Shopping Cart Software?

[sally]

I've got basic shopping cart software on my website using the freeware at mals ecommerce. Its about as complicated as I can manage at the moment with my limited understanding of how html works and all that.
However, I want to have a 'midsummer sale' and list lots of one off items with a 'buy it now button' and ideally, once someone has bought an item it will automatically show that the item has sold. I can't do that with my current system.

Does anyone know a reasonably painless and cheap way to do this? I don't mind paying a little bit for the mechanism to do so, as lots of our things are one offs so it will get plenty of use when I update the shopping side of my site, but it needs to be reasonably easy or I'll get confused.

[PaulMurphy]

Sally,

osCommerce is a free shopping cart which is easy to set up and administer, and which supports payments by PayPal, Nochex, credit cards, etc.

It has full support for special offers, with discounts by value or percentage, and with cut-off dates.

See http://www.oscommerce.com/ for details.

Best Wishes,

Paul.

[sally]

Will give that a whirl this evening. I had a quick look at the site and it had lots of words I didn't understand, but hopefully thats just jargon that will become clear when I try it out!
cheers

[PaulMurphy]

Sally,

The osCommerce cart is a fully-featured system which you download and then install onto your web server system. It requires some supporting software, including PHP and mySQL to provide the back-end database. If you have no experience of doing this sort of stuff, it can be a bit daunting, but if you've installed software for your web system before, it is fairly simple and quick to grasp.

If what you need is someone to host it for you and do the initial setup, that's a much easier proposition from your side. I don't know of anyone off-hand who offers this, but it is something which could be set up fairly easily.

Best Wishes,

paul.

[sally]

I usually maintain my website through the sitebuilder software that came with the hosting package. I gather its possible to upload things created elsewhere,but I don't know enough about all the operating systems to know if this will integrate. I suppose I will have to just try it and see

[WhiteWolf]

Hi Sally

We used these guys http://www.remotebasket.com/ for the essential oils site.

Cost a whole £15 a year, tis basic but we never had any problems with them.

The RemoteBasket service provides you with basket functionality for your site without the need to install or configure any additional scripts. It currently supports PayPal, NOCHEX and WorldPay payment services as well as cheque/postal order payments.

Andy

[sally]

Sally,

osCommerce is a free shopping cart which is easy to set up.

err, am I particularly computer dense then? I managed to download it (no problem) I even managed to work out how to configure an ftp client so I could uplaod it to my server (was feeling really clever once I did that bit), but now I'm baffled.

The instruction manual goes like this:
"Upload the catalog directory to your server using FTP" (managed it- I think, I had to create a folder called htdocs, which it seemed to think would appear magically, but once I got that sorted it all uploaded ok)

"Using phpmyadmin or another tool, create your database and user, and assign that user to the database." (this is the bit that I got lost at.) Do what? how? where? with whom and in what position??

could someone kindly put that into easy language for me please. I'm sure thsi will all be ok once the dratted thing is installed, but at the moment its all greek to me

[kael]

if sitebuilder is the yahoo software (which i think it is), you can put paypal buttons on your website without the need for a database or programming language support.

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/webhosting/sitebuilder2/paypal/

[sally]

I've got a basic shopping system already, but I need a slightly more 'frilly' one, that can show stock levels and calculate shopping cart totals, postage etc, hence trying this out. I've got a bit further through now, managed to work out the database thing, but I have ground to a halt major time in the installation, I just can't see what to do next

[sally]

yep, definately got stuck. I get the distinct impression that it probably isnt that hard to install if the concept of root directories, file storage locations and uploading databases is a normal thing, but for me I've ground to a halt. Will need to try to find a friendly soul to cast an eye over my efforts and tell me where I went wrong I think I've probably just not named some file correctly, or uploaded something into the wrong place, but I can't see the wood for the trees any more.

[Steve Stocker]

Sally,
You have my sympathy, but the time has come for you to make a decision.
Setting up the store will take some technical knowledge, but that knowledge will also have to be on tap when the store is running because you will hit day-to-day problems as well and they will be urgent if you are losing sales.
It sounds like you are nearly there - can I urge you to learn the required stuff and stick with it? You will be more in control of your site, able to respond quickly to probelms and get more satisfaction if you do it yourself.
As a solution, relying on a third party has its own set of problems and can be expensive.
Most freeware has support forums, have you tried the web for support?

If you want to PM me with your error messages I will try to help but I am not a techy by any stretch of the imagination - I opted to pay for my store software but the support is excellent.

Good luck

[sally]

Steve, I do agree, I'mm all for being able to sort these things out myself. I just wish I wasn't so stuck right now!
I'm a bit further along than yesterday, I have got the installation to the point where it says 'configuration successful' and there are two buttons below that read 'catalog' and 'administration tool'. Neither does anything (standard page not found screen). I think, from my readings of the previous posts that this is the bit that needs fixing:
4. Make sure that the permissions on all of the folders are set to 755, and if that does not work then set them to 777. Make sure that the includes/configure.php file and the admin/includes/configure.php file are set to 777 for the duration of the install. Once the install is complete reset to 644, 444, or 400 depending on your server setup

However, I havent got the foggiest idea how to do this. I checked my webhosting help file and it says this:
To change the read or write permissions of a file, you can use the PHP function chmod(). To make a file readable and writable for the owner, and readable for everybody else, for example,you might create code like this:
chmod ("/directory/file.php", 0644);
Please note that you will not be able to change the file permissions of any of your files to make them executable. You can run your PHP scripts, which are indicated by the .php file extension, without making them executable. (I'm using Yahoo webhosting if that makes any difference?)

I'm sure I'm just being dense, but I really can't decipher what it wants me to do. I've tried opening the files for a look but can't see anything that looks like the bit I need.

Could someone please take pity on me and point me in the right direction. Do I just modify and paste that chmod thing into each and every folder (there seem to be zillions of them, or is it just the two 'configure' files), and if so, where should it go?


aarcgh. need gin.....

[kael]

you have an ftp client?

mst ftp clients have the ability to select all the files, right click, and then click properties from a menu. in there, you have a bunch of select boxes for read, write and execute. select all of those and that is the same as chmod 777.

If you are still having problems, see if your web host will do it for you, or look for a help page on thier support site (if they have one).

[PaulMurphy]

Sally,

It looks like there are some files missing under /catalog - there should be all of the folders, and they seem to exist, but there should also be loads of files which end in ".php"

Looking at the directory listing produced by http://www.sallypointer.com/catalog, it seems that there are no files there at all - just the folders.

The quoted bit in your post makes it sound like all .php files will automatically be executable, so that sounds good. To test this, please create a file in the catalog folder called test.php, and put this into it:

Code: Select all

<?php
    printf ("The PHP system is working!");
?>


If you can then get this to run OK when you browse to http://www.sallypointer.com/catalog/test.php then the permissions are OK.

Can you see all of the .php files in the catalog folder?

Paul.

[sally]

I can see lots of php files I'm as sure as I can be that I transferred over everything that came in the download

[sally]

oops, found a few more, have patched them over now. Now I get a blank screen. Is that an advance or a retreat?