First eComerce page, ZenCart or OpenCart?

[Choppie]

Have a few clients looking to setup a small online store selling maybe 15 different items, keeping it simple, small. This is my first time setting this up. I've set up a small store using the WIX web hosting and it worked awesome for what I needed at the time; had a week to get it up and running with almost ZERO experience at it. This time, its a beekeeping supplies page. I still know very little on building this out and have been reading months on this, my question is, what are the pros and cons of ZenCart and OpenCart, and which one would be best for this. Still looking for templates that would work for a beekeeping online store. I haven't been too fond of wordpress pages because I like a bit more control. Thanks...

 

[NJW]

This time, its a beekeeping supplies page. I still know very little on building this out and have been reading months on this, my question is, what are the pros and cons of ZenCart and OpenCart, and which one would be best for this. Still looking for templates that would work for a beekeeping online store.

I would say that either will do what you want. ZenCart used to be a bit weird (in my eyes) with its hierarchical file structure, but that was on an older version that I supported for a while.

By far the best approach is to set up a local webserver (a real LAMP stack would be best, such as Turnkey Linux LAMP in VirtualBox; XAMPP at a push) and try them out. One will probably float to the top as 'best for you'. Familiarity will be beneficial.

A VirtualBox test bed has the huge advantage of snapshots, so grave errors are easily reversed.

 

[Bryce W]

Theres lot of other variables not mentioned here so we cant decide. But I'd throw Shopify into the mix as well.
There is SOOOOO much more to eCommerce than just setting up some cart software. Most of them do the basic stuff, create categories, add products, templates, various gatways etc..

But then you get into the nitty gritty..

How are shipping rates calcuated?

How are taxes handled? How are they handled per country? (like sending this type of product from country A to country B carries a tax, whereas the product from country A to country C doesnt have a tax).

How are orders fullfilled?

How does it work on mobile?

Who handles software updates? Whos going to handle these little technical things? You or the customer?

As someone in this space, I like "appliancized" things. I get busy like everyone else and the less I have to think about the better. Because that allows me to focus on the big things that make me money, rather than messing around with an opensource/free software. Id rather pay the monthly fee to Shopify and have all those things be their problem, than mine.

Have a listen to this if you want to learn a bit more about this mindset and why *I* would choose something like Shopify.

 

[Choppie]

WOW, both answers are extremely helpful, thank you! Of course since I posted the question, and now, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on regarding all the different self hosted and cloud ecommerce options, Shopify has jumped pretty close to the top of my list. This guy selling beekeeping supplies, would only ship within the US as other suppliers in other countries would be local and more cost effective regarding shipping. Beekeeping supplies are all pretty standard. I have dropped the Zen Cart and others as they looked to be a bit more than what I want to tackle on a "first time at this" go at it. For a long time I have been avoiding Wordpress because the lack of ability to customize the website however, with all the templates now available, including plugings like woocommerce, AND the really really good tutorials on youtube (start to finish) install and setup, I'm actually giving this a really close consideration as well now. Bryce, I will give a listen to your link above, greatly appreciated. I do want to get more acclimated to setting up online stores, so I will have to jump in somewhere. I want to get away from servicing retired folks who really want to use computers, but no longer remember things--my blood pressure can't survive it... This may be my only OUT...