Anyone with knowledge of installing a shopping cart on web site?

[dude_56013]

Well, I landed my first web design job for about $180. We agreed that it would be an informative website with about 30 pictures of her products, and if customers were interested they could call and order.

Well, I met with her today and she and her husband changed theirs minds. They now want to do a "cart" system, which I've never done before. I know little about them, but did explain to her that they cost money and that you have to purchase an SSL certificate.

Am I in over my head here guys? Is it THAT difficult to do? The host will likely be A Small Orange who runs CPanel so the SSL thing is no problem, but I've heard carts use PHP and MySQL and crap I've never heard of or learned...I only know HTML and a little CSS and can copy and paste JAVA when needed. Should I tell her that she needs to rethink her plans? I'd really love the $180 but my thing is customer service and doing a good job, and if I can't pull it off, I don't want to do it.

So I guess what I'm asking is, can I pull this off, and if so, can anyone link me to some good tutorials or walk me through it themselves? I know this is asking a lot...

The site that I found for a cart service so far is called Zen Cart...it seems pretty straight forward but who knows. I'll also need to find some place to get an SSL certificate...which I also have no idea how to acquire....I definitely think I'll need to up my price though because this will take time and effort that I didn't factor in to the original estimate.

Thank you all.

EDIT: Um...my God. These SSL certificates are like a thousand dollars...PER YEAR. Is that really true? That's the price on VeriSign for one of the more basic ones..

 

[Lowndsey]

I've got a fair bit of experience using Zen cart. It's a bit of a pain in the butt to first set your store when you have never used it before up but easy to maintain once it is running. I tried a few and Zen cart was my favourite of them all.

 

[dude_56013]

How much is it to purchase? And what's the deal with certificates, if you don't mind me asking. I know personally, I won't purchase from an unsecure site, and I'm sure others feel the same...

 

[Lowndsey]

Zen cart is free. As for SSL yes they are ridiculously expensive.

 

[tom-knox]

SSL is crazy expensive but entirely necessary. ZenCart is OS and there are loads of bolt on modules for it to add new features. Go for ZenCart

 

[PatrickSponge]

You should consider getting a PayPal Cart. They accept all major credit cards and of course PayPal. They even give you all the html code to add to your webpage.

Oh and it's free. (although they take a % of earned sales).

 

[tom-knox]

But ZenCart can handle all major CC plus paypal and it's free.

 

[freestyler105]

I did a similar thing for my uncle a while back. I just ended up using PayPal, much easier than setting up a full PHP shopping site.

 

[dude_56013]

That's the thing, freestyler, I can't do PHP. I have no idea how and have not the time to learn. I'll let her know about the paypal thing, but I don't think she'll want to be giving up her sales to give a % to paypal. Oh well...I guess we'll see what she says.

 

[Lowndsey]

You really should learn how to do it if you are going to be charging people money to build them sites.