posted on February 27, 2004 03:21:02 PM
I'm now using Vendio's web hosting service. So far, it's great. The customer service is excellent. I've bugged the heck out of them for the last couple of days. I tried to shopping cart program that comes with the service - oscommerce. Ugh! I cannot use it. It's too confusing and it requires some programming skills.
I'd like to move from having an eBay store (see, made it about eBay) to have my own store, but I need some recommendations for shopping cart programs. Has anyone tried the ecommercetemplates.com one?
I'm so confused and I still have items to list on eBay. I've put it off for a few days trying to sort out this confusion.
posted on February 27, 2004 05:27:36 PM
Have you looked at using Paypal shopping cart? I have been thinking about doing that for my web site, if I ever get it finished. It does look fairly simple to use, and they have the buy it buttons, and such. You might look that over and see what you think. Has anyone else used the Paypal cart? Would like to know your experiences in using it if you have.
posted on February 28, 2004 05:56:27 AM
Actually I use the e-commerce templates.com one on my website. I had to have someone install it, though (cost was $149.00). But now it's a piece of cake to add and subtract items from my website - just a matter of filling out a template that's easier than listing an auction.
You can read reviews from users, both good and bad. I find this a very good and reliable site - won't hurt to look
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"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to the people who sleep under the very blanket of freedom I provide, and then question the manner in which I provide it." - A Few Good Men
posted on February 28, 2004 06:03:51 AM
Also, if you don't need anything too fancy Fat Cow.com is a great way to go. They host my website, but I wanted something fancier than their basic shopping cart system. They are $99.00 a year for web hosting and shopping cart (you register your domain name through them) and it's a plug-in-information type of shopping cart. They size the pictures for you, etc. There just isn't a lot of room for flexibility if you want a lot of graphics and special links - its just a basic shopping cart - but virtually no computer knowledge needed.
posted on February 28, 2004 07:47:31 AM
I agree if you aren't a web whiz, FAT COW'S web site and shopping cart are GREAT.
We have 4 web sites, and a few years back we didn't have a shopping cart, and I wanted to test one of our hotter products with a shopping cart and moved this sector to FATCOW, and that product took off like wild fire with the addition of a decent shopping cart.
FATCOW's system, using their automatic shopping cart is limited design wise, but we used it for this one particular product till just recently, when we dropped the FATCOW cart system and installed the system we now use on our other web sites.
The FATCOW system is GREAT and EXTREMELY economical for the novice web site designer/user. The support at FATCOW is wonderful, and although we have now redesigned the site we have on FatCow and put in a different cart system, we stayed with FATCOW for this site as they have been reliable, available, and great to work with.
Personally, we use “Just Add Commerce,” which automatically integrates with Front Page, and Dream Weaver web design programs, and it is a snap to use. It is a bit pricey, but it is highly reliable, and some major upgrades to the “JUST ADD COMMERCE,” system are coming out soon.
I went with ecommerce, but I'm going to have to have someone set it up for me as well. I got the site uploaded (haven't yet worked on the design) and I've been sitting here since 10:00 a.m. trying to get the database working. I keep getting parse errors. I emailed ecommerce and gave them the info they asked for. He's going to get at least the administration part up and running so I can start adding products.
posted on February 28, 2004 01:52:40 PM
That's what he did for me too - got the database and admin section all set up for me. I was so computer illiterate. After that's ready it's a piece of cake - you'll be really happy.
posted on February 28, 2004 02:13:06 PM
Thanks, ihula. Do you edit in FrontPage or something else. I use FrontPage, but it doesn't show the buttons because they are php files so I had to download a special program to view them. I'm not computer illiterate normally, but some of this sure makes me feel like I am. I hope my site looks are great as yours when it's all done. My goal is 3/15 for www.kcskorner.com to be fully functional. Ya, right! In the meantime, I still have to get some things on eBay.
posted on February 28, 2004 04:25:55 PM
I did use front page, and I didn't have a program to view them - I wish I did. All that showed up in front page was a bunch of dotted lines, but once I put my pictures in those pictures showed up. I had to delete the old pictures through the includes program. The only thing I didn't like was I can't insert meta tags into the products pages. I emailed support and they said it wasn't possible. I did add them to the home page and one other page so hopefully search engines will pick those up.
What a bummer about the meta tags! Can you check out what I've done so far? There are no products in because, well, you know. That database thing. Not everything is how it will be in the end. I just typed a bunch of stuff to get it started. I want to make sure it loads okay for someone other than me.
posted on February 29, 2004 05:47:11 AM
It looks great to me to. Loads really quick for me too. I still can't figure out the advantage to putting a link to your Ebay auctions, though.
posted on February 29, 2004 06:01:38 AM
There is already a link to eBay. It's under Services.
Ecommerce is still trying to help me get my database working. They sent me some script and now I have a whole new set of issues. The customer service seems to be wonderful, so hopefully I'll be able to start working on the database sometime today.
posted on February 29, 2004 08:35:17 AMThere will be links to eBay, right?
Most of us have websites so we can move away from eBay. I think with a site you can draw a better customer who will pay a higher price for your goods than they will on eBay. For that reason I never direct them back to eBay from my site. Why show them a multitude of products that they can get cheaper?
Good luck with your site, Cheryl. I hope it goes really well for you.
