new to jag.. need help.

[kid vega]

hey all.. I'm not using jaguar yet.. but am really considering it.

I'm about to open a website selling clothing..

One of my concerns right now is my shopping cart.. How do i set one of those up once i have my site up and running?

You can get a merchant account included in your hosting plan with jaguar.. I didnt read anything about shoppings carts though, or maybe i missed it. I know if i register with authorize.net seperately, they give me a free shoppin cart and all that. Is that the same deal with jaguar?

ehh.. i got a couple more questions.. But I'm not really a genius with computers, so my questions probably will come out confusing. Anyways, can someone please help me with this shopping cart issue first?

thanks.
vega.

[kid vega]

plus.. i was just wondering..

are setting up shopping carts hard??

And for the poeple who have shopping carts of their own, which shopping carts are the best to navigate in and more attractive and what not? Like i've seen some shopping carts that some sites have, and its hard fo rcustomers to navigate through them.. makes it frustrating to order stuff.

thanks again.
vega.

[randyriegel]

There is an option in the control panel to automatically setup osCommerce for you. But, usually it is better to download and install one yourself that way you get the newest version out there. The install scripts in cPanel are usually outdated.

Randy

[jason]

There are literally hundreds of shopping carts out there. Many, perhaps most, of them will run on JPC's servers. OSCommerce is one of the better free ones that I've seen. As Randy said, the installer that comes with your site makes it easy to set up, but the version it installs may be out of date. It should be difficult to update the version once you get it installed, though.

I'm not familiar with the shopping cart that comes from AuthorizeNet. I'd imagine that it is also available with your sign up for an account through JPC. I'd suspect, though, that it is a "hosted" cart--that is AuthorizeNet gives you access to a cart that runs on their servers instead of JPC's. These can be OK for newbies, but the amount of customizing you can do is probably limited and you might outgrow the system fairly quickly. On the plus side, using their cart means that AuthorizeNet will handle things like security for you, so you'll have less to worry about.

Feel free to ask whatever questions you have. This is a friendly community that is always willing to help out.

--Jason

[kid vega]

cool. Thanks for respinding guys. And thanks for giving me a name to one of the better free ones..

but yea, i'm not really too familair with what authorize.net. Like i guess I cant really tell until I sign up with them. And i'm not sure if the shopping cart is hosted by THEM, or if its on my website..

Because that would be kind of "wack". They charge like $10 a month for internet gateway fee, but i'm not sure if that gateway is too their site, or just throguh mines. i gotta find out.

if its hosted by them, I'd rather just get that free shopping cart jason mentioned.. Hopefully it isnt too hard to set up.. And it would look catchy, and make it fit into my design scheme of the website well.

vega.

[jason]

OSCommerce is very highly customizable, both in terms of look and in terms of function. Take a look at http://www.oscommerce.com

I believe that the AuthorizeNet gateway fee is the fee to allow you to do transactions with them trhough your website. Basically, when you get an order on your website, you make a secure connection to their's to get the credit card approval, and that's what the gateway fee is for, I think. I've set up sites to use AuthorizeNet in the past, but its been a few years, so I'm a little rusty right now.

--Jason

[gerilya]

kid vega,
do you have website design ready or it's currently work in progress? If you design your site without considering a shopping cart software you are going to use, you might run into difficulties later.

[kid vega]

Originally posted by gerilya
kid vega,
do you have website design ready or it's currently work in progress? If you design your site without considering a shopping cart software you are going to use, you might run into difficulties later.

hey.. its actually a work in progress..

I think i might just end up going with the OScommerce shopping cart.. The shopping cart is included with the gigadeal plan.

I can use that.. Or i can use the Agora Shopping cart which is also supplied. But i'm not sure how good that one is.

Anyways.. Since I'ma be using one of those two, what prepearations or things should i be looking for while designing the site?

thanks.
vega.