Online shopping cart minus the kitchen sink?

December 19, 2005 4:03 PM

phpHelpFilter: Is CoffeeFool.com based on an existing shopping cart system?

I've been tasked with installing a shopping cart system for a small company with a product line probably extending (eventually) to a few dozen individual models. The designer is very picky about clean design and minimalism.

The system at Coffee Fool has been the best I've seen; but I don't know whether it's custom or based on existing designs.

I've tried free, and paid, distributions, such as CubeCart, X-Cart, Agora and osCommerce. I found the process of making them match the designs given to me daunting to say the least. The shopping cart systems I've tried are, out of the box, huge, generic, one-size-fits-all Amazon clones. Is there a cleanly designed shopping cart out there?

posted by evil holiday magic to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Have you asked Coffee Fool?
posted by kcm at 4:13 PM on December 19, 2005

I'm no web programmer, but I don't see anything unique or special about Coffee Fool's shopping cart system.

Now, this or this is a shopping cart.

Maybe try this tutorial or this one?
posted by designbot at 4:37 PM on December 19, 2005

No, no, the Panic Store is the best shopping cart system you've ever seen. Once you've seen it.

That said, if your needs are really modest, i.e. no categories, ratings, reviews, admin interface, logins, etc., and you know some PHP, it'll probably quicker just to grab a payment system API and write up a simple shopping cart* than to remove all the excess from a full-blown online store app.

* By simple, I'm thinking three DB tables to start: items, orders and order_items. Maybe an item_subtypes menu if you want a pull-down menu of options like coffeefool.
posted by boaz at 4:39 PM on December 19, 2005

I call bullshit. There is truly nothing special about the shoppingcart system on CoffeeFool.

I am suspicious that this is a page-rank whoring exercise. The domain was registered by Proxy - so no proof. But I suspect damnit.
posted by Dag Maggot at 4:56 PM on December 19, 2005

I'd hope that if someone wanted to whore page-rank, they'd pick a more effective method than posting a PHP question on Ask Metafilter.
posted by designbot at 5:05 PM on December 19, 2005

Yah maybe you can explain what you like about coffeefool. It looks like it doesn't even have a backend, just tied to paypal or whatever payment gateway they are using.
posted by meta87 at 5:14 PM on December 19, 2005

Wow, the Panic Store thingo is pretty awesome. That's the way a shopping cart should work. Web 2.0 baby. (sick of that term yet?)
posted by Dag Maggot at 5:30 PM on December 19, 2005

EHM -- If that's all you want to do, I bet it's easier to throw something like that together from scratch with a little PHP than to shoehorn some kind of crazy shopping cart into what you're working with.

Might be a good opportunity to learn a little web scripting, if your so inclined... because, believe me, you could clone that thing if you wanted.
posted by ph00dz at 9:57 PM on December 19, 2005

The Coffee Fool site already resembles what I anticipate the designer will want in certain respects (whitespace, as opposed to modules everywhere, and decent user feedback). It doesn't remind me of every horrid modular commerce template I've seen used by many startups.

I have e-mailed the CF people, and am currently awaiting a response.

No desire to create snazzy DHTML. I just want clean, simple functionality.

ph00dz -- Can you be more specific? I've studied php here and there, but the extent of my familiarity with it is writing a mail form, and some modifications to existing code that's come my way. I'm not a programmer, but the task has sort of defaulted to me, so I'm doing the best that I can. We don't have the budget for a dedicated programmer.

boaz -- If there's no admin interface, what do I use to modify the database? Sorry if it's a silly question, but bear with me.

designbot -- Thx. I'll check out those links soon.

Dag Maggot -- Don't be a dick.
posted by evil holiday magic at 10:44 PM on December 19, 2005

I would recommend against writing it yourself. There's no point in reinventing something that has already been written, especially if you're not terribly familiar with PHP.

Coming from someone who's attempted it, it's easier to go with a software package (they come in an array of prices, so talk with your client and see how much they're willing to invest). With a software package, you have options as to how to interface it with your financial backend, so if you want to do realtime credit card and shipping processing, for example, you do not need to go through the hassle. You simply load X module, where X is an intermediary like Authorize.net, Paypal, Cybercash, LinkPoint, 2Checkout, etc.

I can't be of much help in choosing the software, but keep searching because there are hundreds of shopping cart scripts available. As a last resort, you can try guru.com and post a request for help in setting it up (maybe advertise it as a consultation job, then bill whoever is providing you with your paycheck).

Good luck.
posted by spiderskull at 12:15 AM on December 20, 2005

Also, as an added note, maybe you can go for a shopping cart script that is based entirely on CSS. That way, you can just remove all the clutter with display:none or visibility:hidden style attributes without needing to fudge with the actual PHP.
posted by spiderskull at 12:40 AM on December 20, 2005

I saw this from Zen-Cart... however, it doesn't actually look to be based on the csszengarden goodness (aka it still uses junk-loads of tables)

however, for a table-based design, it doesnt look too bad...
posted by hatsix at 3:17 AM on December 20, 2005

Ahh... it sounds like this is something that's gotta get done pretty quick, then. Maybe "from scratch" isn't the best option there, if you're totally new...

That said, what is there, really, to a eCommere like that? You've got a couple of forms to purchase stuff, a rudimentary cart to hold things, then some way to process credit cards on the checkout. Each one of those things is trivial in PHP.

Do this once or twice for a client, suddenly you've got your own little cart system that you can drop in wherever you need it.
posted by ph00dz at 5:23 AM on December 20, 2005

Follow-up: A CF employee wrote back, saying it's a custom design.
posted by evil holiday magic at 10:28 AM on December 21, 2005