Retail web site shopping cart/hosting help needed

[ThorZ]

I am so confused on all the options..Need to set up a site that will sell a limited amount of goods. I don't want it to look cheap, and I need to set it up with a shopping cart. I have looked into YahooOnline, Google merchant and the PayPal merchant services. I have also been reading about the variety of free and pay shopping carts like MEVA.

Can somebody help me sort thru all this ? How would you set up a retail site and where would you host it ? Right now I am with 1and1 and I use PSCS3 and my limited Dreamweaver skills...:o

[babyjenniferLB]

I am so confused on all the options..Need to set up a site that will sell a limited amount of goods. I don't want it to look cheap, and I need to set it up with a shopping cart. I have looked into YahooOnline, Google merchant and the PayPal merchant services. I have also been reading about the variety of free and pay shopping carts like MEVA.

Can somebody help me sort thru all this ? How would you set up a retail site and where would you host it ? Right now I am with 1and1 and I use PSCS3 and my limited Dreamweaver skills...:o

you can get actinic web version, you pay so much a month for it or you can buy the actinic catalog. In my opinion it is the best way to go because it makes your life the easyest

[ThorZ]

thanks, I will have to look into actinic web. I have never heard of this..

[zimv20]

I have also been reading about the variety of free and pay shopping carts like MEVA.

are you talking about Miva? is that free now? it wasn't when i was using it.

[ThorZ]

no, it's still not free but I knew somebody that uses it and he told me to look into it

[zimv20]

yeah, it's okay. it's a PITA if you want to extend it a bunch, since you have to deal w/ 3rd party modules and stuff (and they don't always work as well as they should). but if the out-of-the-box functionality is all you need, it's worth looking at.

it's pretty straightforward to get things up and going, and not that hard to figure out. the downside, really, is it costs. if you go that route, i definitely recommend hostasaurus.com for hosting, and they have plans where you rent a license on a month-to-month basis. oh, performance was a little slow when i used it, but i was using the interpreted version. they may be completely switched over to compiled by now.

but i have to think there are free shopping cart solutions that are just as good. i'm interested to know what you find out.

[rajfantastic]

zen cart is free, and really easy to use. you will probably need a web developer/designer to set it up for you, though. that will give you a professional looking cart.