Question
I have been playing around with my website now for a couple of weeks, trying to learn html. I am using html-kit and a book on html and have managed to get up a simple website with links, buttons, graphics etc.
It looks fine (at least for me), but I still have no actual products up and can't figure out how I want to implement that part of it. I am not sure how I want to display the products and how to have customers order them.
For now, I do not have a system in place to accept online payments and do not want to hook up with a "payment gateway" or other merchant type account until I can justify the cost. I would like to have a simple shopping cart system that would just alert me when a customer places an order and I would then manually arrange payment/shipping. I know this sounds lame but I mainly just want to get something functional up for now. I do want it to be a bit more than just asking customers to email me their order. I guess I am trying to straddle the line between a professional/unprofessional looking website.
I looked at x-cart but it seems like way more than I want right now and I am just limping along with html, so I don't get the php stuff yet. I have read the x-cart website and the FAQs but their answers assume a level of knowledge that right now is beyond me.
Is is possible to make my own shopping cart in html? I don't want a shopping cart that is dependent on 3rd party servicing. Can I use a professional shopping cart set up like x-cart but for now without a payment gateway?
I am stuck for any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Answer
Here's the one I use - and it's FREE!
Just add the HTML to your (page) item, and BINGO!
http://www.mals-e.com/
Works for PayPal, Money Orders, Personal Checks and/or a credit card processor - just one or ALL!. I use ProPay (http://www.propay.com/) to process my Visa/MasterCard payments. Discover processing is also available for a nominal charge.
Feel free to email with any questions or "how to's" you need. I'll be happy to assist!
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Thank you SO much. I'll give it a look and see if I can figure it out.
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Great advice!!!! Simple websites work real well with the search engines. Some of the tricks will get you zero results on search engines. I built a friend a website using html and it now outranks my fancy frontpage site. So I know it works.
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The Mals-e shopping cart was pretty easy to set up. I have it all functional now and was able to customize the shopping cart with my logo and my own buttons and colors so it pretty much matches my website. I tried a few dummy orders and the email alerts work great too.
I'll have to depend on the 3rd party for the processing of the cart but I am ok with that. Mainly, I just didn't want "pieces" of me all over the place. I thought of trying to make my own form and deal with the CGI (hey, I am picking up the lingo) but I decided not to re-event the wheel yet.
Thanks for the referral Kathleen. And thanks to Cobaltlady for the encouragement.
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I'm happy it worked out for you!
BEST WISHES for a VERY successful site!
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Thats great that you got it to work. Now when you need more hints on other things such as search engine placement or pay per click you know where to come for advice.