I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
Shopping Cart Software Questions
If you’ve noticed the Shop link up there in the header menu then you know that I’ve been trying to set up my own little shop to sell my jewelry. I started out planning to set up on Etsy, but soon found that they require a credit card. So that ended that idea. Though, setting up my own shop is pretty daunting too. Right now I’m trying to leap the hurdle of finding a good shopping cart or shopping cart software.
I found a few sites and services that offer free ecommerce software, but of course free often means no control in how it looks or very limited functions. After lots of headaches I got over my issues with emailing people I don’t know and fired off some emails to a few people that sell things from their own sites. Most use the free shopping cart software provided by their hosting or they use the free ecommerce software sites that I’ve already found. Or they skip all of that and just do it the old fashioned way of “email me your order and I’ll send you a PayPal bill”.
One woman did respond that she uses the Ashop Commerce shopping cart. She told me that I should at least sign up now as they are offering a free 10 day trial of their software. I don’t know, they do look pretty good. They offer a fully customizable storefront that the free sites don’t offer, and lots of tech support and daily backups. And honestly, compared to some of the other shopping cart sites that I looked at the price is pretty good. I just doubt that I’ll be able to sell enough jewelry to pay for it.
I’d love to hear any suggestions. If you sell your wares what are you using? Do you think I should go with free ecommerce software or try the paid guys?
[tags]shopping cart software, ecommerce software, selling things online, online store, Ashop Commerce[/tags]
You might want to give the cart below a try, it’s really easy to set up and use with wordpress.
http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce
I use paypal buttons and cart. I like it…suits me well and easy to use.
Ebay is a great tool to use if you don’t mind doing online auctions. One of the downsides is that they keep part of the money and you could sell if for less than you wanted. However, you could end up getting more money than you expected.
Selene’s last blog post..I Have Trust Issues
If you’re just starting out, I definintely wouldn’t go for something that costs $40/mo, even if it will be written off as a business expense. I think the WordPress plugin that Shelly suggested is a good idea (and free), as are plain old Paypal buttons & shopping cart. I set up a website backend for a jewelry maker (www.babapaul.com) and all her ‘Buy Now’ links go to a Paypal shopping cart. It seems to be working out well for her – or at least I haven’t gotten any complaints
In either case, starting off with Paypal as your payment gateway is good too, since tons of people have Paypal accounts (and starting one isn’t too hard).
So what kind of jewelry do you make? I dabble in jewelry-making myself.
Arp’s last blog post..What a Funeral Teaches You