I might be implementing an ecommerce site soon and have been doing some research as to which open source app to use. I have used openCart in the past but the effort to customize is a bit much so I have always left it with it's default layout. I have also made it a separate app and am looking to integrate it seamlessly into the site in question. So as I said, I have been researching other options.

My criteria:
Must be free, I don't care about copyright info showing on the site, Easy to install, easy to customize, easy to configure, easy to use back end, must come with plug ins for paypal at the very least or if not paypal, must support all major US credit cards.

Baed on the above, I have come up with the following:
osCommerce
OpenCart
ZenCart
PrestaCart
CubeCart
AgoraCart

So my fellow comrades, which would you prefer/which have you used and why? Please include positives and negatives

Thanks,

My first choice would be Zencart. Its easy to customise and if you need to find a particular string from any of the files, you can run a search for it directly from the admin interface.

I cant be bothered with osCommerce. It just doesnt look nice, no matter how you try to customise it (my opinion)

Presta Cart looks like the complete Web 2.0 package. Seems to combine the best of ecommerce features with a solid, easy to use content management system (almost as easy as using wordpress) . I dont think they come any simpler than this one.

As for the rest, I cant say much about them as I havent used them.

One Ive used in the past but cannot recommend in good faith is Virtuemart - the ecommerce solution for Joomla. As with everything Joomla, it is not the easiest to customise but ideally you would be looking for something that combines your shopping cart with a CMS and that's where Zencart and Prestashop lead the way. Paypal is pretty standard anyway. If it doesnt come with Paypal, then its not worthy of the name "Cart".

If it doesnt come with Paypal, then its not worthy of the name "Cart".

This has got to go down as the quote of the year for this board

Currently, I have narrowed down my choices to opencart (the new version seems to have taken care of the issues that made me want to dump it) and prestacart but I don't mind taking another look at zenCart based on your recommendation.

I tried integrating virtuemart into a joomla site I did some time ago and am happy that the clients ended up saying they didn't need a shopping cart on their site as it wasn't the easiest thing for me to configure.

Thanks for your tips. If others have any, since this particular project might not happen for another 2 weeks, I am still open to suggestions

I read something disturbing about Zencart few days back,

was looking for a shopping cart as well,

I went with instinct shopping cart, i also use Shopp cos it allows sales on download-able e-books.

What was the disturbing news about zencart? Also, could you drop the urls for shopp and instinct (googling shows this is a wordpress plug in. If yes, don't bother as I won't be using a cms)? Use the english form to avoid the spam bot

Thanks

id recommend oscommerce, i used it for laptoponlineshop.com works great.

otoidea:
Site looks neat! I will add it to my list. Now I have 3 to pick one from: osCommerce, OpenCart and PrestaCart.

Thanks

yawa-ti-de:

This has got to go down as the quote of the year for this board 

Thanks Yawa. I was wondering when I'd win that title. . . guess this is my year afterall.

yawa-ti-de:


Currently, I have narrowed down my choices to opencart (the new version seems to have taken care of the issues that made me want to dump it) and prestacart but I don't mind taking another look at zenCart based on your recommendation.

I was once called in to work on two of these sites and that's where I got my first experience with Zencart. Its easy to set up a shop you can be comfortable with, within a few hours. All three websites are powered by ZenCart and they look good (or so I think).

yawa-ti-de:

I tried integrating virtuemart into a joomla site I did some time ago and am happy that the clients ended up saying they didn't need a shopping cart on their site as it wasn't the easiest thing for me to configure.

I feel you. Virtuemart is not the easiest thing to work with but it gets a lot easier when you are used to it. There are easier ones to use though and in the future, I dont see myself setting up a virtuemart shop for any of my clients.

You can take a look at the ecommerce applications on open source cms. Some interesting applications there. Magento doesnt look bad as well.

Thanks once again pie1ct. I looked at the 3 zencart sites and they are very neat! Good job on all 3.

yawa-ti-de:

What was the disturbing news about zencart? Also, could you drop the urls for shopp and instinct (googling shows this is a wordpress plug in. If yes, don't bother as I won't be using a cms)? Use the english form to avoid the spam bot

Thanks

Dont remember anymore. Yes the carts I mentioned are for wordpress.

pie1ect:

Magento doesnt look bad as well.

Tried to use magento on a site, it is so messed up. I had to put it on hold and will get back to it sometime next week (which I dont look forward to). There are so many errors you get when installing, you copy that error out, paste it on their site, you get a solution - I just wonder why they couldnt correct the errors in their installation files. I got it up an running after 4-5 days I think, now I have to figure my way around it. I read somewhere though that when it blows up, its big time!

I prefer Zencart because of its quality. I'm not saying that others are not good, its just Zencart has the essential features for an ecommerce business. If you want, try this shopping cart software site for more information about this software and more others. You can also compare it if you want, still it would be your choice.