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I know nothing about web design, html, etc. and I have no time to learn. I have a domain name, a host(bluehost), and I tried adding zencart but I could not figure out how to do anything with it. Is there another cart that would be easier for a newbie? Also, what do you think it would cost to hire someone to create my store? I'm stuck as to what direction I should go. I wasted alot of time trying to figure out what to do with zencart and I finally just deleted it from my site. Perhaps I should have gone with volution. Any advice? I want to create a simple store and add to it later. I will offer custom apparel and gifts, some stock designs, and also some licensed college/team merchandise.
I know nothing about web design, html, etc. and I have no time to learn. I have a domain name, a host(bluehost), and I tried adding zencart but I could not figure out how to do anything with it. Is there another cart that would be easier for a newbie? Also, what do you think it would cost to hire someone to create my store? I'm stuck as to what direction I should go. I wasted alot of time trying to figure out what to do with zencart and I finally just deleted it from my site. Perhaps I should have gone with volution. Any advice? I want to create a simple store and add to it later. I will offer custom apparel and gifts, some stock designs, and also some licensed college/team merchandise.
Thanks for your advice.
As for the "how much" question, it varies alot. You can search this section of the forum (or just browse through a couple of pages of topics) for lots of threads about the possible costs of hiring a web designer:
It will depend on the cart, the designer, how many products, how much they do for you.
It's like someone asking how much do t-shirt cost There's lots of factors that go into it.
Since you started with Zen Cart, why not check around the Zen Cart forums to see if you can get pricing from a few of the Zen Cart gurus who offer there services there (tip: see who is the most helpful and look at their signatures). That will give you the best idea of pricing.
If you decide to change your host, I would also recommend IX webhosting. If I ever had any questions, the support was quick to respond. Oscommerce comes with the hosting service.
As far as the cost, I'm not too sure. My web designer did more than the online store. Oscommerce was easy to configure since it already came with the host. Good luck.
I have a down in the pit of my stomach feeling that OScommerce is dying off. It was just built on old technology and hasn't been ported to anything current. However, there is a huge community out there to support it, with tons of add-ons.
I have a down in the pit of my stomach feeling that OScommerce is dying off. It was just built on old technology and hasn't been ported to anything current. However, there is a huge community out there to support it, with tons of add-ons.
Zencart is based on oscommerce code and it's not dyig off by any means. Why do you say this?
There are indeed a couple of other open-source solutions based on OScommerce. CRE Loaded and Zen Cart, like you mentioned are two of the more popular ones. My biggest complaint is that it is entirely built on tables, so code is scattered everywhere, and it makes it harder to customize if you need to. Also there is no built in templating system like in other shopping carts. The reason I say it is dying is there are other carts rapidly approching (Magneto) that I think the OScommerce community will soon jump aboard, if OSC doesn't soon release version 3, or atleast get some firm timeline together.
If you're a vendor, I'd say go with Pikiware (but I must disclose that I'm one of their clients, so therefore naturally biased), but you can always try out Zazzle/Cafe Press. If you're not comformtable doing it yourself, once you have picked a service, like the ones I mentioned, have a designer go in an maniuplate the template for you, that way you can save on overall cost and don't have to develop custom HTML.
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If your looking for a high end solution go with x-cart, I have a bunch of clients using it and they all love it, yes it's not free, but it works very well. As for customizing any cart, you need to have a little coding skill in order to get what you want. The only way around this is to write all the code yourself if needed.
How much to hire a web designer 
