New to the forum and have a quick question...

I have about 5,000 to invest in an ecommerce store, the site will have high traffic and I Want to make it the best as possible. Would anyone recommend if I should use an out of the box shopping cart, or have something custom made? I currently have been using x-cart, is there anything better out there?

Thanks

I generally think you'll get more with a custom solution, but that's not to say there aren't good open source solutions.

The only ones I'm really familiar with are osCommerce and Zen Cart. I can't tell you that either is the best, but both are popular. I'm sure you can find more with a little searching and which one is best might depend on your specific needs. Your specific needs are why a custom cart might be best.

Another option is to try whichever cart comes closest to what you want and need and then spend some of the money customizing the open source cart. You might end up getting the most value for your money that way.

Originally Posted by vangogh

Another option is to try whichever cart comes closest to what you want and need and then spend some of the money customizing the open source cart. You might end up getting the most value for your money that way.

I completely agree with this option.
Using an existing cart and getting a coder to customize it to your needs will probably
be a lot cheaper (and quicker) than creating one from scratch. Plus, the extra money
you save can be used for promotion.

In general a boxed solution will give you more for your money, because the development cost is effectively spread between all its users. There will also be an ongoing development program that will take account of changing technology and legal requirements. Whereas if you go for a bespoke solution, you will have to pay 100% of the cost of development, and any necessary future upgrades. And if the developer moves on or goes out of business, you're screwed.

On the other hand, boxed solutions can't cover all the bases, and they do impose fixed ways of working that you have to learn and adapt to.

Most probably you can find a boxed solution that will meet all your needs, and it will save you money and give you greater long-term security. But if you have specific requirements that cannot be met that way, you will have to go for bespoke.

If you have no *unusual* requirements then an off the shelf solution is probably all you will ever need, and for a good cart system no mods are usually necessary in most cases.

IMHO X-cart has lots of features but the templates stink, bloated and invalid code plus the sheer number of them put me off using it ages ago. If you want the best I'd be looking at the likes of Jshop or Digishop, Interspire storesuite or Pinnacle cart because they are all mature systems and can be used to build your site your way.

Your money is better spent on marketing and promotion right now. Build up a good base of repeat buyers with an off the shelf solution. That will give you the money to get fancier software down the road.