Keep me out of internet shopping cart trouble

January 20, 2006 12:02 PM

I'm building a website for a local store; they want a small catalog to sell a few of their products online. They already accept credit cards on-site and have a merchant ID#; can a pixel-pusher like me set up a shopping cart system out of the box for them, or do I need to find a web developer?

I got a lot of good info on different shopping cart systems from past AskMe threads, but then this question popped up and now I'm wondering if I, too, am in over my head. I write HTML and CSS, and I can make some PHP work if I play with it and have good instructions. But I'm not a programmer, a developer, or someone with a thorough knowledge of Internet security.

What is the best shopping cart solution for a small business already accepting credit cards? Can an average web geek implement it, or do I need to find someone more experienced with ecommerce?

(Bonus points if you can recommend a solution that allows for both individual orders and wholesale ordering)

posted by junkbox to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Yahoo! Small Business might be a good solution.
posted by JuliaKM at 12:24 PM on January 20, 2006

There are turn-key shopping carts available. If you follow the setup instructions carefully, and the shopping cart software itself is secure, you're probably ok.

But if it doesn't, do you have liability insurance?
posted by orthogonality at 12:26 PM on January 20, 2006

I'd recommend Beanstream.
posted by Kickstart70 at 12:32 PM on January 20, 2006

CandyPress, if you have ASP as a choice on your server (MS IIS). Its a great store right out of the box, had a lot of great features, easily customizable, great support, $50, and easy to admin. Oh and works natively with many popular gateways.
posted by Chuck Cheeze at 1:50 PM on January 20, 2006

Also, if you need help implementing it, I can do that for a small fee, I know CandyPress extremely well. I also have about a dozen custom mods available.
posted by Chuck Cheeze at 1:51 PM on January 20, 2006

OSCommerce is the way to go, absolutely.
posted by twiggy at 2:24 PM on January 20, 2006

Yahoo Small Business worked for me. I have no programming experience, but instead do some front-end design with a little html. A couple months back I was developing a site that wanted some ecommerce (they already had a Credit Card merchant account).

I followed their instructions and in a few days had a working site. The site went live and real customers made real transactions. I thought that I was completely over my head until I started looking into the Yahoo option.
posted by Gazpacho at 2:47 PM on January 20, 2006

Wait for Shopify?
posted by rschroed at 9:22 PM on January 20, 2006