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See, this is what I don't understand. Building a shopping cart is like 15 minutes of work if I'm already building my own e-commerce site, isn't it? Are 3rd pa

See, this is what I don't understand. Building a shopping cart is like 15 minutes of work if I'm already building my own e-commerce site, isn't it? Are 3rd party shopping carts for non-programmers? I mean, as far as I can tell, it's literally just a session-associated table of items. What else is a shopping cart besides that? Why would I spend 2 days reading the "Zen cart" manual and API when I can finish my home brewed shopping cart in 15 minutes? Again, I'm not being a smart-ass, I really don't see what I'm missing. (thanks for your reply)

pg 16y ago
Robert Morris wrote Viaweb's shopping cart. He is a smart programmer, and he found it nontrivial. Years later he was still encountering bugs from weird combinations of user actions.
- staunch 16y ago
  Dell finds it nontrivial as well. I just used their shopping cart. At one point it wiped out the entire contents of my cart when I added an item from a different section.
jaspalsawhney 16y ago
You are right Karl but the shopping cart which you'll end up creating will be something which just serves the bare bone needs. Some of the other features of a shopping cart 1. Integration with a checkout system (Single page Vs Multi Page) - this is itself a demon in itself. 2. Bells and Whistles on the cart itself like tax & shipping cost estimator I guess when you say you can create a shopping cart in 15 mins you are not keeping in mind any checkout flow integration or estimators or much control with items in the cart e.g. changing sku options like color etc. There are some open source systems like Magento which can be looked at too.
WillyDmz 16y ago
Well, to expand on that, a lot of people don't just use the shopping cart, but all of the combined stuff like payment processing, the CMS for adding in products, user accounts, built-in APIs and many other features. I was involved with an ecommerce startup that built all of this from scratch to control everything legally and then sell it, and quite honestly, it is an absolutely incredible amount of work. Usually, it is easier to find software that's already been written to meet your needs unless you're trying to create a unique value proposition in some way. If you're building a standard e-commerce site, it might make sense to use some software package that's prebuilt with what you need. Either way, if you think you can do it in 15 minutes and want to build it, have fun with it and do it yourself.
- karlrossmann 16y ago
  ah, ok, this make sense. So, the ecommerce programmer would write all of the catalog stuff, then hand it over to a 3rd party shopping cart for payment, coupons, taxes and shipping, etc.? is that that non-trivial part?
  - netcan 16y ago
    - web based admin interface - Creating a browseable catalog - integration with various payment options - promotions, coupons, sales - shipping related features - CMS/website builder features There are a lot of features an simple online shop might want to use. Cart is used as a general term
rdouble 16y ago
If it's only 15 minutes of work, why would you bother asking the question at all?
- karlrossmann 16y ago
  Because I'm obviously missing something. What else is a shopping cart besides a session associated table?

pg 16y ago

Robert Morris wrote Viaweb's shopping cart. He is a smart programmer, and he found it nontrivial. Years later he was still encountering bugs from weird combinations of user actions.

staunch 16y ago
Dell finds it nontrivial as well. I just used their shopping cart. At one point it wiped out the entire contents of my cart when I added an item from a different section.

jaspalsawhney 16y ago

You are right Karl but the shopping cart which you'll end up creating will be something which just serves the bare bone needs. Some of the other features of a shopping cart 1. Integration with a checkout system (Single page Vs Multi Page) - this is itself a demon in itself. 2. Bells and Whistles on the cart itself like tax & shipping cost estimator I guess when you say you can create a shopping cart in 15 mins you are not keeping in mind any checkout flow integration or estimators or much control with items in the cart e.g. changing sku options like color etc. There are some open source systems like Magento which can be looked at too.

WillyDmz 16y ago

Well, to expand on that, a lot of people don't just use the shopping cart, but all of the combined stuff like payment processing, the CMS for adding in products, user accounts, built-in APIs and many other features. I was involved with an ecommerce startup that built all of this from scratch to control everything legally and then sell it, and quite honestly, it is an absolutely incredible amount of work. Usually, it is easier to find software that's already been written to meet your needs unless you're trying to create a unique value proposition in some way. If you're building a standard e-commerce site, it might make sense to use some software package that's prebuilt with what you need. Either way, if you think you can do it in 15 minutes and want to build it, have fun with it and do it yourself.

karlrossmann 16y ago
ah, ok, this make sense. So, the ecommerce programmer would write all of the catalog stuff, then hand it over to a 3rd party shopping cart for payment, coupons, taxes and shipping, etc.? is that that non-trivial part?
- netcan 16y ago
  - web based admin interface - Creating a browseable catalog - integration with various payment options - promotions, coupons, sales - shipping related features - CMS/website builder features There are a lot of features an simple online shop might want to use. Cart is used as a general term

rdouble 16y ago

If it's only 15 minutes of work, why would you bother asking the question at all?

karlrossmann 16y ago
Because I'm obviously missing something. What else is a shopping cart besides a session associated table?