What is the best shopping cart? I want something that is very easy to use, install, and template. I've heard zencart and oscommerce but I want to make sure I'm making the right decision. Thanks!
i've only used zencart, but i found it pretty straightforward (even for digital downloads) and easy to customise the template
I have tried a number of shopping carts. OSCommerce has gotten many recommendations and has a ton of support but the code is kind of a bear to navigate through if you need to customize it..
I started a thread almost exactly like this a little while back, and someone suggested VirtueMart which is part of Joomla. I just started playing around with Joomla / Virtuamart, and I must say that it is far superior to osCommerce and ZenCart. The support forums are really helpful, and the admin panel is extremely easy to figure out. Check it out if you get the chance.
I dunno, that's a good question. There are quite a few mods for VirtueMart, and it seems like there's new ones coming out every day. I'm not sure if there's as many as osCommerce or Zencart yet, but the Joomla / VirtueMart community seems pretty active so if there isn't as many mods yet there should be just as many if not more mods very soon. I myself have had no problem finding a mod for everything I need.
Virtuemart is a good ecommerce system, The best thing with virtuemart is you have a ecommerce within a CMS and not viceversa, so when we need to customize the site with a lot more features than just plain shopping cart this is highly recommended. Plus you can break the typical shopping cart look by customizing the CMS. So far I have seen only one drawback...paypal pro is not available as a payment method, I tried a mod for that from the forums but it did not work. Maybe I am wrong and it has been provided in the latest versions. Though this is not a major problem because only US customers can use Paypal Pro, so if you are outside US it doesnt make much of a difference.
Can it do: 1. SSL 2. SEF URLs 3. different payment gateways 4. multiple currencies 5. automatic shipping calculation 6. multiple languages?
I wouldn't have asked if I didn't right now the only one I could wait on would be multple languages, but the others would be critical yes or no?
Well then, it can do what you are after. Have a look at these features. You can use SEF integrated into the Joomla CMS.
1. SSL -Yes 2. SEF URLs - Use 3PD component like Artio 3. different payment gateways - Yes also xustom API Integration possible 4. multiple currencies -Yes 5. automatic shipping calculation -Can be configured 6. multiple languages? -Use Joom!fish
I hate thread hijackers, so knock me down if you like, but I think it kind of melds in with this thread... Are there any (preferably free) shopping carts out there that track referrers? I don't necessarily want an entire 'affiliate shop' system built in, but I just want to be able to: a) track people referring customers b) track those referrals against particular products sold c) manage payment for referrals I don't care if I have to make the referral payments by hand, but I'd like to be able to flag somewhere whether or not a referral for a particular purchase has been made. Thanks for any ideas...