Need some advice on ShoppingCart

I've got a few questions and I'd like to hear some advice from all of you...

I'm about to dive into the ecommerce world which I have always attempted to not get too involved in - but there is no choice - this is what customers are looking for 70% of the time.

I need to choose a shopping cart for a new customer with 2000 products...

First I'd like to hear what others are charging for a full ecommerce setup with 2000 products?
My thoughts are somewhere between 5,000 - 10,000 US

Secondly - I have always liked paypal. They handle the security and processing for a much deserved fee. My only concern is actually setting up this customer with 2000 hard coded buttons with the paypal shopping cart and basically relying on the hope that things don't change with paypal, or of cource, I'd have to go and recode everything again.

If I choose another processor - (someone keeps recommending 2checkout... Seems like the same thing really....) I'd be looking for something that I can implement with simplicity since I am very new to .php....

Ofcource seo is also a concern - but not as important to me as a proper system with minimal problems.

I definelty can use your support in making a sound decision....

I seriously doubt anyone with 2000 products is going to want to pay that kind of money for a PayPal setup. I bought a shopping cart system for $400 and that's what I charge each customer to set it up (so one customer pays for the system, and all the rest is profit). Someone with that big of a product line should have their own merchant account (if not, they should get one), and you should give them a real cart system connected to their merchant account via a gateway like authorize.net or something like that. Paypal is great for some situations - like a handful of products or something like that....but not for the situation you describe.

I agree with Donna. Paypal is great if you have a small site or if you have a site that you are using to test the waters before going to the expense of a full blown ecommerce system. Even though paypal no longer requires buyers to have a paypal membership their conversion rate is lower than what you will get with an invisible solution. Within the past few months I have moved two sites to paypal and then moved them away because the conversion rate was suffering - plus paypal has limited shipping options and a few other glitches.

IMO if I wanted an integrated cart/site solution I would go with volusion... if I wanted a custom built site with a cart connected I would go with UltraCart.

There are many other good ways to do this but these are what suit my skills and preferences. Checking to see what Donna can set up for you is probably another good idea. I will check with her the next time I need a site with ecommerce.

I feel the same way Donna - and even if they don't realize the difference - I just woudn't feel right about it....

I would know that is not a real cart....

So the system you speak of - it resides on your own server right?

Anything else you can offer about it...
I nee the same thing.... Something I can try out - buy - then use for every set-up....

What do you recommend I get started with Donna - I'll be using it for the Long Haul.....

Thanks to Egol also for responding.... ;-)

Sorry, didn't mean to make that sound like an offer. The one I use is for Coldfusion sites only, which most people don't want or need. I've been looking at non-CF software lately, and so far it looks like X-cart.com would be what I would probably go with for se friendly reasons (for hosting it yourself), or I agree with Egol in choosing Volusion for hosting it elsewhere. I havent looked at UltraCart yet, so I'll have to check that out. So you should check those out Clasione and see if they would fit your needs.

I'm gonna check out X-cart.com and see what the story is....

I'll let'ya know what I think...

Donna - you mentioned you charge about 400 to "set it up"

that doesn't include the products.....

That's gotta be just the program....right...

What do you think a good price is to charge for a full design - setup - and product upload - 2000 products


By any chance - anyone know if x-cat works on godaddy hostinbg?
I'm gonna want to sety up alot of acounts on there....

Well - so far - no good - I downloaded the trial of x-cart gold and installed it - it's telling me the trial expired....

:-?

Is there a simpler way someone can explain this to me......

If someone has a free few moments....

Figures - I was able to install it and now I find out that I did some unpacking wrong or something....???

_________________________________

Hello John,

Thank you for contacting us.

On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 23:14:50 -0500, clasione@optonline.net wrote:
> I downloaded the x-cart gold trial and it says it expired....
>

It seems that one or several files of X-Cart trial demo were modified somehow.
Please note that the trial demo expires in 30 days after it was downloaded from our web-site!
So it seems that the reason of 'corrupted' or 'expired' warning message is somehow corruption of the demo's files.

Possible reasons:
1. if you use winzip to decompress the .tgz then you must disable the 'TAR file smart CR/LF conversion option' found on the options|configuration|miscellaneous menu.
On the winzip menus, find the "TAR smart cr/lf conversion" feature and DISABLE it. Winzip may not remember its settings so don't quit winzip at this point, just unpack the files. Then the files will not be corrupted.

2. Files were uploaded in FTP ACSII mode (automatic selector of FTP mode will upload files in ASCII mode!!!).
3. Attempt to edit something in .php files of X-Cart free trial demo.

Solution: remove "expired" copy of the demo, re-download free trial demo from our web-site, unpack it and upload properly and run installation wizard one more time.

Please refer to FAQ topic at http://www.x-cart.com/downloadable_demo.html#11

Also, you can find more information and useful advices about IonCube at
http://www.ioncube.com/faq.php

If you have questions, please ask.
--
Mickael Bazhutin
sales representative

X-Cart.com [web site] http://www.x-cart.com/
LiteCommerce.com [web site] http://www.litecommerce.com/
Glavpochtamt, p/o box 5152. [ phone ] +7-(8422)-429038 (9:00-18:00 GMT +3)
432072 Ulyanovsk, Russia [ fax ] 1-270-568-5165

Hello,
I don't charge based on the number of products, rather I charge based on the complexity of the site requirements. A site of 2000 products is easily accomplished using a spreadsheet, but it is the product layout, related products, etc., that cause additional time/hours worked for me.

So, I charge a flat hourly rate and multiply that by the time I know I will spend developing the core cart. Then I offer "upgrades and options" for flat prices. For example, I will say that it is 15 hours to develop the core cart, and one option could be to add-on color change imaging for an additional $100 per product/item, and so on.

I have been using Miva Merchant since 1999 and recently have looked into OSCommerce. I don't know too much about OSCommerce yet, but can generally accomplish what I need to accomplish using Miva Merchant. OSCommerce is a free application done in PHP and Miva Merchant is a software package which costs a bit more to run as it requires it's own engine install for it to work.

Of course, now that I have said that, my next client will likely be scattered and sorting through the products to create the spreadsheet will be a job in itself! Better knock on wood right now!!

Merchant accounts are really interesting to look into right now. I heard QuickBooks offers its own processor so that may be something if your client uses that software. I use CardServices and Authorize.net and PayPal but I would also have to agree that PayPal is best reserved for small projects.

;-) Leora

Thanks for your responce leora.....

Verry informative and helpful...

I just looked over the demo for x-cart just to see what it is about. From just a surface lookover, it seems like a good package. I would be interested to get in there and do some development with it to see what it can do out-of-the-box.

One very good thing is that it does have CVV2 incorporated into it already at checkout. That has been a feature lacking in other packages.

One last thought ... it occurs to me you are in New York. If I recall, calculating sales tax for your state is ridiculously hard to setup. Of course, I've never done it, but having skimmed through the forums on another developer site, I do recall that being an issue for NY developers a while back.

;) Leora

We've been an authorized PDG Cart reseller for several years, and have been very happy with it. It can interface with PayPal, Authorize.net, and all the other payment gateways. You can try it for 30 days for free, too. As with most carts, it has too many features to list here. It installs and runs on your server (Linux or WIN).

I've never used XCart, but we've had customers switch from XCart to PDG with excellent results. There were security issues with XCart that they couldn't get resolved. Probably the nicest thing about PDG is it is mature and stable. It just runs and runs and runs with no hiccups (very important for e-commerce!)

I pioneered using mod-rewrite to make the dynamic pages search engine friendly, which was about the last thing on my wish list for it. PDG is very good about responding to customer's suggestions, and releases minor version updates regularly.

We have a demo version available for anyone to try out at: http://www.proi.net/store.shtml, so you can see the shopper side of things. The features list is at: http://www.proi.net/search-engine-f...-shopping-cart/

You can get it from PDG or us at the same price, but we include toll free phone support and a free SSL cert if the site is hosted with us. The link to PDG's site is: http://www.pdgsoft.com

I would reccommend either site-report cart which my programmer wrote, totally seo rich not only friendly... www.site-report.com or applepiecart..... another stellar seo cart solution....

hope that helps
Nigel