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Can someone recommend a good free shopping cart database software package?
Thanks Russ

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A short, practical add-on to the thread for and others evaluating free shopping‑cart/database packages: the single biggest gap in the original question is requirements. Before chasing packages, clarify hosting and business needs so choices match reality.

Important clarifying points to decide first:

  • hosting platform (Linux vs Windows), PHP/.NET preference, and available sysadmin access
  • expected catalog size and traffic (hundreds vs hundreds of thousands of SKUs/orders)
  • required payment gateways, tax rules, shipping carriers, and multi‑currency needs
  • whether inventory, digital products, subscriptions, or POS integration are needed

What to test before committing to any free solution: install in a local or staging environment, run a full checkout (successful and failed payments), import/export sample catalogs, perform backup and restore, and check that updates and migrations are documented. Verify license terms and that the project has active maintenance or a healthy community — abandoned projects look free today and costly to maintain later.

Database and architecture checklist (practical things often missed): expect separate tables for products, product_variants/SKUs, inventory, customers, addresses, orders, order_items, payments, and shipping_events. Ensure transactional integrity around order+payment writes, reasonable indexes on SKU/customer/order_date, parameterized queries or ORM use to avoid SQL injection, and an audit log for payments and status changes. Plan backups, schema migrations, and an easy export format for full order history.

Operational cautions and next steps: starter kits and hosting add‑ons (as mentioned earlier in the thread by and ) speed deployment but still require a maintenance plan. Shortlist 2–3 candidates, run a focused proof‑of‑concept in staging (including refunds and chargebacks), and choose the one that best balances security, maintainability, and license fit rather than feature count alone.

Member Avatar for ricksvoid

yes. Its called dash commerce and it is part of several open source pre-made solutions known as starter kits. I have just discovered it and was blown away to find all of the files there in visual studio along with two databases in the app folder. I guess microsoft fighting to stay competitive by finally offering some open source. a real time saver this should be. Just make shure you know enough asp.net and CSS to costomize it for your perticular needs. If not then maybe i can develope it for you for a modest fee.

Rick Pace

Member Avatar for ricksvoid

Im a recent grad working on my first paid project as an aspiring freelance .net developer. I have no idea what to charge for the project description below:

Client needs a web app to manage sales leads. Sales reps, managers, and call center will all be able to insert a sales lead (name, address, phone number ect ect) into sql database table.
Only the manager will be able to access these records via a GridView of last names arranged alphabeticaly. Once the manager clicks on a name, the details are then presented in a
FormView control. Manager can then assign a rep to each perticular lead.
When a rep logs in he will only see his leads arranged in the same way "Master/details". He will also be able to update comments unto the nature and state of the lead eg..sold,killed,next month.
Manager will also have the abillity to delete and create new reps and assign them passwords..

Ive got it all figured out, I just need to know what i could/should charge for this project. Please no hour/rate equations. This wont work for me as i am a recent grad and this will take me twice as long to develop as would a seasoned professional. I am interested in knowing what the final damage should be. I apreciate any feedback.

Edited by ricksvoid because: n/a
Member Avatar for ayni

I think free, open source shopping carts are good, but if you need something more professional, or with support, you might want to check out a company like host gator that, from your Cpanel can access special offer pricing on premium e-commerce web hosting shopping cart software.

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