Next Step Up From PayPal Shopping Cart?

[gerardkelley]

Hi everyone. I've got a small website selling little jewelry boxes. I'm using the PayPal cart. It's been working well for me.
I would like to go a step further. I want to add gift certificates or discounts for some customers or items. I also have been worrying about selling the same unique item twice, so I want some sort of inventory control.
I installed and played around with Zen Cart, Cube Cart, OS Commerce and a couple of others. They are way to much, as far as I can see. I don't need a whole shopping cart, I guess. I want to keep my website as is. I think they can be integrated, but I don't know how much trouble that would be.
So, while looking around, I found paypalshoppingcart.org. With it I can generate buttons using my own images or PayPal images which will not change the look of my website at all. It seems to have all the features I need for now and the immediate future. With the PayPal IPN it's $59.00.
So, my questions are: Is there an easier way to get what I want?, Has any one used this software?, Is it worth the money?, Is there something else I could use for less money?
Any information will be very helpful.

[Dubbya]

When it comes to eCommerce, you won't be able to add all the functionality you're seeking without some substantial scripting.

Most quality carts offer the features you want, but as you say, they're often complicated to integrate with an existing site. That's the nature of the beast though and you're going to have to make a decision to take the plunge and convert your site or substantially rework an available ecommerce solution.

I'd recommend vpasp. For a couple of hundred bucks, you can have your cake and eat it to. They've got integrated features that'll allow you to manage content as well as offer customer based pricing, coupons and incentives.

You can continue to use PayPal as your payment system or move up to one of the hundreds of gateways they support.

Realtime shipping lookups, unlimited categories and products, email confirmations, saved carts, recommend to a friend, you name it, they've got it.

If you just want to get started, you can download a functional but limited free version of their cart. Build your site template and you'll be 1/2 way there. Once you're ready, you can enable the extra features with an option pack.

It sounds a lot tougher than it is but it can be modified or, if you prefer, they do offer expert setup for a nominal fee.

Shopping Cart Software – Ecommerce Solutions and Web Hosting From VP-ASP

[CandlelightWeb]

AgoraCart is free. It can be integrated with PayPal so there is no additional need for sometimes costly gateways.

It can be blended into your current website without too much difficulty. That would of course depend on the amount of inventory already posted.

Since it can track inventory and can be integrated with both your website and PayPal... this feature rich shopping cart system is the most powerful and one of the easiest to install. Simply download it from AgoraCart.com and then follow the installation instruction that come packaged with it.

You can edit the headers and footers to blend into the site quite nicely but that is possibly the most trtouble. If you can do that with some ease... the rest is super easy.

[suzstephens]

You might also look at Americart and Miva Merchant. I haven't set up a cart in years, so I'm not current with what's available, but I'm sure there are easier ways to go about it. Pair.com, a web host that I use a lot, offers ShopSite.

[Bruce Williams]

Guys,

The shopping carts you mentioned fit a spectrum of needs. The criteria we use are audience buying preferences (are your buyers using PayPal or something else), cost of cart, ease of use, gateway with bank - this is the cost of transaction Paypal is high relative to banks), platform and support.

Vpasp has good techinal support. Oscommerce the same. These are 2 of the 5 carts which we rate as solutions. Ezimerchant (Australian as it is local to us). The others vary on gateway support from your bank. Carts which work with your bank (bank happy you are happy) make for good relationships should disputes arise.

Thanks,

Bruce

[rightinfo]

Originally Posted by gerardkelley

Hi everyone. I've got a small website selling little jewelry boxes. I'm using the PayPal cart. It's been working well for me.
I would like to go a step further. I want to add gift certificates or discounts for some customers or items. I also have been worrying about selling the same unique item twice, so I want some sort of inventory control.
I installed and played around with Zen Cart, Cube Cart, OS Commerce and a couple of others. They are way to much, as far as I can see. I don't need a whole shopping cart, I guess. I want to keep my website as is. I think they can be integrated, but I don't know how much trouble that would be.
So, while looking around, I found paypalshoppingcart.org. With it I can generate buttons using my own images or PayPal images which will not change the look of my website at all. It seems to have all the features I need for now and the immediate future. With the PayPal IPN it's $59.00.
So, my questions are: Is there an easier way to get what I want?, Has any one used this software?, Is it worth the money?, Is there something else I could use for less money?
Any information will be very helpful.

I am just thinking that a simpler solution maybe to add in a discount/coupon script and set up some time limited offers, and am fairly sure you an get a script for one off item sales. Just reply here if this may suit your needs.

[miabella]

There is a nice shopping cart you can use here:

RomanCart Shopping Cart

It is only 90.00 a year for the basic membership. I have used it on my site since 2002 and am very happy. You can control your inventory, set up your local hand deliveries and integrate Paypal Payments.

Hope this is helpful for you!

[Arctic Fox]

FatFreeCart - Free shopping cart for Google Checkout and PayPal <-- Free, limited functions, integrates with PayPal
E-junkie Shopping Cart for selling downloads & tangible goods <-- Subscriptions apply ($5/month), a lot more features, integrates with PayPal.

I use the free version on my sites now and really like the handling of the cart. No problems at all. I did have to edit every one of my existing cart scripts, but well worth it - PayPal's cart is not really cross-browser friendly and FatFree Cart fixed all the existing PayPal bugs.

I'm in the process of building a jewelry site of my own, and will be using osCommerce for that due to the amount of items (I don't want to code pages for all 900+ items). osCommerce is good, but is not very webmaster friendly and is somewhat of a pain to change the design of its cookie-cutter looks.

[jpatriar]

Originally Posted by gerardkelley

Hi everyone. I've got a small website selling little jewelry boxes. I'm using the PayPal cart. It's been working well for me.
I would like to go a step further. I want to add gift certificates or discounts for some customers or items. I also have been worrying about selling the same unique item twice, so I want some sort of inventory control.
I installed and played around with Zen Cart, Cube Cart, OS Commerce and a couple of others. They are way to much, as far as I can see. I don't need a whole shopping cart, I guess. I want to keep my website as is. I think they can be integrated, but I don't know how much trouble that would be.
So, while looking around, I found paypalshoppingcart.org. With it I can generate buttons using my own images or PayPal images which will not change the look of my website at all. It seems to have all the features I need for now and the immediate future. With the PayPal IPN it's $59.00.
So, my questions are: Is there an easier way to get what I want?, Has any one used this software?, Is it worth the money?, Is there something else I could use for less money?
Any information will be very helpful.

I have the same problem. My nitche laundry bag site uses a modified version of the Paypal shopping cart to allow for qty. discounts. Although I'm not expert, a few months ago I spent a good month or two reviewing shopping carts, including all those you mentioned. Unfortunately I had to postpone the project. However, from what I remember (and anyone with cart experience can correct anything I post incorrectly) is most carts require using their templates (either php or asp) so integrating them with existing htm pages is difficult. I believe I read on the Zencart forum that Zencart can not be integrated with static htm pages.

ZenCart is php/MYSQL driven cart so a complete redesign is required. All your product pages would change so any existing htm pages already in the SE's would result in a 404 (file not found) error when a visitor clicked on the link. I would image redirecting the visitor to the equivalent php product page is required but seems a daunting task if there are many products.

If I remember correctly, paypalshoppingcart is CGI driven and uses a flat file database for customer and inventory control which means it won't work up the road if you decide to switch to some other cart like Zencart for example, that uses a MYSQL database.

[mannequin-lady]

Originally Posted by gerardkelley

Hi everyone. I've got a small website selling little jewelry boxes. I'm using the PayPal cart. It's been working well for me.
I would like to go a step further. I want to add gift certificates or discounts for some customers or items. I also have been worrying about selling the same unique item twice, so I want some sort of inventory control.
So, my questions are: Is there an easier way to get what I want?, Has any one used this software?, Is it worth the money?, Is there something else I could use for less money?
Any information will be very helpful.

Hello, Gerard,

I believe the cart I use has all the features you posted plus more!

Since I just began converting over from PayPal and we're in the middle of holiday sales, I only have a few pages with the new cart button on it. I also placed an announcement at the top of my website stating I now accept credit cards so that people can email and let me know what products they want and I invoice them. It's working out great. I'll be spending a lot of time next month getting up more of the credit card buttons.

Here is one of the pages that has both the PayPal button and the credit card button on it:

Dress Forms - Pin into 19" tall pinnable soft deep dark wine red velour velvet dress form mannequin

I hope it will work out for you, too!
Steph

[jannmirch]

I have used Mals eCommerce with a lot of success. It integrates with PayPal as the gateway. It's free, and an upgrade is available to avoid sending customers to the PayPal site to finish the transaction.

You can set up discounts and vouchers and add many other features.

In many ways it works like paypal, but offers more features. You can set up your page however you want and add your own "buy now" button via a form or a simple html link.

Good luck. By now, I'm sure your head is swimming!

[QiSoftware]

I use PayPal in much the same manner as you. I think now you can also setup gift cards.

I really like your offerings. Very unique.

Q...

[mannequin-lady]

Originally Posted by QiSoftware

I use PayPal in much the same manner as you. I think now you can also setup gift cards.

I really like your offerings. Very unique.

Q...

PayPal has added more features but I want to get away from them, especially since I've received several emails from potential customers who were "perturbed" when I said I only accepted PayPal. And yes, I know you can receive direct CC payments via PayPal, but I'm no longer interested in that.

QiSoftware, if that compliment was meant for me, thank you. If it was meant for Gerard Kelley who began this thread, you're right! His products are unique.

I hope Gerard comes back and sees everybody's suggestions.

Steph

[gerardkelley]

Well, I'm back. Thank you all for the replies. Moreover, yes, my head is swimming. I have looked at every cart mentioned and many, many more. I have a dozen on my desktop that I have either installed or at least looked at. In addition, I think I looked at every available script that I could find on the cgi, php and other resource sites.
So, the bottom line is, I want to keep the cart on my own site, not pay a lot of money, not pay a monthly charge, and not have a new storefront. In fact, I don’t want to change anything on the front end at all.
I wanted to be able to not sell a jewelry box twice (I wish business was that good!) and to offer coupons or discounts.
Since no one had anything bad to say about paypalshoppingcart, I went ahead and ordered it. $58.70 including shipping and handling. I get a hard copy and a download link. I know it’s cgi and a flat file, but that should be all I need for a while. And it’s PayPal, which is fine by me. I think their reputation has bounced back quite a bit from what it was a few years ago.
I hope that I’ll have the software up and running this weekend. I’ll let you all know how it works out.
Thanks again everyone.
By the way, why are shopping cart and storefront synonymous? It seems they should be two separate things.

[Clint1]

This cart is JS based, free, and works fine with PP. Simple Client-Side Shopping Cart. . I don't know JS and I set it up just fine, so it must be pretty easy.

[Clint1]

I forgot to mention it also has shipping options that you can customize. Like you can add USPS, DHL, UPS, FedEx, etc. options and input your own rates for certain weights. I have a drop-down on my cart page and the customer can pick USPS or DHL, and Ground, Next Day Air, Residential or Business address, etc. I haven't figured out yet how to use the zip code option, but I really need to because then you can get more accurate shipping rates.

[mattyw]

Well, I was in your position some time ago, and I believe I solved the problem with PayPal's Website Payments Pro (now $30/month) and EMartCart (eMartCart:Free Shopping Cart for PayPal and merchant accounts. Add features for low monthly fee.). EMartCart costs $11.50 per month for unlimited transactions and merchandise now, has a script almost exactly like PayPal's, integrates with Payments Pro, and they have an automatic interface that will actually convert a page for you from Paypal to their script automatically and allows you to save the page elsewhere to check it out! I was up an running in literally an hour. If you want it, they also allow for both USPS and UPS automatic shipping calculations, although I don't use that feature. You can also do subscriptions, discounts and gift certificates.

It has the added advantage that customers don't know that they're dealing with PayPal at all, and with Website Payments Pro, you can also take telephone orders.

I have been very happy with EMartCart and their service for about three years now.

Thanks,
Marilyn Woodman
Personalized mini wine labels stickers candy wrappers custom wedding baby water bottle label special occasion

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by mattyw

It has the added advantage that customers don't know that they're dealing with PayPal at all, and with Website Payments Pro, you can also take telephone orders.

That's a great option. Can this still be done when you don't use PP Pro version?