Based on some of My previous post some of My readers may think that I only push Open Cart as a solution for selling online. Well in my opinion for a large scale web store with more than say 25 items it is perfect for what you pay for (it's FREE ). However I do realize that some people who sell online do not need a full blow shopping cart like Open Cart for a web store as they may just be selling one item or maybe a few items. They may also don't want to be bothered with installing a php application like Open Cart on their web server or they are not tech savvy enough to install that type of shopping cart. However they want something more than just the bare bones basic copy and paste buttons offered by Paypal or Google Checkout. If you fall in to any of the categories above then Fat Free Cart is the answer to your prayers.The good folks over at Techcrunch describe it as "a simple,free cut & paste solution" and that is exactly what Fat Free Cart is. If you have a site like a simple five page website where you sell one item like a work out plan or an ebook this solution will work perfectly for you. With Fat Free Cart you can accept payments using both Paypal and Google Checkout something much more complicated shopping carts don't offer. Well lets get down to the engine and show you how t
his bad boy works. Now before you start please note you must have accounts with Paypal and Google Checkout or either or but why short change your sales ? just sign up for both. Next open up a new tab in your browser and go to Fat FREE Cart's site http://www.fatfreecart.com click on the link you see in the screen shot in the red box that says " get code ". Once you click on that you will be taken to the implementation page for Fat Free Cart.
Looking at this 3rd screen shot you will see they are two options. You can hard edit the code by messing with the mumbo jumbo code in the yellow box or you can click on the link above the yellow box that says " FatFeeCart's Code generator ". I believe in working smarter not harder so I opted for the code generator. Once you click on the code generator you are taken to a page that converts the mumbo jumbo code to plain english and gives you a simple form to fill out. Don't you just love those forms ? so here is the screen shot of what the form looks like for your product. As you can see the first thing you need to enter is your merchant information. I'm assuming you took my sound advise and signed up for both Google Checkout and Paypal. Note the first thing you are asked to enter is your Google Checkout Merchant ID. This is the long number in the top right hand corner of your Google Checkout account. You can
just copy and paste it there. Next fill out the email address you use for your Paypal account. Fill out the generic information like your email address to get notified of orders and your website url and then we can move on to the item. On the item field you can add shipping & handling cost. You also can use the cart item options to sell items like clothes so you can input different sizes like small, medium, large etc. this gives your customers a drop down box to select the size they want from the cart. Once you are done with the item click the "create cart code " button to get the code to paste in your page beside your product picture. You can always go back to the form and tweak the code till you get the desired results you want. Here is a screen shot of the Fat Free Cart in action on one of My sites. I changed the button image in the code to use a color and style that matched My site. 
I actually created it with info I learned from a site review about buy buttons that are successfully used by large online retailers. You can read that post here. This might sound stupid but just by changing the button sales went up. As you can see from the image the item I'm selling is a sport hoodie. Notice the drop down arrow with the default size of small, the buyer can choose all the way up to size XL for this item. Once the customer clicks on the add to cart button. They are taken to the next screen in your online store:
Ok couple of key points to note in this screen shot. The cart won't say the name of your site so it looks kind of generic , hey it's free so work with it. Next you see the description of your item. Beside the description is the "remove" check box. When this box is checked, if the customer clicks the "update cart" button it removes the item from the cart. Right next to the check box is the quantity field your customer can type in a number and click the "Update cart" button and it will change the quantity of the item and adjust the sub-total as well. The shipping is a fixed option and cannot be altered by the customer (kind of retarded). The "Continue shopping" button allows your customer to keep browsing your store for more items of interest or they can checkout right then and there with one of two listed payment options Paypal or Google Checkout.So there you have it My review / tutorial on the Fat FREE Cart shopping cart program. Good software for the novice just starting out in online sales or those of you who have websites with like 1 - 10 items. I use on a exercise clothing store I have which has like six items and it works great for me.
That is all for now folks. I hope you found this post insightful and helpful, if so keep up with me on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Peace !
Oh yeah rest in peace MJ ! long live the king !
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