10 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
10 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Before you ask for a cart recommendation

by OnlineStoreHelp
8 replies
  • ECOMMERCE
    • |
A lot of folks just starting out in ecommerce come on to the forum and the first thing they ask is, what shopping cart should I use. Unfortunately, when you ask that question without qualifying what your actual needs are, you will get poor answers from people that will suggest the carts they like, or what they are comfortable with or what they have "heard" is the best cart out there. All carts have trade-offs based on what they can/can not do, cost, easy of use, etc.

When you ask your question, please give the following information so you can be provided with the best answer. If you don't know a majority of these questions yet, then I would figure it out before you starting looking at shopping carts.

Type of Store
Digital or Physical Products
Wholesale or retail
Are they adult/high risk products?

Products
Number of products
Number of SKU's (SKU's is different then product as a product with 3 options can have three SKU's)
Number of categories
Will you have sub-categories?
Will you have generic or custom options? (generic being small, medium, large, red, white, blue, etc)
Do you need to do recurring or subscription type business (ex. consumables)

Technical Skills
Are you comfortable with:
  • Programming (PHP, RUBY, ASP)
  • HTML/CSS
  • Servers/SSL Certificates?

Or would you rather someone else deal with the servers, updates and security? Even if you are comfortable technically, its ok to not want to have to deal with servers.

Budget
  • What is your budget per month for the shopping cart system (do not include your merchant account fee)?
  • Are you OK with a transaction fee or do you just want a flat monthly fee?

Miscellaneous
Other things you might want or need that are not captured here. For example:
  • Do you do email marketing? Do you use a specific autoresponder?
  • Need a facebook store?
  • Want or need wishlist?
  • Do you sell on ebay or amazon currently?
  • Do you sell only in your home country or will you sell around the world?
  • PCI Compliance - what do you know about it and is your merchant account provider a stickler for it.

To my warrior friends. Let's use these questions to give people valuable recommendations to the folks asking. If they are not technically capable persons, suggesting Magento is bad advice. If they say they want to host themselves, Shopify is a bad suggestion. If they say they need subscription type payments (coffee and vitamins for example) BigCommerce is a bad suggestion.

Let's make this sub-forum the go to place for great advice to folks looking for it on ecommerce!

If there are other questions that should be asked, let me know and I can update the list!
#cart #recommendation
  • Profile picture of the author Danceparty
    Agreed. And in my opinon, BigCommerce.... is just a bad suggestion any way around
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8001722].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
      Originally Posted by Danceparty View Post

      Agreed. And in my opinon, BigCommerce.... is just a bad suggestion any way around
      I would disagree with you 100% as it is a great cart for both technical and non-technical users, easy to use back end and pretty robust feature set that you don't need to be a programmer or designer to use. Will it do everything? No. Will it do about 90 - 95% of what any cart out there will do? You bet it does.

      Until you qualify your answer as to why it is a bad suggestion, you provide ZERO value to anyone reading this thread. Why is it a bad suggestion? What doesn't it do that you don't like? What features is it missing?
      Signature
      Learn how to set up a powerful, functional yet easy to use e-commerce website at cartprep.com.

      Not sure what ecommerce solution to use? Watch my video walk through of popular shopping carts.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8002629].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author so11
        We wrote an article on this topic a while back...

        Still relevant information... take a look : Shopping cart outsourcing | Security | ITsecurityadvice.net
        Signature
        www.groupesoloviev.com
        We help businesses manage cyber risk and compliance requirements.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8004137].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Danceparty
        Originally Posted by OnlineStoreHelp View Post

        I would disagree with you 100% as it is a great cart for both technical and non-technical users, easy to use back end and pretty robust feature set that you don't need to be a programmer or designer to use. Will it do everything? No. Will it do about 90 - 95% of what any cart out there will do? You bet it does.

        Until you qualify your answer as to why it is a bad suggestion, you provide ZERO value to anyone reading this thread. Why is it a bad suggestion? What doesn't it do that you don't like? What features is it missing?
        I understand what you are saying, it all depends on what e-commerce store your a running, but BigCommerce is a bunch of jokers.

        My biggest complaint with them is their support. Go on their forums, its a ghost town, nobody cares about anything and the platform is closed, you can't customize anything at the core or even hire developers for it, its a closed platform. They recently redesigned their login system, but that did not accomplish much, just polished a turd.

        Sure, if you plan on having 1000 SKUS or so, you might be ok with BigCommerce in the beginning, but wait until your start curating your catalog, working with bulk uploads and trying to really make your store custom, its impossible.

        Did I mention that BigCommerce does not have the simplest "filter" feature? You know the one where you filter through a category based on product attributes like clothing sizes, material composition or even color.... in this day and age, thats just embarrassing.

        Sure, lets say you created some attributes for your products but try importing all that data in bulk, you can't! You can only import into main fields

        Have you really tried editing a template on BigCommerce before? Its impossible to get around their javascript. Everything everywhere is pure javascript, even some template files, you can't re-arrange anything because you dont have access to it. its part of the core system. All you can do is style it with css which makes your store look like 35,000 other BigCommerce stores with a different color scheme.

        If you are looking for a hosted solution, and you have under 1000 skus, go with Shopify. Its easy, its fun, its flexible (to an extent), it works fast and they will charge you for all that "fun stuff"...

        When you are ready to play in the big leagues, consider Magento, it has best extensions, best flexibility and more developers than any other platform.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8006237].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
          Originally Posted by Danceparty View Post

          I understand what you are saying, it all depends on what e-commerce store your a running, but BigCommerce is a bunch of jokers.

          My biggest complaint with them is their support. Go on their forums, its a ghost town, nobody cares about anything and the platform is closed, you can't customize anything at the core or even hire developers for it, its a closed platform. They recently redesigned their login system, but that did not accomplish much, just polished a turd.

          Sure, if you plan on having 1000 SKUS or so, you might be ok with BigCommerce in the beginning, but wait until your start curating your catalog, working with bulk uploads and trying to really make your store custom, its impossible.

          Did I mention that BigCommerce does not have the simplest "filter" feature? You know the one where you filter through a category based on product attributes like clothing sizes, material composition or even color.... in this day and age, thats just embarrassing.

          Sure, lets say you created some attributes for your products but try importing all that data in bulk, you can't! You can only import into main fields

          Have you really tried editing a template on BigCommerce before? Its impossible to get around their javascript. Everything everywhere is pure javascript, even some template files, you can't re-arrange anything because you dont have access to it. its part of the core system. All you can do is style it with css which makes your store look like 35,000 other BigCommerce stores with a different color scheme.

          If you are looking for a hosted solution, and you have under 1000 skus, go with Shopify. Its easy, its fun, its flexible (to an extent), it works fast and they will charge you for all that "fun stuff"...

          When you are ready to play in the big leagues, consider Magento, it has best extensions, best flexibility and more developers than any other platform.
          All valid points. But for many people starting out, that want to sell 100 to 500 SKU's, it works perfectly fine for them. It is PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant and frankly for most store owners, it is all they will ever need. And yes I have been able to make the changes to their system that makes the changes I need for site. They are quite simple and even if I could make major changes to Javascript, neither I or the many people that are starting out will.

          When they are ready to hire a programmer of your caliber, have the resources ($$$$) for dedicated servers, dedicated designers and programers and need to sell 200,000 SKU's, you are right, BigCommerce is probably not the right way for them to go. But until that time happens the cart does what 95% of the other carts out there will do. And it does it with a good list of resources yet still able to navigate without being a programmer.

          But for non-technical people, it is a perfect solution for what they need. I love Shopify, until you have to figure out how to add sub-categories and need to know java-script and CSS. Or when you want to set up standard options and variants and realize it doesn't do that either.

          Not everyone needs an 18 wheeler. Sometimes they just need a pick up truck or a pick up truck with a trailer. Every programmer I have met loves Magento and loves Shopify. Unfortunately, not everyone is a programmer. Many people are business folks that need an ecommerce site that fits their need without having a huge budget.
          Signature
          Learn how to set up a powerful, functional yet easy to use e-commerce website at cartprep.com.

          Not sure what ecommerce solution to use? Watch my video walk through of popular shopping carts.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8006739].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author kite6w
    Awesome post, I am trying to learn all different types of cart out there and see what fit me best.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8002255].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author GirlyTech
    As I'm just getting started, I'm so happy your here to help! thanks so much in advance for your organized guidance! So I have a product and a plan, now I'm ready to start, however it is time for a shopping cart... what would you recommend for me?

    Type of Store
    Digital Products
    retail
    Are they adult/high risk products? --No

    Products
    Number of products--10 for now
    Number of SKU's (SKU's is different then product as a product with 3 options can have three SKU's)--20
    Number of categories --10
    Will you have sub-categories? --No
    Will you have generic or custom options? (small, medium, large, red, white, blue, etc) --No
    Do you need to do recurring or subscription type business (ex. consumables) --No, but interesting

    Technical Skills
    Are you comfortable with:
    Programming (PHP, RUBY, ASP) --No
    HTML/CSS -- Makes me want to cry
    Servers/SSL Certificates? --No

    Or would you rather someone else deal with the servers, updates and security? Even if you are comfortable technically, its ok to not want to have to deal with servers.

    Budget
    What is your budget per month for the shopping cart system (do not include your merchant account fee)? --$20 ish give or take a few
    Are you OK with a transaction fee or do you just want a flat monthly fee? --Rather flat fee

    Miscellaneous
    Other things you might want or need that are not captured here. For example:
    Do you do email marketing? Do you use a specific autoresponder? --aweber
    Need a facebook store? no
    Want or need wishlist? no
    Do you sell on ebay or amazon currently? no but would like to
    Do you sell only in your home country or will you sell around the world? humm, let take over the world
    PCI Compliance - what do you know about it and is your merchant account provider a stickler for it.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9280238].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author ozz181
      Hi mate
      Hoping on getting your advice after reading through a few of your posts.
      I have hosting & url already & was going to choose either magneto or prestashop.
      After reading about magneto being a pro tool, that probably knocks me out...I like prestashop but looks expensive for custom theming etc.
      I have a little web experience but first time for an online shop. Want to use this as a web presence for our local shop & also do some dropshipping & net marketing & promotion stuff.
      Any advice would be most welcomed.
      Thanks mate
      Oz


      Type of Store

      Wholesale or retail


      Products
      Number of products 1-200 for now, increasing in time to hopefully 1000's
      Number of SKU's (SKU's is different then product as a product with 3 options can have three SKU's) many items 3 sku
      Number of categories a dozen or more for now, more in the future
      Will you have sub-categories? probably
      Will you have generic or custom options? (generic being small, medium, large, red, white, blue, etc) yes eventually
      Do you need to do recurring or subscription type business (ex. consumables) not consumable but hopefully recurring orders

      Technical Skills
      Are you comfortable with:
      Programming (PHP, RUBY, ASP) not really but can learn in time
      HTML/CSS not pro
      Servers/SSL Certificates? not yet

      Or would you rather someone else deal with the servers, updates and security? Even if you are comfortable technically, its ok to not want to have to deal with servers.

      Budget
      What is your budget per month for the shopping cart system (do not include your merchant account fee)? as cheap as possible to start up, already have hosting & url
      Are you OK with a transaction fee or do you just want a flat monthly fee? prefer flat fee

      Miscellaneous
      Other things you might want or need that are not captured here. For example:
      Do you do email marketing? Do you use a specific autoresponder? want to do
      Need a facebook store? want to do
      Want or need wishlist? want to do
      Do you sell on ebay or amazon currently? have ebay acct already but want to do
      Do you sell only in your home country or will you sell around the world? both
      PCI Compliance - what do you know about it and is your merchant account provider a stickler for it. don't know anything about it
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9287823].message }}

Trending Topics