shopping cart system shopping...

[bricklebrit]

Hello,

I have a simple shopping cart application running right now, but was looking to upgrade to a better shopping cart package. I was hoping to find:
* application that is easily indexed by spiders
* coupon codes
* quantity of product available
* gift certificates
* customized email messages for order confirmation
* wishlist feature (so customers can buy later)
* customized checkout asking customers if they want a free samplers or mousepad on checkout?
* pay for downloads (like payloadz.com)
* customers can login to their account
* work with current Linkpoint gateway, PayPal, and GoogleCheckout possibly for mail-in orders

Mivas looked enticing, but didn't support googleCheckout and didn't look as modifable as some other cart options. I was looking at AmeriCommerce and volusion, but have 1,000+ very small product variations and hate to have to pay $3,000+/year for leasing the service. I would prefer to purchase a cart for one time fee and have it hosted on my existing server.

Does anybody have any recommendations for a highly customizable shopping cart with such features or other suggestions?

Thanks!

[bj]

I think either ZenCart or OSCommerce will do most, if not all, of what you need. Zen is a bit more up to date in development. And the price is definitely right.

[bj]

I might mention also that there are freelance devs making a living out of adding features to both these carts, to customize their functionality to meet your needs. Be cheaper than reinventing the wheel. That's if they don't already do what you need.

[orange655321]

Zen Cart should do everything you need...and it is free. I 100% know that CRE Loaded does everything that you listed and is also another open source cart. You could add the site map to either of these which would also help indexing.

[bricklebrit]

Thanks for the quick feedback and suggestion! I'll definitely give ZenCart a closer look.

As I'm not a seasoned programmer, are there any sites you could recommend that zen cart programmers frequent (that would work freelance)?

Thanks again!

[bj]

I've been using Michael Hampton for custom work (to make sure he can buy enough groceries to keep working on "Bad Behavior", his pet project) though certainly there are many others out there, and probably findable through the ZenCart forum. Truthfully, I doubt you'll need much of anything in the way of changes, Zen is pretty complete, and there are a lot of extensions available for it. And of course, there are services (like mine) that provide custom skins for these programs.

[orange655321]

I agree. You can check the main zen cart forum for people or post the question if you do not see it. Also, you can visit sites like getafreelancer.com and review the work and reviews of zen cart programers.