- Freemerchant starts at $10/month, has good flexibility in setup, uses templates to create your catalog on their site.
- Mal's Ecommerce is free, uses your site with links that pass product information to the shopping cart on Mal's site. No database required, very flexible, fast and easy.
- Americart also uses simple forms solution to the shopping cart, much like Mal's, but for $250/yr. Free services include forms processing, message boards, product search.
- 1shoppingcart is a flexible cart solution using your own site. Each item is entered in their database. For $200/yr it also includes auto-responders, customer mailing lists, ad tracking and related features.
- Yahoo Store's cart is created online; fast and easy to use; was PC Mag choice. Costs $40/month and up
- Vcart is $250/year. Easy to set up, uses your own site with links to the shopping cart on their site.
- EasyStoreCreatoris $15/month (limited version is free or free with use of their payment gateway) and allows flexible setup.
- Linkpointcart
- Many website hosts bundle shopping cart services with their web packages; consider that in evaluating hosting solutions.
No Software Installation - Uses Online Services w/hosting
- Agoracart is an open source free CGI cart with support forums, add-ons and community support.
- Nebucart is a low cost ($35) javascript solution which should be easy to install.
- Minicart runs on NT servers. ($1500)
- PerlShop (unix only) and RediCart (any server w/perl5) are similar solutions; free Perl scripts, look easy to implement w/good instructions, no database, uses html code for each product.
- DCShop is a Perl script still in beta and free. It can be either html or database oriented.
- OSCommerce is free, open source - PHP, MYSQL required.
- Hazel is a CGI written in C with Perl modules; $200 for up to 100 products and $500 for unlimited use.
- Dansie Cart is very flexible and has been highly recommended.
- WebStore is a PERL package, costs $300, uses a DB model, hard to tell its ease of use.
- Miva uses an XML based scripting language to construct a storefront/catalog/processing system.
- Pay2See is a product used to sell and deliver any downloadable or emailable electronic product.
- Digibuy is a turnkey system for merchandising and distributing digital products online.
- Ranson has a free script that takes credit card numbers securely, checks to see if it is valid and emails you the number. Also allows setup of database-less order form to tie in and UltraCart for $900.
- Zencart has gotten great reviews - free, easy to configure - they host a forum that compares carts.
Software Solutions
- Taming the Beast has a shopping cart overview but its best shopping carts feature is incomplete.
- Poor Richard also has comprehensive lists of products/services and two fine articles (see especially the second).
- OnlineOrders has a great listing divided into free and commercial categories.
- See webmonkey for different online payment systems.
- The Netpreneur's FAQ on this subject. (you must be registered [free])
- And read Usableweb's articles about ecommerce philosophy, design, dos and donts, tips ...
- The Internet Marketing Center reviews 7 shopping carts and discusses factors (beware popup windows).
- Escrow-Ca serves as a third party to monitor transactions, hold funds ...
- And, while on the subject, here is an article on methods of being paid on the web,
