How to integrate e-commerce or shopping cart into website without using a template?

php open-source e-commerce shopping-cart store
Yofat picture Yofat · Apr 17, 2011 · Viewed 11.3k times · Source

An associate of mine wants me to add simple e-commerce functionality into their website. I have researched the possible solutions to this project for some time now and everything I have seen, including Magnento/osCommerce/BigCommerce/zendcart/etc., all seem to be storefronts and templates you have to style to look like your website.

I do not wish to use the storefronts or templates which may or may not become difficult to style using CSS. I'm looking for some open source PHP solutions I can add into already existing website pages for instance My Bag, Add to Cart, etc; I don't necessarily need fancier functions such as coupon redeeming and tax calculators especially if I can extend a current platform on my own.

Is there any shopping cart solution I can use which will not force me into an entirely new template I'd have to further style?

Answer

Brent Friar picture Brent Friar · Apr 17, 2011

E-commerce is a lot more complicated than you think. Even something as simple as a persistent shopping cart that allows your user to add a bunch of items takes a fairly significant amount of code. Then there is the whole checkout process and order tracking/fulfilment thing as well. Any true shopping cart is going to include shipping options, payment options, a cart of some sort, a check out process, order generation, etc. If you just want to sell a couple products then just use Paypal or Google Checkout.

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