Shopping Carts

The foundation of any Ecommerce website is the shopping cart software that makes everything happen. I use several different shopping cart programs, depending on the need of the client. A good shopping cart program has to be versatile, well-supported by the vendor and third-party developers, and designed so that people without a technical background can use it easily.

My first choice is usually Zen-Cart by Zen Ventures. It's a free, open-source shopping cart that runs well on any server and has all of the features needed to create a reliable online store. It gives you excellent control over the appearance of your website, and there are many third-party add-ons to enhance it with features like gift certificates and discount coupons.

I also use osCommerce, the oldest popular open-source shopping cart program on the web. There was a long lapse in support for this program, but the authors recently updated it to bring many long-awaited features. It, too, gives excellent layout control and has a large library of add-ons available.

For clients with special needs, I use my own Rainbo Cart software. This is a package I developed myself that I can easily customize to suit clients whose products or services don't fit into the conventional ecommerce website model and for experienced webmasters with a good technical background that want something more powerful than conventional shopping carts. Rainbo Cart is designed for optimum performance in Google, and integrates with many of their special services for vendors and webmasters.

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