. I’m primarily an html/css guy - but can sort of get my head around PHP… at least to the point where in forums i can usually ask the right questions and understand/or use answers from developers.
I’ve got two questions:
What are some good shopping carts to check out? I’m pretty familiar with Drupal, but have never used Ubercart (a Drupal set of ecommerce modules)
Any general advice for a guy building his first ecommerce site? Tutorials, books, blogs, videos, anything? Its a little intimidating, but thats why I want to get one under my belt!
Personally I like magento. It’s quite got a lot of quality features and if you need it, there’s paid for support available.
Spend some time researching security. Get to know the most likely attack vectors you’d be facing and make sure you’re covered no matter what solution you go with. If this is your first effort, definitely make sure you’re using a third party credit card processor. PCI-DSS is a nightmare to deal with and anything that keeps this process simple for you is ideal.
Strictly speaking on the non-coding side of things; measure, measure, measure. A/B testing is your friend. Ecommerce is all about conversion. If one page isn’t converting as well as others, find out why and fix it. If one is out performing others, find out why and replicate it’s success. It’s all a % game and if you’re running this to make money, go with whatever works best, not what you like most. If it’s just a play thing, then feel free to ignore this entire paragraph :¬)
Try to set up the goal for your ecommerce and focus on features that you need to have in your cart.
I recommend to start with easier applications. Magento is not the way. You will be loaded with things that you might not need and spent $$ and frustration.
Go with something simpler like opencart FREE and cs-cart payed
You need to know what you need to for your products that you sell and your customers.
You could use your favourite CMS and combine this with a hosted shopping cart add-in. This type of solution has you copy and paste Add to Cart, Buy Now, Checkout buttons in to your web pages, as well as other page add-ins like shopper summary info like Total Cost of Cart, Total Number of Items In Cart etc. A good hosted shopping cart add-in will allow you to sell tangible goods as well as digital downloads.
A hosted shopping cart store add-in means you don’t have to code any PHP yourself or install and maintain any shopping cart software on your webserver. It also means that as new shopping cart features are added, you automatically gain access to the latest version without having to upgrade.
You are then able to easily connect your website to your chosen payment processor, like PayPal, who then handle the credit card payment at the final stage of the checkout.
You might be going about from the wrong direction.
It’s not really what technology you’re comfortable with
as much as it is what you’re trying to accomplish.
While simple shopping carts can certainly work to get you
“in business”, you need to look at how you manage your
entire business and then where you want to end up.
If your desire is to be a cart designer and web coder, then your
business can take one path but if you really are using a
cart as a tool for your business, then get a cart that you
do not have to build and maintain so you can run your business.
Think of it this way, the owners of a trucking firm do not know
how to build a truck, they use it as a tool in their trucking business.
The dry cleaner doesn’t know how to make a washing machine, it’s
just a tool.
Yes… in both examples, it’s good to know how to maintain the truck
and the washing mahine but it’s not the main focus.
So get a cart, use it as a tool, maintain it to optimize your sales (with
up selling, bundles, coupons, gift certificates, etc), but never get caught
up in the “build it yourself” mindset.
From someone who has tried a lot of the open source ecommerce solutions out there, I can say that they’re all just that little bit buggy for me. Magento for me was the real heart breaker because it’s just got so much good stuff in it. But after so many hours of fixing bugs I gave up.
For me, paid solutions is the answer. I’ve tried Shopify and BigCommerce. Both are brilliant. Both allow you to spend more time selling your stuff rather than fixing bugs.
I like Magento and I suggest that you use the same. It is an open source eCommerce solution. It comes with a variety of tools, necessarily for building a successful online shop.
I get really skeptical about any links posted for software or services that don’t really show any prices up front or anything concrete before you hand over some of your personal information. Such sites are to be avoided at all costs imo.
Anyway as far as the OP since you are knowledgeable with Drupal you should go for what you know. Ubercart simply makes it easier to create products and associated workflows that are sale related. Once you have installed the appropriate modules you will be able to make products just like any page. I would recommend going with Drupal 6.x instead of 7 though. Ubercart has been updated for D7 but ubercart views only works on 6.x (and it has some nice functions like automatically showing a box with the latest added product).
Add me for Magento. Feature-rich, professional Open Source eCommerce
solution, offers merchants complete flexibility and control over their online store. Plus they have the biggest community, check at Magentoecommerce.
So many options for magento.
Hi, I would suggest Zeuscart which is the stable & richly-interfaced, open source shopping cart to create your store. It is the best PHP/My SQL shopping cart which is simple, powerful and easy to use.& comes with the marketing-tailored features that can help you increase your online sales, promote repeat purchases, and boost customer satisfaction.
I would suggest magento.
Make the marketing plan as making up the site ( is a very important step ) but if you don’t have visitors on it … it’s no good it is so “shine and cool”.
They could apply their favourite CMS and also merge with a hosted shopping cart add-in. The type of solution Add to Cart, Buy Now, Checkout buttons into their web pages, and in otherpage of their website add-ins like shopper summary infomartion like Total Cost of Cart, Total Number of Items In Cart etc.
Go to Amazon and take some merchant products from there and start your marketing campaign once you found your niche you can earn a lot from your website the main work is to drvert traffic to your website for that you need a full prove marketing plan
