Very new to this e-commerce/ Shopping Cart malarky...

[Guest towermusic]

Afternoon all,

Bit of a long winded query here, but I'm hoping someone can help me.

Basically, i work in a musical instrument shop and we've had a website that I've been updating, adding to and maintaining for a couple of years now by using dreamweaver, and updating straight to the ftp through the control panel we were given.(Click here to see). Now we have some buttons on there to buy things that are linked to PayPal, but mostly they are just gifs of the button, for show.

So at the shop we've decided to go the whole hog and put more effort into it, i.e uploading the whole shop onto the site, updating daily, and being able to accept credit cards instead of just PayPal.

So we've spoke to our credit card service provider, who've put us onto Secure Trading as a gateway supplier (who've just sent through a load of templates for order pages etc...), so we're going through the checklist of things the site needs to become e-merchant and now we're in the predicament that we need a "shopping cart".

After looking through a few sites, CubeCart looks the easiest to use to me as there's a whole instruction guide on the Secure Trading site, but I'm just a bit unclear as to what we'll be getting by buying it, and what the next step will be once i download it?

I mean in theory, all i want to do is have the buttons all working, be able to generate new buttons for adding new items, and have the shopping cart there, whilst still using Dreamweaver and everything the same as we do now, but from flicking through some posts on here, it reads as if CubeCart will take over everything.

So in summary, just any help or advice you can throw my way, I'd be really grateful of! I'm no wizard when it comes to writing codes, but i can fiddle about with them all day long if needs be.

Cheers, Ol

[Guest towermusic]

anybody?

[vokf]

anybody?

Hi Ol,

A very quick check of your existing site tells me that CubeCart would be fairly easy to use as an entire replacement.

At least one of the stock templates is a 3 col layout.

The system uses PHP and a Database (mySQL) to store all the information for the store (products/categories/orders/customers etc)

I would strongly suggest downloading a trial (this lasts for 30 days), and just getting a feel for adding products/categories etc.

Ask questions in here, and once you feel happy using the basic system, then look into customising it to meet your needs.

Luckily, CubeCart is fairly easy to customise the look. The layout is mainly CSS/XHTML based, and if you're happy tweaking styles etc, then I think you'll get on fine.

Unfortunately, DreamWeaver will not work very well with the template system (although you could download the page from your browser, tweak and then re-work the code into each template file).

There is a tutorial on the Template system in cubecartforums.org, and you'll find assistance in tweaking your template, or a designer to implement your design (if you don't have time to DIY)

Templates/presentation aside, if you are happy with the system, then there are a few licencing options. I'd recommend the full licence (copyright removal+software licence), this will cost about £110+vat, but your visitors will not see any "cubecart" branding. There is an option just to use the software, but the store will have a "powered by cubecart" link in the site footer, and also the page title (as in the browser) will also have a similar message appended to your normal store title.

The "suppliers" page can be created with the built-in editor

The "special offers" can be a built-in feature of cubecart (Sale items), individual items can be placed on sale, and will appear in this area.

I guess if you realise that CubeCart (or any cart system) will need some customisation, you will be fine. Once you're up and running, managing products will be much quicker than DreamWeaver.

From what I can see of your existing store, and my knowledge of CubeCart, I know that your main work will be visual (template) customisation with very little PHP changes.

I hope this is some help,

Jason

[Guest towermusic]

Brilliant! Cheers Jason!