Shopping cart software with templates & recurring billing?

OU812 · 11-03-2015 8:39am #1

Looking into trying a subscription based online store. Have a product that I want to offer on a subscription basis.

Customers will take out a sub at three months at a time with automatic recurring billing.

I need them to be able to add a number of items which are a free add on to their order thereby customising it.

I've tried zen cart, but the admin interface is horrible and changing templates seems like a complete nightmare.

Don't need enterprise level stuff.

Anything else out there that's easy to configure and not too expensive?

Fionn101 · 11-03-2015 9:47am

Magento comes free with shared hosting from Blacknight, it's industry standard and pci compliant. although it's been a year or two since I've worked with it the template handling was very easy with a large community of devs and users.
Hope this helps

AndyJB · 11-03-2015 10:56am

OU812 wrote: »

Looking into trying a subscription based online store. Have a product that I want to offer on a subscription basis.

Customers will take out a sub at three months at a time with automatic recurring billing.

I need them to be able to add a number of items which are a free add on to their order thereby customising it.

I've tried zen cart, but the admin interface is horrible and changing templates seems like a complete nightmare.

Don't need enterprise level stuff.

Anything else out there that's easy to configure and not too expensive?

Hi,
I've used ZenCart and OpenCart and in my opinion OpenCart seems more user friendly. The standard template is quite good / useable.

Bare in mind that with all e-carts you'll need your own images etc for logos and products. Whatever you use you'll need to do some housekeeping to set these up.

All of the ecarts available have a good supply of templates that can be purchased at very reasonable prices. If you go down this route be sure to match the template with the version of whatever cart you may end up using.

One great thing I've found with OpenCart is the ability to set up multiple stores using the one installation. I'm sure ZenCart and others have same but never used/found it.

Best of luck.

OU812 · 11-03-2015 1:32pm

Thanks guys. Should have mentioned, I already have a paypal account capable of taking subscription payments, so there should be no real issue in doing the subscriptions. That would be the only payment method I'd use for now

Trojan · 11-03-2015 1:40pm

Membership site software might work for you too, worth investigation.

Buttercake · 11-03-2015 3:23pm

Paypal do subscription billing

Purchase product as normal, payment processed as subscription billing instead of checkout?, need a paypal account tho'

OU812 · 11-03-2015 4:11pm

Actually do have a paypal business account that allows subscription, so looking at that option too.

devildriver · 11-03-2015 6:12pm

OU812 wrote: »

Looking into trying a subscription based online store. Have a product that I want to offer on a subscription basis.

Customers will take out a sub at three months at a time with automatic recurring billing.

I need them to be able to add a number of items which are a free add on to their order thereby customising it.

I've tried zen cart, but the admin interface is horrible and changing templates seems like a complete nightmare.

Don't need enterprise level stuff.

Anything else out there that's easy to configure and not too expensive?

Is this is a digital or physical product?

Yes Paypal does have a feature for recurring payments or subscriptions but do you want your customers managing their subscriptions in Paypal or via your website?

OU812 · 11-03-2015 6:58pm

Physical product. The payment is going to be through paypal (takes too long & is too hard to get a merchant account).

devildriver · 11-03-2015 9:30pm

OU812 wrote: »

Physical product. The payment is going to be through paypal (takes too long & is too hard to get a merchant account).

Yes I know, but do you really want your customer's managing their subscription solely through the Paypal interface after they have made the initial purchase?

OU812 · 11-03-2015 10:16pm

I think legally you have to give them a way of opting out anyway, so we were looking at billing quarterly.

Graham · 17-03-2015 6:18pm

I came across a product I haven't seen before and thought of this thread:

http://cratejoy.com they describe it as an all in one subscription commerce platform.

Cianos · 21-03-2015 12:26am

Graham wrote: »

I came across a product I haven't seen before and thought of this thread:

http://cratejoy.com they describe it as an all in one subscription commerce platform.

Looked like it could be good, but alas it works out as being very expensive;

DO I PAY STRIPE FEES AND CRATEJOY FEES?

Yes, you will pay the Stripe transaction fees as well as the fees to use the Cratejoy platform. For any transaction, Stripe will collect its transaction fees as well as Cratejoy transaction fees and transaction charges. You will also be billed on the last day of the month for Cratejoy base fees.

Graham · 21-03-2015 1:15am

Cianos wrote: »

Looked like it could be good, but alas it works out as being very expensive;

Depends on the fees and the costs of the alternatives.

No upfront costs is fairly compelling to test a market (I'm assuming there's no upfront costs).

EIREX · 21-03-2015 2:42pm

Pretty sure Stripe now facilitate recurring billing too

bdo · 23-03-2015 10:17pm

I thoughtt Stripe was turning out to be cheaper than Paypal for a limited number of transactions?

Axwell · 24-03-2015 12:56pm

Mod Edit: Not an entrepreneur and business related thread. Moving to relevant forum.

Shopping cart software with templates & recurring billing?

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