Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cart

Small car, lots of gear - are there heavy-duty foldable carts?

see_change — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:12:59 -0800

I'll be attending an outdoor music festival this summer, in which we'll be parking our cars a good distance from where we will set up our tents for camping. I'll need some kind of wheeled cart for transporting our bags, tents, etc., but which could fold up (or easily disassemble) and fit into my car, and I'm not sure what would work well. Looking for your ideas, or things that have worked well for you in the past. My car (subaru impreza sedan) has a decent sized-trunk, and I can put the back seats down to accomodate longer items. So for example, a two-wheeler would fit, but that doesn't seem like it would be good for the size and quantity of stuff that we'll have. (or would it?)

You can buy foldable carts, but they're more for indoor/office use, so that's not a good option.

My kids have a Little Tykes wagon I could use, but that would be too small. And embarassing - my children won't be with me. : ) I'm thinking that a decent-sized cart would have wheels that are about a yard/meter apart.

Are there other existing cart variations that I'm not thinking of? All the better if it's something can I can buy cheaply off of Craigslist!

One idea I have, is to build a simple wooden cart with 4 wheels that would have hinges and could be folded in half for transport, but would "lock" open when needed. Perhaps the wheels could be made to be removed easily, too. The advantage here is that I could customize the dimensions so that it is large-ish, but still fits into my car. But, is this even realistic, functionally speaking? Do you have any design/material suggestions if I go this route?

What have YOU used in the past, that has worked, in a similar situation? (And, for that matter, what HASN'T worked for you in the past?)

Please share your stories and ideas. Thanks!

Shopping Cart without checkout

humboldt32 — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:07:19 -0800

I have a client that has a scooter food delivery service. What I need to do is build menus for each of the restaurants, have the user be able to add items to a cart and then get a total. The actual transaction will occur at the customers home upon delivery so there's no need to deal with payments online. I'd like to use something open source and I've been looking at X-cart but I'd like to consider as many options as possible. WP/WooCommerce doesn't work because it requires a payment gateway and real time transaction (as far as I can tell) I'd love some recommendations. Thanks.

Sturdy and Steady.

oflinkey — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:43:39 -0800

Please give me your suggestions for large, very sturdy grocery/laundry carts. Said cart will have to do duty carrying groceries from my parking space to my apartment (which is across and down the street) but more importantly, it must be able to handle 1-2 35 pound containers of cat litter on occasion, when I need to buy for the boys. Good wheels are a must for when the weather gets snowy, but I do have an elevator (after about 4 steps). Price is not a huge issue, but I would love to keep it under 75$.

You know, like Netflix....

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:30:10 -0800

I am looking for a shopping cart solution that specializes in subscription based sales. I have a small product that comes in several "flavors" that I would like to ship to each customer's house every month. I am looking for something like Volusion or Zen Cart (or one of the others) but specializes in subscriptions that allows a customer to create their own account and allow them to manage their subscription (change the type of product they are sent, change payment method, etc).
Also important is "transparent shipping"--that is the invoice or checkout cart (I'd rather there not even be one) doesn't show a breakdown of the product and shipping--I don't even want the customer to even think about the shipping.

If there is not an e-retail solution that exists specifically for this is there one that is easily modifiable for it (I only have familiarity with Volusion and Zen Cart)?

Again, the requirements are:

•Though I am shipping a product I want the "feel" of the site to be like that of a subscription service.
•No itemization of "product" and "shipping". In fact, I would like there to be no Shopping Cart at all, just an account management page.
•A way for customers to manage their own accounts (change type of product sent, change card on file, suspend subscription).

New B2C ecommerce platform

asye288 — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 07:27:57 -0800

New B2C ecommerce platform - Magento or Open Cart?? I'm running a B2C Canadian online computer business and using a proprietary platform which giving me lots of problems in the past 18 months. We have over 10,000 product items on our site with average 5,000 visitors per day. Existing platform cannot handle the volume fast enough. There are no SEO tools such as 301 re-direction on existing solution.

Want to get onto a serious new ecommerce platform. I was told that Magento and Open Cart are good choices?? Any suggestions?? Please advise.

How to track affiliate sales on PayPal

mamessner — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:02:45 -0800

How do I track affiliate sales with a tracking pixel using PayPal checkout? OK. I have a website with a button to make a payment via PayPal. My affiliate network wants me to place a tracking pixel on some page that represents a completed sale.

If I put the tracking pixel on the "thank-you" page, then it seems like any time someone visits that page, the pixel will fire (which is not my intention). I want it to ONLY fire once, when the payment is confirmed.

PayPal offers a system called "Instant Payment Notification," but it's very complex and requires coding knowledge that I don't have. They mention that it can be used to track affiliate sales, though:

There has to be an easier way, though - Placing a tracking pixel is a pretty routine task, isn't it?

Anyone use PayPal and have a tracking pixel in place to track affiliate sales?

Help Me Find the Perfect Teacher Cart

rossination — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:49:52 -0800

I am a teacher who travels to a different school each day of the week (sometimes two). Help me find the perfect folding cart / luggage cart / hand truck system to haul all of my crap around! I teach beginning band and strings and typically carry a bunch of stuff with me each day. On a given day, I am usually hauling several large books (teacher editions of student method books), usually a number of books or sheet music to hand out to students that day, a small instrument repair kit, a laptop bag, and my lunch. It is not uncommon for me to also be bringing in several instruments.

Currently I'm using one of these, and it hasn't held up well - it is breaking in the front and needs to be replaced soon.

Whatever solution I come up with needs to fit in the trunk of my car. Ideally I can collapse the handle and then just put the whole thing in the trunk (with the books and crap still in it).

Some other teachers use rolling suitcases for this purpose, but I like the cart system because it lets me stack instruments (or other flat things) on top. I'm wondering if either a hand truck + milk crate or granny cart / grocery cart kind of thing would work - either way, it would have to be very sturdy.

So -- any ideas? I'm willing to spend up to about $100 on this, for something that will serve me well for at least a few years.

Best (Online) Shopping Cart for Thousands of Subscription Products? Sell it to me!

gregglind — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:46:52 -0800

Setting up a site where people can purchase subscriptions to feeds. I need a self-service subscription system. As it happens, this *isn't* porn, even though it sounds that way!

* more than 10000 SKUs
* automatic rebilling (at the buyers option)
* we can handle setting up the sku's via api, submitting csv, etc.
* not many price points... maybe 2 or 3 (that is, they are all mostly the same price)

I have looked at Google Shops, Digital River (who don't seem to be able to help me). If you have or know a product in this space, help me out!

grow my coffee table

cheemee — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 08:39:58 -0800

Home-decor-filter: I am completely in love with a factory cart that I want to use as a coffee table. Looks kinda like this. Found it on craigslist. But I'd like to help it stand a bit taller... ideas? I'm looking for it to stand about 6 inches taller. I will probably put a cream/white rug on the floor underneath it. Ideas for what to put between the rug and my beloved? Thanks!

Why does my plastic cart smell like a hobo's armpit?

Burhanistan — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:53:26 -0800

Why does my utility cart smell like BO? I use a standard Rubbermaid cart made from structural foam plastic at work to move around computers and related items, and this one smells distinctly like body odor. It's really rather pungent, and when I moved here I thought it was actually just lingering BO from someone who was a notorious non-bather.

I've noticed another one at my facility also smells similarly. The facility doesn't smell like BO and to my knowledge nothing has been spilled on the carts. I've tried wiping the thing down with various sanitizing wipes, but that doesn't make the smell go away as it seems to be emanating directly from the plastic.

Is the smell a result of some kind of chemical breakdown of the plastic? Is this fairly common? If so, I'd be interested in knowing specifically what is breaking down just for reference.

I keep kicking over my coffee cups.

Jubey — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:22:36 -0800

Where can I buy a factory cart coffee table in Australia? I know these are all over the States, but I can't seem to find them here - actually the one place I did find them have now discontinued the line. I have my heart set on one so if you can help me source a supplier I'd be very happy! Here's what I'm after

How do I keep my yard scrap cart from getting gunked up by my kitchen scraps?

choochoo — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 19:30:46 -0800

RecologyFillter: Those of you Bay Area residents who've received the Recology yard scrap and recycling carts, how do you manage your kitchen scraps in a way that doesn't muck up the inside of the cart too badly and create a stinky mess? We just got our Recology carts and I'm excited to be able to start sending my kitchen scraps to compost. BUT, does anyone have a good system for managing those scraps so that the cart doesn't get too messy and smelly?

For example, I have a bunch of rotten spinach I want to throw out. I can't put it directly into the cart; imagine the stink and gunk that will build up on the inside. And if I collect it in a plastic bag along with other kitchen scraps, then throw that into the cart, doesn't that defeat the purpose? My husband suggested putting the scraps into a paper bag and then putting that into the cart, but I don't know, the rotted spinach will just seep through the bag and still create a stinky mess.

Anyone have any creative ideas for managing this? I'm looking for not only ways to collect the waste in the kitchen, but also ways to keep the scraps from mucking up the inside of the cart. Thanks in advance, MeFites!

How to buy a food cart in New York?

ZackTM — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:49:22 -0800

Looking to buy some food carts. Anyone have advice for who I should talk to in New York City when I'm there next month? I'm taking a trip to New York City in a few weeks, and I'm very interested in picking up a couple of food carts. Something a little more complex than a simple hot dog cart.

Does anyone know how I can set up some meetings with the folks who sell these carts? And does anyone have any ball park price ranges that I should be looking into?

Any advice is appreciated!

Selling a new invention to the world...suggestions on shopping carts and cc processing?

msoffab — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:46:35 -0800

Selling a new invention to the world online...suggestions on shopping carts and cc processing? I am redoing my friends website for a new invention...it's a bottle opener for screw cap wine bottles.

I am in the process of redoing the site and I want to know your suggestions on payment processing for a single item like this. PayPal is ok or we could sign up for a regular merchant account and gateway. As far as rates, I have a cc processor/merchant account, so I care about gateway and ecommerce fees on top of my cc processor's rates.

I am looking for a dead simple solution like shopify or something that can easily be created to handle the ecommerce as well as allow for static pages (ie press, video demonstrations, about us, contact, etc). It would be nice to have some type of backend for supporting order status, shipping, receipts, etc. But no one feature would be a deal breaker for me. It should be 2-3 clicks before they click 'place order'

Eventually, we would like to setup landing pages how shamwow does it. They have a single page that is optimized for conversions (probably using A/B testing) and allows for the customer to place an order on the same page. Any suggestions for this?

Bonus question: would this change if I had 1-3 products to sell? I got another buddy who is inventing something and there are a couple indirect products he is selling related to it. I am hoping to use the same dead simple system on there too.

Thanks for reading that long and drawn out question :)

What was this table/cart used for?

secretsecret — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:18:15 -0800

Can anyone identify this antique table/cart? It's raised and lowered using a crank. At first I thought it was an old gurney or casket dolly, but it's not long enough to be either.

http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/ohwhocaresman/photo.jpg

Point A to Point Oh Dear God

notquitemaryann — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:10:53 -0800

Do you have your very own (non-pilfered) shopping cart? I may be selling my car soon, and need a liveable way of lugging groceries. It's not a long haul, but I live at the top of a hill and the grocery store is at the bottom. After carrying a 40lb bag of cat litter back to my place the other day, it became apparent that I need a little help. I'm clueless as to what's out there in the world of personal shopping carts, and more importantly how well they function in practice. In order of importance, my priorities are:

- Price
- How smoothly it rolls and how well it turns
- Bulkiness/portability when not in use- once I get it back to the apartment, there are stairs to negotiate, and I will occasionally have to take it on the bus
- How ridiculous I will look dragging it around

On an average biweekly trip, I tend to buy the equivalent of one of a well-packed over-the-arm generic shopping basket or 2-3 plastic bags, plus a 20lb bag of litter. Although it is not much, just carrying it in a normal, non-rolling basket/bag is not an option due to serious back/neck issues. I don't have a bike, or I'd just buy a basket for it.

Back-friendly carrying products?

Bardolph — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:42:34 -0800

My mom has back problems, but insists on line-drying her wash, which means lugging a heavy laundry basket out to the line almost daily. What sort of cart, basket or carrier can I purchase that would help her schlep the wet clothes more easily? Difficulty: must be compatible with stairs. Bending over is also somewhat problematic for her, so ideally this would be loadable/unloadable at waist height or higher. Basically, a small waist-high cart able to be pulled up a half-flight of stairs and over about 20 yards of grass would be ideal, but I'd also love to hear about easy-carry baskets or carriers, if such things exist. Thanks in advance for any/all suggestions for solutions here!

Help a pack mule become more efficient!

spinturtle — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:40:08 -0800

Every year for a few days I transform into a pack mule hauling a good deal of camping gear over hilly, wood chipped paths for nearly a mile. I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years and am looking change things up a bit. What is the perfect people-powered vehicle for this? I’ve used your typical hand truck/dollies but the small wheels run into trouble on wood chip paths; items fall off (even if more than adequately strapped down with bungee cords); limited load capacity.
The past few years I’ve been using a heavy duty garden cart with a great deal of success but I’m tired of pulling – it becomes rather taxing on the shoulders after a couple of hills with a full load. I’d like to find something that can be pushed but is a better load handler than a standard hand truck. I’m considering a game cart. The larger wheels lead me to believe balance would be good and they should make it easy to navigate the paths.

Here are some necessary details. Typical cargo will be Rubbermaid bins, coolers, collapsible chairs (think the ones in a bag), large tents, and the miscellaneous cases of your favorite beverage. The loads have substantial weight, so the collapsible wire cart that my nana uses for small errands won't cut it.

So, great hive mind, does anyone have any pros/cons of the game cart idea or is there something way cooler that I’m completely missing out on? I’m certainly strong enough to bear the pack mule work, and even take pride in it, but I’m ready for a change.

disclaimer: This question was actually written by my gf, but it seemed easier to post in first person voice. I just don't want anyone getting the idea that *I* might be capable of such pack-mulage.

Seeking a A System for Selling Videos A La Cart

dbarefoot — Mon, 25 May 2009 21:58:06 -0800

I'm working on a new project that has some particular requirements for selling video online. * We need to sell online videos (of, say, 20 to 30 minutes in length). They’ll be viewable online, behind a some kind of password protection, or available for download as well (again, with password protection).
* Users will choose from a menu of videos, add them to a cart, pay for them and then get access (through streamed videos, downloads or both) only to those videos.
* Ideally this happens within our own site, or something we can tweak to look something like our own site.

No, it's not for pr0n.

I checked out some courseware systems, but they’re really about delivering structured multi-part classes. I’m also aware of E-Junkie. They’re a good option for downloadables, but don’t offer flash-based video for viewing only.

I’m happy to pay for a turn-key solution, assuming it doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount of money. That’s preferable, actually, to messing around with Drupal or whatever.

I found these two previous questions, but they weren't particularly fruitful. All suggestions welcome.

Most popular E-Commerce/shopping cart software suites?

rinogo — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:10:38 -0800

What are the most popular E-Commerce/shopping cart software suites? Specifically, I'd like to know user-base size (or at least market share percentages). For example, I know that osCommerce is a popular E-Commerce solution. I'd like to know how many web sites are running osCommerce, or at least how much market share osCommerce has. I'd like this list to include both hosted and unhosted solutions.

Hosted solutions are those that don't need to be installed on a web server. They 'run' off of the service provider's servers. Examples of hosted solutions include: Yahoo Merchant, goEmerchant, GoDaddy, etc.

Unhosted solutions are those that need to be installed on a vendor's web server. The vendor must secure web hosting and install the software to their web host. Examples of unhosted solutions include: Zen Cart, osCommerce, Joomla, Shop Script, Ubercart, etc.

Can someone please help me find some data on this market? It seems like a question that would be asked over and over again - I'm surprised that it't not easier to find an answer to this question.

P.S. Please note that I've already found one extensive report on this topic, but it is outdated and its accuracy is questionable.

E-commerce orders for a gift list

Kirklander — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:11:40 -0800

Question about setting up a Web shopping cart that would send a list of orders to a list of different addresses. My client owns a winery, which currently ships out individual orders using the Nexternal e-commerce software.

He'd like to set up a system so that, for the holidays, a business could send bottles of wine to a list of dozens of clients at different addresses.
If possible, he'd like them to be able to copy a list from an Excel spreadsheet, paste it into the Web site, and have it talk to Nexternal to put in a single order for all those people.

Was wondering if anyone knows an easy way to do this. Open to switching to Zen Cart or another system. Any help much appreciated. Difficulty level: I'm pretty good with PHP and stuff, but new to shopping carts.

Help me find a great cart!

moof — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:06:35 -0800

Kids are growing up. When I take the empty stroller to the supermarket I'm getting the "why is crazy lady shopping with empty stroller" looks. I'm looking for city-friendly, grocery-friendly shopping/laundry cart that has a little more pizazz than the old foldable standby (like this one). What's the coolest shopping cart for non-SUV moms who still walk to the store? Bonus points for extra cargo storage (for things like tissues, wallet, keys) and cup holders!

Need a SUPER simple online shopping cart.

bink — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:21:55 -0800

Looking for a very simple cart solution for a very simple business. I'm setting up a shopping cart for a small business that sells one (1) product. I need a shopping cart that will automatically calculate tax, shipping to all around the world, and, most importantly, will be DIRT SIMPLE for the people who fill the orders. Is there anything that's simpler than PayPal?

In the past, we've used PayPal but those emails sometimes get lost, the shipping charges weren't always right, and the people in the company had difficulty dealing with them. I think they ended up printing out every email and doing shipping labels, record-keeping, etc. by hand in a paper notebook. It needs to be easy for an over-60 technophobe to deal with.

They would like for customers to be able to send checks or money orders as well; I set up a Mal's E cart but getting two emails for every transaction was too confusing.

The ideal program would send a very simple notification email that the order's been placed (and paid for, if so) and would make it really simple for them to print a mailing label and add the buyer's info to a database. Oh, and it needs to work on a Mac!

Free would be nice, of course, but I think they're willing to pay a bit for something that will really work.

What do I need to know to my high end retail sales site off the ground?

JJ Jenkins — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:46:32 -0800

What are the best books/sites for learning the necessary web design and dev tools for an e-commerce site? I have a decent graphic and web design background, but I haven't used it in nine years or so, which means I never quite grasped CSS.

What books/sites/languages can you recommend so that I can design and build a website for direct sales? I will be selling very few (3-5) products that come in several colors. I want to be able to add to them, but I will hire a firm once the number gets too high, so right now it doesn't need to have a complicated database to accommodate high volume of inventory. This is a fashion product so I want the design to be cute and stylish, but easy for customers to navigate and buy products.

My thoughts are to use something like Dreamweaver for design and then program in the e-commerce parts myself. (Do people still even use the term e-commerce?)

I basically need it to look very high end and have a shopping cart with multiple payment and shipping options. I'm confident I can do this myself and have been thoroughly unimpressed with the web pros I've tried to work with. I think I can figure it out on my own for less money and time. However, I don't want to pore through textbooks and do tutorials on things that are unnecessary to get this site off the ground.

Also, I'd like to design and program regular emailings to alert my customer base of new products and availability.

I hope this is specific enough to make sense. Thanks!

What shopping cart software should I set up?

amtho — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:04:15 -0800

Best starting point for e-commerce / shopping cart software? I'm a competent Perl programmer with background in several other languages, who wants to create a decidedly minimalist-looking web site shopping cart for a client. I expect to hack Perl or PHP code, but would like to hack things that are designed to be hacked. Anyone tried CRE Loaded? Other recommendations? Other places to ask? The old system, heavily modified from an open-source Perl code base, probably should go; I'm pretty confident I can figure out PHP enough to customize something that isn't actively getting in my way (have modified WordPress successfully) -- but what code to start from?

I'm willing to pay a little. I want to install it on my own server space. I'm very picky about design and usability, so I'll want to change the front end of anything (that I've seen available) substantially. And oh, I'll probably want the back end to integrate with our existing payment handling system (Mal's, in case anyone knows/cares), but I can write that code myself if needed.

Specific changes I'd want:
- ability for people to purchase without having to "create an account";
- will keep track of shopping cart contents even if cookies not enabled (i.e., can keep cart ID in URLs if no cookies available)
- URL's that are sensible words instead of automatically-assigned numbers (maybe called "search engine friendly"?)
- ability to completely customize the layout of the home page and other pages, including product listings - this includes HTML, not just changes to CSS.

I've read some similar questions in AskMe, and this one is almost exactly me, though it's from 2006. I'm interested in CubeCart and SquirrelCart, which it recommends, but one option that I'd particularly looked at some years ago is a version of OSCommerce called CRE Loaded -- anyone know that one?

If there's a good resource out there in the world, book or web site, that will give a good survey of available software with my particular concerns in mind, or if there's a better forum you know of for this kind of question, I'd love to hear about it.