Shopping cart - help

[bill2006]

Ok, I've now created most of the pages on my new website, got a lot of help from this forum especially with bookmarks and publishing, thanks all !!!

My site will offer tea and tea gifts for sale. say 6 - 10 categories and between 200 and 250 products. I have read a lot of threads on different programs and confess I am confused.

Beth (ty) suggested I look at different alternatives, 12 hours later I am just as lost.

1. If I use Soholaunch it seems I have to redo all my work as not compatible with BV.
2. Oscommerce is a different look form my website. Can I make chnges to use the same templates created with BV ?
3. I see some people here use PayPal is this a good option to begin with ?
4. There's no shopping cart in BV ?

Appreciate the help
Bill
www.blueearthtea.com

[Karen Mac]

Re: Shopping cart - help

Bill

Oscommerce is a new ball game and you have to create your store in it also, as well as zencart. So far I havent found an add on cart that is free that works with everything (meaning blue voda, frontpage, dreamweaver, etc, etc) and has good support and offering the features I want(customizable). There are alot of paid ones tho, and one is included in your cpanel. There are also outsource shopping carts but I dont like those as they get to keep your customer in their database. So even tho they are free, they still cost you your cutomers name etc.

Paypal is ok, and they have set up a pro thats an actual merchant account, however, i think they are expensive, and their set up is PER store. You can use the freebie account while you are getting going, as it costs nothing until you get an order, but then their processing fees are a lil higher too. Regular merchant accounts are to be found everywhere and you need to really check out their setup fees. Personally I wouldnt pay more than 99 bucks for a setup and look at processing rates closely as they vary widely. Regular merchant accounts can be used for more than one store, depending on who you go with.

Karen Mac

[Bethers]

Re: Shopping cart - help

You could also look at Mal's - which is what Amanda uses - and Cart Manager - both of which require you to add code to your store. Mal's has a free version. I chose Cart Manager (and am paying) because I wanted to use BV and I wanted to have all the options they have available.

[bill2006]

Re: Shopping cart - help

Thank you all,
I will do some research.
Bill,

www.blueearthtea.com