Is there a good shopping cart script available?

[lunatunes]

I am trying to get a shopping cart up and running. I don't mind using a
prebuilt cart, but I am looking to have full control over the way the
front and back ends look.

I don't need any real fancy features right now
but I would like a cart that is built well enough to add on to with out
tons of headache. I have been looking into osCommerce. Though I have
read that the php is a nightmare to work through.

Over all If there is a good premade software title (easy to
template) you could recommend or if you know anywhere I can find just
the scripting for the full back end administration panel and card
handling, that would be greatly helpful.

I really prefer to own the rights to the script for use as many times as I
need. Cutting down on per-site overhead.

The other option I was considering was going to a rent-a-coder site and
having one made, Cost is a slight issue I would really hope to stay
under $500.00 if using a rent a coder.

Many thanks

Randy

 

[LazyHippy]

I was looking not long ago, I went for OSCommerce in the end.

CRE Loaded might be worth a look.

 

[audax]

Don't waste your time with a cheap cart from a rent-a-coder. OSCommerce has way more features than a cheap coder would build for under $2k.

 

[Apologetik]

I have installed and tested StoreSprite. It is extremely easy to work with design wise. It just did not have some features I wanted.

OSCommerce is a bitch to code in, but you can normally get it to do what you want.

 

[Lapris]

I personally use OScommerce or Joomla/Virtuemart. It's far cheaper to 'rent a coder' to make any necessary templates or extensions to either of these than to have a custom script created.

You can do a lot yourself with a bit of time spent learning some PHP.