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An Alternative E-Commerce Shopping Cart Solution: E-Junkie?

May 14th, 2007 by Joshua Dorkin | Filed under Making Money Online, Website Tools, eCommerce.

While I’ve already begun to set up my e-commerce website (not even close to being complete, BTW) using OSCommerce, I’m still not 100% convinced that I’ve made the right decision. One of my ecommerce mentors Dave Pitlyuk (he doesn’t even know it yet) has suggested that I use ZenCart instead, but that has made the indecision even worse here. With that in mind, I continue looking for quality ecommerce shopping cart solutions while SLOWLY building the framework of my shopping site.

Introducing E-Junkie “Fat-Free” Shopping Cart

e-junkie shopping cartI don’t actually know much about E-Junkie other than what I’ve seen on their site and a few other resources, but their technology looks very promising. Essentially, you can add their shopping cart to any site, including blogs, myspace, etc. Their service provides a pop-up-like cart that is not really a pop-up, which integrates with Paypal and Google checkout. It looks like it is really easy to use and it could make setting up an ecommerce site quite simple. In fact, it seems like it only takes minutes to get things up and running, and to be honest, I am quite tempted to really try it out.

The problem for me is, however, that I haven’t heard very much about the company. In addition, I cannot find any real contact information on the website. Seems like a company offering this kind of service would go out of their way to publicize a phone number or real address. I guess I’d like to see a few more websites using their shopping cart solution.

If anyone out there knows anything about E-Junkie, please let me know. I’ll add any resources regarding the company to this page in an effort to inform other out there who are curious. Here are a few that I’ve been able to scrounge up:

E-Junkie Articles and Reviews

E-Junkie in Action: Some sites Using the Cart

Again, please let me know if you have anything to say about this company, good or bad. Thanks!

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26 Responses to “An Alternative E-Commerce Shopping Cart Solution: E-Junkie?”

  1. Dave | 14/05/07

    I guess I called back a little late tonight, we can chat tomorrow after 6:30 or so if you’d like. This actually looks very promising! I’m going to look further into it, see if it can do a lot of the things I’m looking for.

    Will be doing more research tomorrow and we can talk about my thoughts. My first impression is that for something simple like what you are selling, it would be perfect…but again, I need to delve a bit further.

  2. Joshua Dorkin | 14/05/07

    No problem! Good catching you for a few tonight . . . we’ll chat tomorrow!

  3. Patrick McKenzie | 14/05/07

    >>
    Again, please let me know if you have anything to say about this company, good or bad.
    >>

    They have the best customer service of any software company I’ve ever encountered. Emails get answered promptly and technical fixes happen in timeframes I can scarcely conceive of at my day job — for example, my email to them about a usability bug with an edge case in their shopping cart (which had persisted, unbeknownst to me, for months until I did some thinking about what Analytics was telling me) got a hotfix applied by the end of the weekend after having been written on a Friday.

    I pay $5 a month and if they charged $50 I wouldn’t complain. Well, much, anyhow :)

  4. Chris (SmallBizBlog) | 15/05/07

    Hi Joshua,

    I know your post is about E-Junkie, but I feel like I should just write a bit in defence of osCommerce. Don’t worry I don’t feel personally obliged to defend its cause, however I’ve used it quite a lot and one major thing I like about it is its expandability / adaptability. As you probably know there are thousands of free add-on contributions that will frequently get the job done. With templating systems like STS templates and contribs like Purchase Without Account, these help in the customisation and with making osC a bit ‘lighter’.

    Anyway, keep us updated what you decide,
    Chris.

  5. Joshua Dorkin | 15/05/07

    Hey Patrick! For some reason, I knew you’d be coming to share your views with us. Thanks. I see from your blog that you’re a serious fan of the technology.

    Chris – I have started to set up with OSCommerce, but I have to say that they have not made it easy at all to customize, template, or add contributions. It seems like they built a platform that would make it as tedious as possible to make any changes. I’ve been building websites for a long time now, and OSCommerce is by far the most difficult open source application I’ve ever modified.

    Anyone else with thoughts on E-Junkie?

  6. Anthony Baggett | 15/05/07

    I don’t have any thoughts on E-Junkie, except to say I’ve never heard of it before. It looks very promising. I’ll look forward to seeing how it works out. I agree about the complexity of OSC. I know it’s a excellent and popular cart, but a little “overwhelming”.

  7. Joshua Dorkin | 15/05/07

    Anthony – If you end up playing around with it, please share with us what your thoughts are.

  8. Robin | 15/05/07

    Hey Josh,

    Thanks for the post! I just wanted to mention that we do publish our email and phone number on our contact page.

    Best,
    Robin

  9. Joshua Dorkin | 15/05/07

    Robin –
    Interesting . . . I must have missed th phone number. Whoops. That does actually make me feel better. Do you know of any sites other than those mentioned on your site that use your cart? In particular, I’m interested in seeing any that may use your cart for products that need to be shipped.

    Please, let me know.

    Thanks . . .

  10. Robin | 15/05/07

    Sure .. here are a few:

    http://www.hamptonshoney.com/ (tangible)
    http://www.repeaterstore.com/ (tangible)
    http://www.sweetnheat.com/ (tangible)
    http://www.printgreener.com/ (digital + tangible, accepts CC with Authorize.Net)
    http://www.chicknits.com/ (digital, accepts CC with Authorize.Net)

  11. Joshua Dorkin | 15/05/07

    Thanks for the list . . . I’ll be posting soon about my conversations and thoughts.

  12.   The E-Junkie Shopping Cart: Testimonials & Preliminary Thoughs by TimeForBlogging | 16/05/07

    [...] other day I introduced a new shopping cart to you called E-Junkie. Since then, I’ve spoken to a few people who use the site and wanted [...]

  13. Andy | 25/06/07

    Looking at E-junkie it appears to be easier to mod than OScommerce…but the $5 a month is for just 10 products… so if you’re creating a site which has several hundred products your monthly cost will increase significantly.
    250 prods is $40…
    so just make sure you factor this in…as i was quite excited until i got to the pricing structure !!

    Good luck if you end up using it tho.

  14. Robin | 25/06/07

    If you are _just_ selling tangible items, then you can get 4 times the product limit you usually get. So for 250 products, you will just need a $18 account.

  15. kalpesh | 30/07/07

    I have never heard about ejinkie but am bit cautious to try new websites, I would rather prefer wait and watch mode.

  16. Robin | 31/07/07

    E-junkie’s been around since 2004. I guess couple more years and you will be convinced :)

  17. oscommerce | 13/08/07

    been developing for oscommerce for years, but will download a copy of ejunkie to give it a test spin this weekend and see how it feels. sounds interesting for sure.

  18. Robin | 13/08/07

    E-junkie is a hosted shopping cart solution… nothing to download .. just registration.

    Btw.. if you need a free one, check out http://www.fatfreecart.com/ … you don’t even have to register there

  19. Ecom Packages | 19/12/07

    Ecom Packages has setup an ecommerce sample shop to demonstrate just how powerful the shopping features built into Ecom Packages are. What you’ll experience is exactly what you will get from Ecom Packages! Ecom Packages Ecommerce Software is configured and ready within 48 hours of purchase! The Ecom Packages ecommerce shopping cart software is one of the most advanced and powerful ecommerce packages. Ecom Packages is now offering this AMAZING ecommerce package starting at only $19.95 per month. This is an ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE deal for Small to medium size businesses wanting to get their products online or anyone wanting to start a new online business.
    http://ecompackages.com“

  20. Ecom Packages | 10/01/08

    Ecom Packages has setup an ecommerce sample shop to demonstrate just how powerful the shopping features built into Ecom Packages are. What you’ll experience is exactly what you will get from Ecom Packages! Ecom Packages Ecommerce Software is configured and ready within 48 hours of purchase! The Ecom Packages ecommerce shopping cart software is one of the most advanced and powerful ecommerce packages. Ecom Packages is now offering this AMAZING ecommerce package starting at only $19.95 per month. This is an ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE deal for Small to medium size businesses wanting to get their products online or anyone wanting to start a new online business.
    http://www.ecompackages.com“

  21. Seguro de credito | 16/02/08

    The bes choise is x-cart

  22. Manhattan Web Designer | 17/07/08

    I have used OScommerce, ZenCart, CreLoaded, SunShop, yahoo shopping and some ASP (Active Server Pages) shopping carts.

    My favorite in terms of functionality…Sunshop.

    In terms of flexibility …OsCommerce.

    In my opinion, sticking with OsCommerce seems to suffice for most businesses.

    vj

  23. Guru Assassin | 26/01/09

    I have tried some eshops and I think the best of them for sure is ZenCart. It is a very alive proyect and there are a lot of people working in it so you can find lots of plugins.

  24. Alanna | 31/03/09

    I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

    Alanna

    http://www.craigslistguide.info

  25. Mary Ann | 13/04/09

    Running an e-commerce website takes a lot of time and effort to get going, but if you have the right e-commerce web hosting provider, you can be assured that you can track your sales and your profits and provide a valuable service to your customers.

  26. Website Packages - Barry Mitchell | 20/07/09

    AS a website designer who offers Ecommerce websites, I love to use the Oscommerce system simply because it is dead easy to install and customise to my clients needs. Also the support via the Oscommerce forum is great simply because there are so many people using and customising it as i type!!

    I would recommend oscommerce to any one needing a simple to use shopping cart

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