[jberry]

Hi all....

I'm not the most technical person, but I am responsible for managing my company's Web sites. I'm fine with minor text changes and SEO functions, but get lost when it comes to more technical work.

We're wanting to find an inexpensive solution for adding a shopping cart to an existing Web page, which I update using FrontPage. Do you have any software suggestions that I can add in myself? Also, is a database needed, or can we just use the shopping cart to create order forms to send to our sales reps? As you can tell, my knowledge in this area is VERY limited.

Thanks for your help.

[pgo]

eCommerce can also be expensive. There are free, open-source ecommerce systems available - I'm thinking mainly of osCommerce and Zencart. Those are free.

What's not free is that you'll most likely want to get an SSL certificate. The cost/availability of that depends on your host.

Then there's the financial transactions. Usually for those you have to have some form of credit card payment portal and those are fairly expensive - in the neighborhood of $100/month.

I guess it all comes down to how much you're expecting to make by selling online vs. the cost of selling online.

You could create a form that simply submits something to your sales staff, but a lot of people are going to expect that when they buy something online, that it's secure.

eCommerce done right is a complex beast. I know I've never done it and wouldn't want to - not until I know more anyway. You might consider hiring an outside consultant.

[jberry]

Thanks for the info...I've heard that it can be expensive even if the software program is not. When I started looking into it today, I started reading about the databases and my head started to spin!!

Maybe we'll just put together an online form in the meantime, although I do agree that security may be a risk.