Interestingly creating my first ecommerce site is what really got me interested in web design as more of a full time job. When I set out to create a ‘web shop’ for AS|ONE clothing over two years ago I knew what I was looking for, the hard part was finding something that was both manageable, easily integrated and most importantly affordable for a small business.

Here is a short list of what I was looking for in an ecommerce package:

Ease of Management - I need something that had a strong back end management system.
Inventory Control - Not to intensive but some inventory control was necessary.
Payment Integration - Ability to check out and accept payment easily.
Customization - I need it to look like my existing site.
Security - I wanted customers to feel safe when shopping.

It’s not the complete list but these are some of the features that I felt to be most important. I searched and searched, reading reviews and testimonials and finally I was able to decide on one solution. The solution that I decided to go with happened to be Cube Cart, which at the time was completely free and very well supported with a number of plugins, mods and a very active forum community. It is always important to me that there be a good number of people actively involved in creating a better product. No matter how technically savvy one might be there are always questions that arise and sometimes it is just a whole lot easier to search out an existing answer.

I downloaded the program, installed it to my server and began digging through the code. Boy was I overwhelmed, but between my brother and I and about a month of solid back and forth emails, phone calls and skype sessions we were able to creating the perfect solution. The original Cube Cart was now fully customized both in design and usability and my new eshop was ready to roll. As a payment option I decided to first test the waters by integrating my existing PayPal account as the payment processor of choice. Using my existing PayPal account I was able to limit the fees that would normally be charged by a full fledged merchant account and at the same time offer my customer full security. With PayPal my customer is able to browse the store, pick out an item and drop it into the cart. They are then asked to sign up for an account and when final payment is necessary they are momentarily redirected to PayPal to complete the transaction. No Credit or Banking info is stored on my server. When it is all said and done they are returned to my site and thanked for their purchase.

After almost two years of using Cube Cart I was alerted to the fact that they had made some serious upgrades and were offering the new and improved version for a very small fee. License expiration: none. That’s right it’s a one time fee. So I figure if it isn’t broke why try to fix it, and happily purchased the new copy.

Since my initial bout with creating an ecommerce site, my knowledge of both ecommerce and web design in general has increased ten fold. I have worked with a number of other solutions some pretty good and some that lead much to be desired. But in the end I still stand by my original provider and will continue to do so until I find that it is no longer useful. When you are on the search for a new ecommerce solution I highly recommend that you gain some knowledge on what is out there and find the one that best suits your needs. Many of the carts available today are very customizable and with the right knowledge you can easily be on your way to launching a fully functional online store.

Tags: cube cart, e-commerce, eCommerce, paypal