Help with setting up online shopping cart

[John Coloccia]

Maybe someone here can help. I'm looking to setup an online shopping cart. On the back end, I want to be able to do things like manage/export customer data, print shipping labels (including USPS if possible). All of the make my life easy stuff. I also need to integrate with some sort of accounting software. I currently have Quickbooks, which I absolutely despise and no longer use, and I've been playing with kBilling, which I absolutely love but doesn't integrate with anything. Grrrrrrr..

What do I need to do to make this happen?

[Scott Shepherd]

Do you have a budget? Or you looking for free? How many transactions a month?

[John Coloccia]

Do you have a budget? Or you looking for free? How many transactions a month?

Low volume. If I hit 50 a month to start, I'll be happy. If I start getting close to 100, I'm going to have to get a real office and hire help. Free is always best, I guess, but I'll entertain anything. I'm looking at ZipCart at the moment because it seems to integrate with everything I need. I'm also considering 3DCart based on the feature set, but their website is absolutely awful. I can't make sense of exactly what it is I'm buying. Is it software? Is is web hosting? Do I have to move my website entirely to their hosting platform? I have no idea. I need to contact them.

I'm also considering just grabbing a local design firm around here, and just tossing them the whole problem to handle. Redesign my website, setup the cart, host it, integrate it the way I want it integrated, etc. I may just end up doing that, depending on what they charge me. Time is not my friend, at the moment!

[Scott Shepherd]

I just installed ZenCart and I've dealt with online carts on and off over the years. Seems things haven't changed much in that area. They all still seem to require a lot of work to get up and going, on the back end.

I have a customer that went with Shopify (google it). I thought it was expensive, but they said it's dead simple and they love it. It does cost them per month and there is a transaction charge. They repeatedly tell me how simple it is to add products and make adjustments. Might be worth taking for a test drive.

[John Coloccia]

Ah..exactly the kind of guidance I was hoping to get. I'll look that up, Scott. I don't mind paying a bit if it saves me some time. I actually wouldn't mind getting a little sleep some time this year, and I'm willing to pay a couple of bucks if that's what it takes! I swear, I never thought I'd miss just lying down and doing nothing.