eCommerce website advice

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marcanthony

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Hi all

Me and a friend are toying with the idea of setting up a business. I wont go into any detail because we think we have a good idea here.

Basically, were just putting out some feelers about certain things and one is the need for an eCommerce website. Something secure which can easily be kept up to data and edited by me (i have some web design and programming knowledge - and im willing to learn more).

Im thinking there will be some 'off the shelf' products you can buy, like the yabb-se forum and such likes. It will be the form of an online store selling many different products which will be used to accept card payments online.

Ive not done any research yet, this is just the very start of things. Asking on the computing forums hoping someone has experience with such software/websites.

Can anyone offer any recommendations for eCommerce website that can be purchased, ive tried google but i know most good things cant be found on google, word of mouth and previous experience is more valuable. Also, if anyone knows any websites giving information on eCommerce please do tell. I will remember you all when im a millionaire:p

Regards

Marc
 
I had a look around for nice cart software about 6 months ago, and decided to go with x-cart ( www.x-cart.com ) with protx as my payment processor.

Some of the choices I didn't go with were actinic (really hard templating) and edol (not as configurable!)

The only problem with x-cart i've found is that the checkout process is a bit involved, but i'm currently working on a mod to simplify it a bit.

The community is nice and friendly there too, but you can only access the forums once you are a paying customer (weird i know!)

have a look at the site i did ( www.petpassions.co.uk ) and also have a look at the live demo stores on x-carts site!
 
there is a free program called oscommerce which looks o...k but nothing special but it is very easy to use and it accepts al sort of payment. I have not used it but you can probably modify or buy a nice template for it and then it could look quite professional
 
Depends on skills/budget/requirements

Hi Marc,

The choice depeds on how technical you are/how much your budget is and your requirements for the e-commerce website.

If you are a business user you can go for something like UniTrader 2006 (that is the product developed by our company) or an alternative online hosted solutions.

If you are technically savvy or have the budget to hire a web designer and need a fully bespoke e-commerce website I would advise you to look at osCommerce.


The price you are looking to pay in case 1 can be something between GBP 20 - 99 per month based on differen scenarios (with UniTrader it is 249 one off ffee and 8.5 per month with all inclusive hosting).

osCommerce is free but web designer can cost you a bit - on average the price is between 1.5 K and 5K based on what you want to do (according to the UK stats an average cost to build an e-commerce store is 2.3K (that was in 2004) ).

Again - all depends on your circumstances.

If you need further advise - please email me (e-mail address removed)

Kind Regards,

Pavel

www.unitechnology.co.uk
 
OS-Commerce is a good shopfront script, with plenty of options, and highly customisable templates, and it's FREE.

X-Cart is a very good package, and is used by loads of people, but requires a liscence fee (something like £250 If i remember right)

Other shopping carts to consider are Xen-Cart and Cube-Cart.
 
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