I've worked with Magento quite a bit but I have someone looking for a much cheaper solution. What would you suggest for a site that has <100 products that is fast and easy to setup?

Second, what merchant service. In the past I have always used paypal pro but this client doesn't want $30/month. They are only looking to do a couple hundred in sales a month.

Thanks!

There's quite a number of affordable solutions out there. You may simply make a list of requirements specific for your store and choose the most suitable one.

As for payment options, as far as I remember, 2Checkout take a fee based on the amount of each order. So this may be an option for you.

There's also Googlecheckout which seems simple enough. However, your clients can only be from the US so if you're into international sales, it's no good. They might change this in the future, though.

Best regards,

Well, not exactly... As said on a Google Checkout's website,

Google Checkout is available to U.S. and U.K. merchants.

...

Buyers from many other countries outside the United States and United Kingdom can also sign up for the service and make purchases through Google Checkout.

http://checkout.google.com/support/s...&answer=134420

As for payment gateway, you could check Authorize.net . I believe only US citizens can create accounts with them , however their fees are rather low, the company is very popular in USA.

Do you plan to enhance the store functionality in the future and increase number of products?

I have to agree with CS-Cart, you have to list down all the requirements first and then after having all the information choose the right one that best fits for the store. Magento is definitely one of the best but quite expensive. I am a buyer myself and I have been checking out AlgoZone for shopping cart solutions. They offer shopping cart templates in different platforms. I just recently purchased one template from them and I must say they have the best customer support ever.

After looking into it, I'm thinking Google Checkout is the best option. I was under the impression that it was going to be more "work" for the customer to setup a google account to checkout but it looks very streamlined. This site will have probably $500-1000 sales a month max in the beginning. Less than 50 products offered.

CMS:
What options for CMSs. I was thinking just using Wordpress with the eCommerce plugin. This is a very small site and I don't need to put the time into it to use Magento. Any opinions on this?

for high risk or offshore merchant accounts you can use offshoremerchants.net

Originally Posted by eollis

What options for CMSs. I was thinking just using Wordpress with the eCommerce plugin. This is a very small site and I don't need to put the time into it to use Magento. Any opinions on this?

That really depends on what you need to make your online business work. A simple no-frills cart system may sound fine at first but what if in 6 months time you decided that you needed extras like upselling, discount code/coupons, customer accounts, multiple payment methods etc?

Plan what you need in terms of features not just now but try to envisage where you might be in 6,12,24 months time. Some preplanning could save you lots of hassle later on!

Originally Posted by blue-dreamer

That really depends on what you need to make your online business work. A simple no-frills cart system may sound fine at first but what if in 6 months time you decided that you needed extras like upselling, discount code/coupons, customer accounts, multiple payment methods etc?

Plan what you need in terms of features not just now but try to envisage where you might be in 6,12,24 months time. Some preplanning could save you lots of hassle later on!

This site is for someone else. They are looking for something really cheap and inexpensive right now and plan to have a larger site built in the future when they have the money. I'm essentially doing this site as a favor, not for the money, but I expect they will want something Magento based in a year or so.

To be honest, a year is a small time and it runs fast here in ecommerce Migrating to another system within a year will not turn out being that simple. I think most of us here will agree how better it is to pick the right solution from the start. Whatever you choose, this advice is the best I can give you.

Originally Posted by eollis

This site is for someone else. They are looking for something really cheap and inexpensive right now and plan to have a larger site built in the future when they have the money. I'm essentially doing this site as a favor, not for the money, but I expect they will want something Magento based in a year or so.

Cubecart is probably as easy as it gets if you just need a basic cart. The free version is fine but V4 has a lot more useful features if you can find $180.

Originally Posted by CS-Cart

To be honest, a year is a small time and it runs fast here in ecommerce Migrating to another system within a year will not turn out being that simple. I think most of us here will agree how better it is to pick the right solution from the start. Whatever you choose, this advice is the best I can give you.

Yes, I know. I explained that to the customer but they have about $250 to work with, which isn't much for the amount of work they want done.

Originally Posted by blue-dreamer

Cubecart is probably as easy as it gets if you just need a basic cart. The free version is fine but V4 has a lot more useful features if you can find $180.

Thats a little out of the practical price range...

Originally Posted by eollis

Yes, I know. I explained that to the customer but they have about $250 to work with, which isn't much for the amount of work they want done.

Yes, not much, to say the least In this case, I'd only advice some free solution to make a very slight modification within this budget - company details, logo, color scheme etc.

You may simply compare between solutions like ZenCart, Magento, CubeCart (v3), osCommerce, Prestashop etc - and pick the one you like. I regret to say that our distrubution is $15 off your budget, not counting your own work But even the amount of your own work fitting into this budget is obviously minimal. Still, I hope you'll get something bigger from them later.