super simple shopping cart

August 29, 2005 8:46 PM

Looking for a super-simple, minimalist shopping cart that can handle electronic delivery and integrate with PayPal for payments.

I've had this situation come up now twice in one week: Client wants to sell just one or two e-books in the form of a downloadable PDF, with payments handled by PayPal. Ordinarily, for larger e-commerce sites, I tend to be a fan of ZenCart. But that seems like WAY overkill for these two little projects. Any recommendations for something clean and simple?

posted by spilon to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Why can't you use Paypal-type buttons? Paypal has merchant options like that, just check their site.
posted by letterneversent at 9:05 PM on August 29, 2005

What letterneversent said.

Also, look into a "Paypal Shop" which pretty much does everything for you.
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:08 PM on August 29, 2005

Not sure if they have a shopping cart, but clickbank.com specializes in helping vendors sell digital products.
posted by arrowhead at 9:18 PM on August 29, 2005

I just set up a shopping cart system for a client's website. I used CubeCart. Very easy to set up, with only a few pitfalls. Hooks into many different payment systems, including paypal. With version 3, you can make it as fancy or minimal as you might like. (But to get rid of the branding, you have to purchase the software, I guess. $69.95)
posted by crunchland at 11:33 PM on August 29, 2005

The shopping cart system you can set up through Paypal is very easy to use and works fine.
posted by RoseovSharon at 2:14 AM on August 30, 2005

I looked into the PayPal shopping cart, and I couldn't find any info regarding electronic delivery of goods. The customer needs to be able to download their file immediately after paying for it... I couldn't find that functionality on the PayPal site. But I'll go look again....
posted by spilon at 7:55 AM on August 30, 2005

Spilon: I've purchased electronic goods from Paypal Shops previously...it had, I believe, more to do with authentication to a password protected area of the site than anything else.

In that regard, popular sites such as Fark.com use it. You just need to use it to control access to a page with the electronic download links.
posted by Kickstart70 at 9:04 AM on August 30, 2005