Shopping Cart Suggestions?

Report · Nov 26, 2006

I am completing my new website theArtisansGroup.com. At first I developed it for a non-integrated PayPal cart (where the cart is hosted on PayPal) but now I'm thinking I need something integrated directly into my site.

I would love to just choose some easy-to-config shopping cart solution but I have two problems:

1. The site is already designed, and I really like the design. In particular I like the way the images are displayed, with two alternative images below the main image. The site sells hand-made jewelry so it's so important to offer multiple closeup views of the same product. In fact I'm even thinking of adding an fourth image. I don't think I've seen any shopping carts that let me offer 3 or 4 additional views of a product.

2. This is the real kicker. I don't maintain the content. Each participating artist is responsible for uploading his/her own content and images. I wrote a listing service using PHP and Flash and it is seamless and simple. It resizes and files images and puts content into the MySQL DB. I've never used a shopping cart but it seems like they are built around a "system admin" type of paradigm which wouldn't work for my artists.

Is there some shopping cart solution or DW extension out there that can work within my framework? Should I develop my own? If so, where should I begin? Maybe there's a book out there, or some tutorials? I'm particularly worried about security for obvious reasons.

Thanks very much to the gurus on this one. My site can't go live until I figure this one out.

-jheske

Report · Nov 27, 2006

I've just been looking at cart options for the first time. As a DW user, the two that have caught my eye are :

web assist's ecart - either $249 for a full version, or you can subscribe for $20 a month - which may be an option for trying it out - ie if you can build a cart in a month it'll only cost $20.

and : cartweaver that I haven't looked so closely at.

More recently, I've been leaning towards roman cart - it makes everything look v easy to set up - and presumably you can still have the website look the same up to the point where the multiple images are displayed on the product details page, and only when you click 'buy now' do you go to the checkout / payment pages.

Although I guess that's how it is already with paypal, so I gues you want those fully integrated too?

Good luck tho' - there's a lot of choice out there - both with carts and payment gateways.

Iain

Report · Nov 27, 2006

Iain, Thanks very much for the response.

All these carts seem so complicated, even the simple ones. They have all this upsell, cross-sell, tracking, product management, etc. Since I won't be storing images and content in their databases, It just seems like overkill to me. At this point I will probably just stick with PayPal for a while and test with some of the other carts once I'm up and running. Otherwise, who knows how long it would take to integrate, test and launch one of these over-featured cart systems.

Thanks again for the help and info.

-Jill

Report · Nov 27, 2006

Hi,

Since you're thinking of sticking with PayPal, you might want to take a look
at the free PayPal eCommerce Toolkit from WebAssist. It might have a little
additional functionality without overburdening you:

http://www.webassist.com/professional/products/productdetails.asp?PID=18

--
Best - Joe
Joseph Lowery
Director of Marketing, WebAssist
Author, Dreamweaver 8 Bible

"Phomari7" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:ekctta$sd$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I am completing my new website http://www.theartisansgroup.com. At first I
> developed it for a non-integrated PayPal cart (where the cart is hosted on
> PayPal) but now I'm thinking I need something integrated directly into my
> site.
>
> I would love to just choose some easy-to-config shopping cart solution but
> I
> have two problems:
>
> 1. The site is already designed, and I really like the design. In
> particular
> I like the way the images are displayed, with two alternative images below
> the
> main image. The site sells hand-made jewelry so it's so important to
> offer
> multiple closeup views of the same product. In fact I'm even thinking of
> adding an fourth image. I don't think I've seen any shopping carts that
> let me
> offer 3 or 4 additional views of a product.
>
> 2. This is the real kicker. I don't maintain the content. Each
> participating
> artist is responsible for uploading his/her own content and images. I
> wrote a
> listing service using PHP and Flash and it is seamless and simple. It
> resizes
> and files images and puts content into the MySQL DB. I've never used a
> shopping cart but it seems like they are built around a "system admin"
> type of
> paradigm which wouldn't work for my artists.
>
> Is there some shopping cart solution or DW extension out there that can
> work
> within my framework? Should I develop my own? If so, where should I
> begin?
> Maybe there's a book out there, or some tutorials? I'm particularly
> worried
> about security for obvious reasons.
>
> Thanks very much to the gurus on this one. My site can't go live until I
> figure this one out.
>
> -jheske
>
>
>

Report · Nov 27, 2006

On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:32:02 -0500, "Joseph Lowery"
<jlowery@webassist.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Since you're thinking of sticking with PayPal, you might want to take a look
>at the free PayPal eCommerce Toolkit from WebAssist. It might have a little
>additional functionality without overburdening you:
>
> http://www.webassist.com/professional/products/productdetails.asp?PID=18

I use this cart and like it a lot.
--
Steve
steve at flyingtigerwebdesign dot com

Report · Nov 30, 2006

Thanks for the WebAssist tips. I think that's what I installed a few months ago. It did help when I was learning about the PayPal API, but now I create those on the fly using info from my database. The prob for me is that shopping carts take such tight control over how you upload and store your inventory and how you display your images. Of course, I have to be a complete non-conformist and break all the rules. Let's hope it pays off in sales 🙂