Hi everyone,
I was just wondering if I could get opinions of these shopping carts. Both seem to garner very good comments, and I believe either would probably fit my needs very well. I'm just wondering, based on actual experiences with either company, if there is anything else I should know.

My business is a product business, as opposed to a recurring charge situation, so I am interested in things like inventory control, customer management, and options like gift certificates, courtesy services such as gift wrapping, and ease of use (for both my customers AND for me!)

I am not entirely sure I can use a 3rd party cart (I have signed up with CDGCommerce), but I'm hoping so.

Oh, and here's what I'm sure is a very silly question: must the shopping cart software reside on my computer? I don't really understand about things like servers, etc. My computer is usually, but not ALWAYS, online. Where does the software reside? The same server as my website (my webhost)? Sorry for such a silly question -- just want to make sure I understand.

Thank you for your help,
Lisa

I've used CandyPress for quite sometime, and although I'm currently in the process of switching over to OScommerce, CandyPress did it's job well for about a year. It's fairly easy to use for non-programmers, and there's a decent amount of mods available that'll give you some of the more popular shopping cart features (which shouldn't require any more than a basic knowledge of HTML and ASP to use).

The one drawback is that it's setup to use an Access database, which tends to be a little slow if you're getting a fair amount of traffic to your website. I don't think it's currently compatible with mySQL.

The shopping cart wouldn't be run from your computer, but your host's server.

I would still recommend OScommerce, though...it's a little more complex, maybe a bit more of a learning curve...but there's hundreds of mods available and a lot of support/documentation. The best part is - it's free! http://www.oscommerce.com

Thanks, Obscured, that helped me a great deal. I am going to take a closer look at OScommerce now. It also looks good to me. And I'm relieved to know that it resides on my host's server! LOL! I'm sure that was a dumb question, but I just wanted to be sure.

Here's the part I'm still unsure of. I already have a pre-existing site and do not want to use a template "Store Builder". I was previously using Paysystems, and they allowed me to generate html code to past in links to each of my products that would then lead to the shopping cart check out page. I'm overwhelmed by the number of features I'm seeing in all of these shopping carts. Many of them look really amazing. What I'm not clear on, however, is whether they will also allow me to just generate the link code like Paysystems did. I feel certain that most shopping carts must offer this, since the 3rd party merchant accounts did (even PayPal does), but I'm just not able to see where that is, in fact, the case.

If I could just figure this piece out, I would probably be better able to compare apples to apples when evaluating all these shopping carts. I simply have no interest whatsoever in building a new "store" when I've got my website already built the way I want it. I sell jewelry pieces, and the aesthetics of the site are very important to me. Free would be great, but I also don't mind paying a bit for the right solution.

Darned Paysystems. I had everything set up just the way I wanted it. :(

Lisa

If you want to move on to a full-fledged shopping cart solution you will most likely need to rebuild your site.

If you have a simple-enough website design currently it could easily be turned into a template of sorts to be used with oscommerce using something such as the sts module -> http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1506/category,8/search,sts

The basic procedure in setting something like this up would be to:
Install oscommerce on your web host's server
Install something like STS for easy templating
Install the appropriate oscommerce payment modules (2checkout etc)
Enter all of your products/inventory into the DB
Test, test, test, test, and test
And finally launch your new site.

This is not a quick-and-easy process, but can really pay off in the long run by making your business appear to be at least a bit more professional.

If you would like examples of sites running oscommerce and the modules I mentioned above check out the oscommerce site or email me.