Free Ecommerce Solutions or Build My Own?

[j.smith1981]

Hello there,

 

I am just making a general enquiry as to a topic I have been assigned.

 

Just wanted to get some ideas down to merely think about the best ways to make something as cheap as possible at the moment.

 

Is there any good free ecommerce solutions around on the web?

 

Or if not then is there any tutorials on the web that would allow me to go through and create one of my own possibly?

 

Just an idea really, I mean essentially what we will be selling at the moment is clothing so obviously sizes, possibly colours and quantity's (as with any ecom site).

 

Can someone help me out please?

 

As of a note to keep this in the topic of this board though I did stumble across this one:

 

http://www.eclime.com/index.html This does look interesting but my main concern is security and integration.

 

I suppose though I will just have to go through a tutorial on a payment processing site.

 

Regards,

Jeremy.

[j.smith1981]

Apologies, I meant integration in the confines of Payment Integration lol.

[ignace]

Reviews should make you confident about any e-commerce:

 

http://blog.webdistortion.com/2008/05/03/9-kick-ass-open-source-e-commerce-platforms-reviewed/

 

A list of all open-source e-commerce today available http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/show.php?catid=3&cat=eCommerce

[j.smith1981]

Oh ace I knew someone would come up with something.

 

Going to give this a thorough read before I make any decisions.

 

Thanks again,

Jeremy.

[j.smith1981]

Just as a finish off note, I am going to I think use:

 

http://virtuemart.net/

 

Just to note I am projecting this to showcase what functionality this has, get the person to critique the sites functionality and probably come back on here asking how to enhance some of the functions or even if so take some out.

 

But this is by far the best most, if not trust worthy free ecom solution I have found so far.

 

Kind thanks,

Jeremy.

[TeddyKiller]

I'd usually prefer building shopping carts on my own, that way I know what is what, and how to change it.. rather than a huge folder full of stuff you don't quite understand

 

The only thing I have problems with, if the checkout for obvious reasons.

[j.smith1981]

I'd usually prefer building shopping carts on my own, that way I know what is what, and how to change it.. rather than a huge folder full of stuff you don't quite understand

 

The only thing I have problems with, if the checkout for obvious reasons.

 

Actually as this is going to be a live version I just thought it would be decent to say whats happening since you've always helped me with problems (very well I must say aswell, always help me out when I am stuck).

 

Their actually going with an existing solution of theirs as per their management so thats fine for me.

 

But will be looking at existing solutions later on to make it more concise, makes my life a whole lot easier at work.

 

In the mean time I do have a book on making a PHP & MySQL shopping cart, will study that at home in the meantime and get this up and running and showcase it to them.

 

Thanks again ever so much for your help,

Jeremy.

[ignace]

Remember that whenever you decide to build it yourself you are going to be the one held responsible for whatever went wrong and demand you to fix it. Both in the case of open-source as when you would build it yourself. When it comes to e-commerce I highly suggest you tell them to hire a specialized firm so that when the shit hits the fence they won't be hammering your door...

 

Edit: something else that you should take into consideration: backups