I am not sure which software (must be free) to go for which can be styled well, has good features and some sort of cms or page extension (where I can create extra pages like About Us, History etc) Any ideas?
I have been using joomla with virtuemart and it works great. Other one is magento, try to research a little so you can see which of them is better for you.
CS-Cart does have CMS features along with flexible design customization, we'd appreciate if you could consider it as well.
Those on the page directing you to Joomla are giving you good advice. Wordpress is not a CMS, it is a blogging platform. Pick Joomla or even perhaps Drupal. Joomla will have more technical support if you ever need it.
Hmmm. Did you know that Virtuemart is a featured extension ( LINK ) on Joomla.org ? If you want to talk about it PM me, we are getting a bit off topic. The OP wanted a solution and Virtuemart is definitely a valid solution for them.
There is a few nice shopping theme on themeforest, they are complete and work with wordpress, you can also go for shopperpress plugin for wordpress, I have it somewhere but not using it right now, I can eventually setup a demo for you
Prestashop is the way to go. Allows great flexibility. Check out their demo at prestashop.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Need Advice on Starting Your E-Commerce Website? Click Below! startecommerce.blogspot.com
I agree Prestashop is screaming fast and very easy to use and style. If you want a really high end enterprise level solution go with Magento. I don't get why folks always rant about Joomla. That stuff is way too hackable and frankly a convoluted trainwreck of bad coding practices. Usability is not something those folks think about. Even the admin panel is a mess. Nigel
You can use a lot of open source described in the previous comments, also you can try a turnkey ecommerce ready to use with a webhosting plan included, with a lot of features and 3 different customization (depend of the size of your next ecommerce) You can find more info here: http://bit.ly/bJVVTx Hope it works for you, some people I know use it and it works great!