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Best Free Shopping Carts

by VapeStore
23 replies
  • ECOMMERCE
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I currently have a webstore using Shopify but have been looking into a free open source self hosted cart. Any suggestions on what you guys think to be the best? By the way I'm new here, this is my first post. I signed up after reading some very informative threads so I was hoping someone could help guide me in the right direction. I have a vape shop selling electronic cigarettes and accessories. My store URL is www.vapestore.co
#carts #free #shopping
  • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
    Originally Posted by VapeStore View Post

    I currently have a webstore using Shopify but have been looking into a free open source self hosted cart. Any suggestions on what you guys think to be the best? By the way I'm new here, this is my first post. I signed up after reading some very informative threads so I was hoping someone could help guide me in the right direction. I have a vape shop selling electronic cigarettes and accessories. My store URL is Home - Vape Store - Personal Vaporizers & Accessories
    Magento
    Opencart
    Prestaship
    Spreecommerce
    Tomatocart
    zencart
    oscommerce
    cubecart

    I am sure others can add to the list.
    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.
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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    Magento is free? I didn't know that. I hear it is very difficult to set up. Is this true?
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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    Thanks for the advice. What about WooCommerce? I have zero exp in wordpress but have been strongly considering them as well. Any thoughts?
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    • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
      Originally Posted by VapeStore View Post

      Thanks for the advice. What about WooCommerce? I have zero exp in wordpress but have been strongly considering them as well. Any thoughts?
      If you want an insecure platform with less functionality than Opencart, Prestashop or Shopify go for it. And before everyone jumps all over me, I love wordpress, but not for a full ecommerce store. It is inherently insecure and will not have all the functionality of a true shopping cart.

      If you want to use wordpress, then what you do is build it in something like Opencart and then place wordpress at mystore.com/blog or blog.mystore.com then you get the best of both worlds. Again you have to be careful that when it get hacked it doesn't infect your shopping cart SQL database.

      Of what I tell a lot of people, just create your blog on another domain or free blogging platform and feed it into your store via RSS.
      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.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by VapeStore View Post

      Thanks for the advice. What about WooCommerce? I have zero exp in wordpress but have been strongly considering them as well. Any thoughts?
      I have Woocommerce shops with thousands of items and all the functionality that I need, with the extensions that I've purchased. You can get a site up and running quickly and don't have to pay monthly fees.
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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    Still looking. WooCommerce was just a consideration I'm not committed to it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Najgel
    Don't want to insist, but you could get familar with Wordpress solutions. For example WooCommerce is a free e-commerce solution, very easy to start with and waterproof functionality
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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    With WooCommerce, do you have to purchase a payment gateway separately as a plugin? This would certainly take away from the advantage of it being free. It will be necessary for me to process credit cards and paypal.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by VapeStore View Post

      With WooCommerce, do you have to purchase a payment gateway separately as a plugin? This would certainly take away from the advantage of it being free. It will be necessary for me to process credit cards and paypal.
      There are numerous gateway extensions available for Woocommerce, authorize.net being one of them. I would NOT recommend Paypal for a vaping store. The products are not allowed through Paypal and they will ban your account.
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  • Profile picture of the author koreahallyu
    Woo Commerce is a very good solution I think. I personnaly manage a eshop with wordpress & woo commerce and the possibilities are huge.

    Free and good for SEO since it is with wordpress.

    Nowadays, nothing to envy to magento or other expensive shopping carts!

    Of course you will not become Amazon or Ebay, but for a small sized store it is more than enought!
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  • Profile picture of the author TanYaV
    I'd recommend you to keep your eyes on OpenCart. It's really great as an open-source shopping cart.
    1. simple store setup
    2. excellent performance and usability
    3. multi-store functionality
    4. huge number of features and extensions.
    Google Trend proves the fact that OpenCart rocks.


    You can also read an article about OpenCart here.
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    regards!

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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    Thank you guys for the feedback. I have narrowed it down to either WooCommerce, opencart, and prestashop. Some more feedback would be great on how the three compare.
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  • Profile picture of the author canniffch
    According to me zencart is one of the best carts available for free shopping cart. Its easy to customizable and payment gateway is very easy to configure. You will even get godo theme and templates for free or may be little lower price than the other carts.
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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    I hear Magento requires some special hosting due to it being "heavy", I'm not sure what that means, can someone elaborate?
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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    I love my Shopify, and will probably end up coming back to it once sales start to pick up, but in the meantime, being a start-up am looking to cut the costs by going with a free cart software. Been looking into PrestaShop lately. I never dealt with a self hosted cart, how does one go about installing it to godaddy hosting?
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  • Profile picture of the author Najgel
    Vapestore of course gateways like paying with a check, credit card and paypal are a free solution. Only more distinguished gateways are neccesarry to get as premium plugin (2checkout and any other else, there are extensions for like.....every gateway I could know about). You should check before using, but paypal is integrated. I was just working on this few days ago
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  • Profile picture of the author VapeStore
    How do you install a self hosted cart with godaddy on windows?
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveSRS
    in my opinion all those shopping cart are all to loaded and too many clicks and steps to actually purchase a product.

    So far I've done most with direct buy buttons which so far has worked well. The problem is doing upsells with that (it is possible but difficult). The solution I found is jcart shopping solution. Instant cart visualization, direct checkout 'easy to integrate' depending on you tech skills easy OTO integration (again some tech skills needed)
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    • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
      Originally Posted by SteveSRS View Post

      in my opinion all those shopping cart are all to loaded and too many clicks and steps to actually purchase a product.

      So far I've done most with direct buy buttons which so far has worked well. The problem is doing upsells with that (it is possible but difficult). The solution I found is jcart shopping solution. Instant cart visualization, direct checkout 'easy to integrate' depending on you tech skills easy OTO integration (again some tech skills needed)
      Direct buy buttons do not work for an ecommerce store. They work great for one time purchases (info products) and upsells but not if you are running a true ecommerce store.
      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.
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      • Profile picture of the author SteveSRS
        Originally Posted by OnlineStoreHelp View Post

        Direct buy buttons do not work for an ecommerce store. They work great for one time purchases (info products) and upsells but not if you are running a true ecommerce store.
        yes I know, that is why I was actually recommending jcart shopping cart... as this is something you can implement in any system and isn't build in the 90ties (exaggerating) like most of those others.

        I believe:
        - a shopping cart should be visible, not stacked away in some corner.

        - There should be instant visual feedback when you put a product in your cart

        - you should have a max 2 click check-out option close or at some spot as adding a product ( thus no big time scrolling up to some corner for a check out)

        - I don't think those huge 'view your cart' interrupts pages after adding a product are good for conversion, this should all be on the same page.


        I've been working on this page:
        http://www.unlocksamsungonline.com/new/I9300/
        (this is not a 'live' page yet) which implements my views on a good shopping cart.
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  • Profile picture of the author kpmedia
    Best Free Shopping Cart = Magento
    No contest.
    WordPress is a blog platform, turned CMS platform, but it's NOT an ecommerce app.

    As for hosting:
    Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post

    Don't use
    - Godaddy
    - Yahoo
    - 1&1
    - the 50+ EIG brands, including Hostgator, Bluehost, Justhost, iPage, Fatcow, and a crapload others.

    Hostgator is garbage:
    - http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-my-sites.html
    - http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...s-traffic.html
    - http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...-all-down.html

    I have no idea why people still suggest that in 2013. It's terrible. It's not even the same "Hostgator" anymore, not since summer 2012, and is nothing more than an EIG brand now. There are better hosts.
    Signature
    FAQ: Need a Site5/Arvixe/Hostgator alternative? And who is EIG?
    Reviews:     Need a good VPS, dedicated server, or unlimited host? (This is NOT a fake "top 10" list!)
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