Best shopping carts?

[jaguide]

We are building a site for a sports complex and want to sell sports related goods through it. It seems like the options are build, buy, or "lease". Many hosting packages have ecommerce options that seem reasonable such as "monstercommerce", but am hearing good things about "Miva". Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[ArcoJedi]

Hey jaguide,

The fact that MonsterCommerce was mentioned in your post caught my eye. I'm horribly biased but I hope that I can help. You see, I work at MC. But if I can try and shirk off some of my bias for a moment...

Our solution is pretty sweet IMO. We design for the small-to-medium business owner in mind. The cart is customizable using your own HTML or you can use the built-in automatically generated menus. Our latest version has 24 pre-built templates. Our basic packages come with the important basics, such as SSL security and catalog generation and simple newsletter management. We are a one-stop-shop for all ecommerce needs - Merchant Accounts, Domain Names, Design, Promotion, you name it. Most importantly, we offer 24 hour a day technical support with all plans.

I don't know that much about Miva, but my understanding is that they are more of the purchase and then go away sort of software. I don't think they offer free support and hosting is not included (but I could be wrong).

My personal recommendation was always to look for a solution that you could 'lease' and then drop if it didn't work out. If you buy something outright, you lose out if the support is not there. Building something from scratch gives you the benefit of getting every detail exactly how you like it, but this can be very expensive for the development time. We have a package that works right "out-of-the-box" so to speak.

We have ~5000 clients, with quite a few selling sports related product. Try out -
http://www.scorehere.com
http://www.scorestix.com
- just for starters.

I'm not in sales so this is not a 'scripted' kind of thing. I started in tech support 2 years ago and now work in client service. Whereas I know that no one system is perfect, I really do urge you to check out our options as well as our shopping directory - http://www.monstermarketplace.com - open to all our clients - Thanks!

[Lightfoot82]

Dont Know bout How every1 else feels but I actually really like the Actinic Cart Program - the only thing I find is that it could do with a bit more customization for the Avid Programmer - But especially if you dont like programming i recommend it.

Hope this Helps a little.