posted on April 21, 2002 10:41:50 PM new
I am in the process of building a site. But I need some opinions. Most things that I will have for sale will be limited in supply (like 1-3 like items). Is it worth trying to use a shopping cart system with such limited inventory? If so, I know nothing about shopping carts so where do I find one.
I am on a budget, so whatever I do would have to be cheap.
posted on April 22, 2002 06:30:01 AM new
Your question leads to lots of other questions. For instance:
What software are you using to build your site?
Does your web site host have any recommended shopping cart or e-commerce software?
How comfortable are you coding HTML and ASP (active server pages)?
How much do you know about data bases?
Do you want a packaged solution or are you willing to code your own?
You can always do a search on Google for "web hosts AND shopping cart" - there should be several thousand pages to look through for more information.
If you think that's too much to handle, and you don't have a lot of inventory, you are probably better off using either AuctionWatch's "free" storefront or eBay's "$9.99" storefront.
posted on April 22, 2002 06:36:29 AM new
First off to use a shopping cart you need a way to process the orders that are received unless you only want the funds to be sent in by mail so will need a merchant account to process credit cards.
Many shopping cart software packages cost money (about $99.00 and up)plus the hosting service has to support CGI scripts and you have to have the ability to know how to use the software, upload it, format it, etc. There are free services like ones that can be found at: http://www.arpanet.com/PerlShop/PerlShop.html
and others if you look around. Some software is easy so you can build your shopping cart FAST and HASSLE-FREE! Just do a search on a search engine like "Goggle" type in shopping cart and you'll see all kinds of offers.
Personally I use Paypal's shopping cart. Its easy, FREE, and is used by over 25,000 websites.
I know a lot of people don't like PayPal but I have used them without any problems for three years on eBay and am using them on my website as well and haven't had any problems. This could be a good option for you.
Hope this helps
Health & Happines
"The Colonel"
[ edited by kolonel22 on Apr 22, 2002 06:38 AM ]
posted on April 22, 2002 07:10:52 AM new
I use Paypal's shopping cart and it works very well. You can find a descrioption of how it works at the Paypal site.
posted on April 22, 2002 07:20:01 AM new
amzn z shop,39.99 for 40,000 items allow you to enter quantity for each item,when one is sold,it will update the quantity on hand,when it gets down to ZERO,it will say this item is sold out.
but then,you will have to live by amzn rules-
amzn takes a commission comparable to ebay auction and using their one click for credit card payment is optional.
if you have an independent website,you can always tell the customer it is sold out and refund their payment or not process the charge if they use cc,with paypal,just hit the refund button.
