Dropship e-com platform?

TheCrabb

TheCrabb

Banned
Oct 9, 2009
292
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South Africa
I used to make some pretty good money from drop shipping and I feel it's time for a revisit.

I used to build my own shopping carts from scratch using classic asp, but that's too much hassel now that there are so many free open source systems, zen cart, OS commerce, cube cart (and that's just from a cpanel account) etc.

So what is the best of the open source shopping carts? I just need the usual functionality without anything special. I also don't need massive scalability. I don't think I'll bother with anymore mega sites so I don't need to handle more than 20 or 30 products per site max.

I just want the quickest and easiest that is the most visually customizable of the free carts - before any wise asses tell me to just install and test, I'm trying to save some time and effort and that's why I'm asking here!
 


TheCrabb said:
I used to make some pretty good money from drop shipping and I feel it's time for a revisit.

I used to build my own shopping carts from scratch using classic asp, but that's too much hassel now that there are so many free open source systems, zen cart, OS commerce, cube cart (and that's just from a cpanel account) etc.

So what is the best of the open source shopping carts? I just need the usual functionality without anything special. I also don't need massive scalability. I don't think I'll bother with anymore mega sites so I don't need to handle more than 20 or 30 products per site max.

I just want the quickest and easiest that is the most visually customizable of the free carts - before any wise asses tell me to just install and test, I'm trying to save some time and effort and that's why I'm asking here!
Click to expand...
In my experience, OS commerce has worked best for me.
 
We had a custom shopping cart made and it worked fine but ever since we switched to Magento management became a lot easier.

Very customizable and pretty simple to figure out.
 
OK - so I decided to install and try a bunch of them. I'm still a long way from making a final descission, but so far I'm likeing Zen Cart.

Is there anything particulary bad about Zen Cart, any potholes to look out for on the road ahead if I stick with it? How does it compare to the others?
 
oscom or zencart work well. As far as automating the dropshipping, usually with most drop shippers they want the orders sent to them via email, so just put them as the email notifications for the orders then customize the email that gets sent to them in the module.

potholes of zencart: the templates are a mother fucker and the coolest of the open source plugins are mostly outdated and no longer work.

can you please quit asking design and dev questions in shooting the shit?
 
Thanks Deli - that's pretty much what I was thinking. Just wanted to make sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot by making the wrong choice to start with. Busy installing Majento and will test all 4 side by side before picking one to run with.

One more question... PayPal is finally available in South Africa as an option to receive payment. In the past I've had customers not buying because I didn't accept PayPal, but I've also heard from other that they lose a few customers because of PayPal.

A lot of people say the solution is to offer both PayPal and a regular merchant account payment option, but on some of my older sites I saw a bit of a drop in sales when I offered a choice of payment options.

So what is best - just my regular merchant account, paypal or both?

Come to think of it - I really don't expect anybody to give a sensible answer here, but I'm having trouble deciding which way to go.
 
Paypal is great until the day arrives that they freeze your account and all the money in it for no valid reason. After that, your screwed, and best case scenario you MIGHT get SOME of your money back after 6 months. Do a little research, tons of stories on the web. So many people have been screwed by paypal and there is no recourse, as they are not regulated like banks.


Go with a merchant account.
 
if you have the luxury of both, definitely use both. Also, and this is just my experience and opinions, split test the order of the payment options on the checkout page. My best cart drop rates came from this layout:
89475ecom.jpg


notice I put the highest converting payment option as the default and at the top and the rest below it to make sure i didn't loose customers who wanted to pay that way. The "Frame" as I call it (all the way around) is items that give the customer ease of mind. First and TOP-CENTER is the customer support number practically begging them to call it. To the MIDDLE-LEFT is a First Time Buyers Guide which quickly answers the common questions going through their heads such as "when will this arrive?" and "do they allow returns if it comes broken?" If you have a shitty policy on stuff like that don't leave it out but direct them to contact customer service. For instance, "If you have any problems with your order or it arrives damaged click here to contact customer support." I tuck the checkout button as close to the form as possible but still below all possible payment options. On all checkout buttons put a -> as if to indicate they have another step then don't have it on the final checkout button. Watch for carts to get dropped at certain stages, if you find a stage that lacks then change the wording on the button or remove the ->
BOTTOM-CENTER is the progress which says where they are at in the checkout phase. This is simply to let them know its not going to be a long process. Another ease of mind thing. Zend and oscommerce should come with one but I liked to subtract one from each. So instead of being a 4 stage process its only 3 or if its 5 make it only 4. The FINISHED phase shouldn't count because they don't have to do anything on it and its just another form they think they'll have to fill.

Oh and a big mistake most sites, even the big ones like newegg and amazon, make that drive me crazy: Don't push the login and return customer form. There's no point in making it all super prominent, the people using it are already sold on buying from you and know your site well enough to find it. Go seamlessly into the create new customer stage and always have the login form available. Return customers will jump right to it, and if you have one of those pages that gives them the option, Existing Customers and New Customers. Don't put the fuckin Existing Customers login form on top of the new customers. lol. It belongs on the side closest to the primary navigation and the new customers form needs to have the fields right there not click to access or hidden below the login form.
 
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+ rep - I've always used a very similair attitude but not that layout. I'll give it a go.

A lot of people forget that this is the MOST important part of any website. If potential customers don't hit the pay now/authorise payment button, the whole site fails and all your design, copy, seo, programming etc are pointless.

After I create a site, I work backwards from the final payment button and ask myself what can I add/do/say to force customers to click this button. Then I move to the previous step and repeat the process.. what can I add/do/say to force customers to complete the shipping info without bailing, etc etc

Follow this all the way back through the process all the way to your ad or search engine snippet or what ever and you're probably onto a winner.
 
Have you considered magento? I've done a few installs for clients and they seem to really enjoy it from the management side.
 
I'm trying magento... unzipped and stared uploading without checking the total file size. I'm on ADSL (uploads are shit load slower than downloads) I'll let you know when I'm finally finished the upload and I can actually see a base install!
 
magento was complete overkill for me. i didn't know where to start to customise it. just coded my own, keep it simple. this thread should be moved to the new e-commerce section
 
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