2007-11-19T13:11:08-07:00 Practical Ecommerce info@practicalecommerce.com http://www.practicalecommerce.com/ Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing DBA Practical Ecommerce http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/#comment4147 2007-11-19T13:11:08-07:00

WOW! What a mess of websites...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/#comment3978 2007-10-30T12:21:37-07:00

I agree with all the above and the article. With our most recent store host, I was disappointed to find out the "integrated shopping cart" was really a programmed portion of the store and not so easy to adjust to our product needs! I'm having to learn PHP (I already knew HTML very well or would have run screaming from the room the first hour), and ask for a load of help from the administrators. The cart function works fine because a cart is simply a holding place for choices. Adding the shipping rates has been a nightmare, and not straight-forward as it should be. I've had to make fake weights for things we don't ship by weight, just to get the right shipping cost options to appear for customers. I had hoped to be open a couple weeks ago, but am still working on shipping issues, as well as the slow uploading of products. I too wish there was a very basic cart that I could have tried to integrate myself... but apparently, I need to be a programmer as well as e-commerce...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/#comment3350 2007-07-20T15:40:39-07:00

I've used just about every PHP cart, and written quite a few custom carts for clients. In most cases there is no "one size cart fits all". Here's a simple question Jim, do your products have different sizes, colors, weights, personalization (such as engraving), categories/subcategories? Do you want to display pictures of the items/related items in the cart during the checkout process? Ryan has some very valid questions above, and these are reasons why I normally have to create a custom solution for many of my clients. http://www.steelesoftconsulting.com/

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/#comment3240 2007-07-05T21:55:01-07:00

I couldn't agree more with Tony. There as so few true shopping carts. I wish there were more. I don't want to have to tweak and codle and modify what most compaines call a shopping cart to look like a website. Just give me a cart! I'll provide the website.

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/#comment3236 2007-07-05T11:50:42-07:00

As with many authors, they confuse a "cart" with a back-end order processing system.... A cart is a cart. Simply put, it should collect items to enable a buyer to purchase and then facilitate the transaction for purchase. This includes letting the buyer choose what merchant account vendor(s) to use, whether to auth/capture or just auth during the purchase. And provide real-time quotes for major shipping carriers. A cart should not attempt to manage inventory, track orders after the sale or have any knowledge whatsoever about inventory status. It should simply service the purchase request and itemize items supplied to it. Products advertised as "carts" now days span the gambit from managing the presentation to the buyer of the entire site, down to including back-end order and inventory management. However, these are 'stores', not 'carts'. Merchants are best served by using speciality providers for website design, cart service and back-end fulfillment processing. Tony...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/276/Shopping-Cart-Checklist/#comment3234 2007-07-05T11:08:03-07:00

Can you recommend a good shopping cart which has all the above features...