choosing a shopping cart

[dbjbob]

I am trying again to get a shopping cart set up for my florist site. Has anyone had any experience with Bigcommerce? Do you have any recommendations for the best shopping cart?

I know that every site will have unique needs but are there any that you would just flat stay away from.

My biggest concerns other than reliability and ease of use are.

1. being able to set up delivery fee by zip code(we are in a rural area and have a pretty big delivery area)

2. I would like to receive orders by e-mail or fax. I can work around this if I have to actually log onto the CP to download the orders but I would prefer to automate this if possible.

Thanks,
Bob

[deniseoberry]

Bob --

I've been researching this too. I used to have a shopping cart and then abandoned it as the costs just got way too outrageous. There are a lot of options out there. I have website payments pro through PayPal so I needed a compatible cart. There are a variety of carts they work with if you want to go that direction. You'll have to log in to your account to see the choices.

Also, if your site is built on the wordpress platform, ShopperPress looks like it might be a good option. It happens to be half off right now.

[warriorn]

@dbjbob


Do you mind saying:

1.if you charge with zip code,how big is your customer base (current & how much it is to grow up in the next one year)

2.Did you checked google Checkout (checkout.google.com)?

i use it and so far it is so good & its from google hence really authentic with my customers

[dbjbob]

Hey denise,


I have been looking at this for a couple of years actually. I know that no solution is perfect ( unless perhaps you can afford a completely custom cart) but it seems like everyone that I look at or test drive has at least one critical thing missing for a real brick and mortar florist.

Unless you are in or have been in the florist buisness (real florist not web order gatherer send through FTD or Teleflora for a commission) it is hard for a lot of people to understand. Florist are a bit of a weird duck shopping cart wise.

You have to have a place for the customer to :
1 write a card message (happy birthday, sympathy etc.)

2. choose the occasion for the card

3. delivery address for local delivery without taxing the delivery charge or pick up in shop ( no delivery fee). With a large area geographically to deliver to we need to be able to charge for delivery by zip code ( we cover a couple of counties and the city of Richmond)


4 for sending out of town you have to have a completely different delivery charge. As each florlist that you send thru has different pricing for both the product and delivery charge plus we need to add a service charge for us for sending the product out of town.

We use to use FTD and Teleflora but their charges are outrageous and no filling florist makes any money off of incoming orders. Just because they send you a check every month doesn't mean you are making money. ie. If you receive a check for $1000.00 every month and it cost you $2000.00 to do the work, pay for the materials, and associated fees. That isn't really much of a deal. That is exactly what a lot of florist do with the wire services.

Sorry about the long rant this is probably more than you ever wanted to know about the florist business. lol


From what I can see Bigcommerce looks like it will work for me. I think volusion might as well but the templates don't seem as up to date and the control panel seems more complicated. Just my perception.

Thanks,
Bob

[deniseoberry]

That was a good education Bob. Hope that cart works out for you!