If you are like millions of people who dream of having an online business, now is a great time to roll up your sleeves and get going. There are a gazillion ways to make money online but one very straight forward way is to sell stuff. Lucky for us, in this day and age, the loving internet wants us to sell stuff because why else would there be so many cool free shopping cart platforms.

There are two different type of platforms, self hosted and not self hosted. A self hosted shopping cart is software that you install and run on your own server (hosting plan). You own your content and have full control over the destiny of your site. The most advantageous thing is that you can customize it to look and function the way you want it and if you ever wanted to sell it, there would be no problem.

The absolute greatest free self hosted shopping cart platform is Zen Cart. It is robust, easy to install if your hosting platform is Cpanel and just super cool!  Web designers charge between $1,000 to $5,000 or more for what Zen Cart gives you for free!  The basic template that Zen Cart comes with is ok right out of the box but there are plenty of inexpensive Zen Cart templates available that are hot.  If you do this project yourself you can literally have an amazing shopping site for Less than $200 for URL, hosting, a cool template, merchant account (or you can start with Paypal).

Next are three non self hosted platforms that are ultra easy and get you up and running as fast as you can get your stuff loaded and they are:

• BluJay – 100% free online market place.  Create a store, create categories, automatically cross sells for you.  The only fee you pay is the standard Paypay or Google Checkout.  I sell some videos using this platform and it works good enough for now.  I will move onto Zen Cart once I figure out my game plan.
• Etsy - If you are crafty or want to sell craft supplies, Etsy is the way to go.  It is an online platform for crafters who want to sell their works online and a market place for people who appreciate hand made items.  Etsy has over 4 million visitors per month!  Ya wanna be there.
• FatFreeCart - 100% free and easily integrates with a blog site, Myspace, or regular site.  You simply copy and paste some code to your page once you’ve setup the items you want to sell and use it with Paypal or Google Checkout.  This is not a market place like Etsy and Blujay, but the cool thing is that you can place the stuff you have for sale on any webpage that allows you to post script.

Not sure what to sell?  If you are good at something, perhaps create some videos on how to XYZ and sell the supplies needed for the project.

If you know of other cool free shopping cart platforms, post a response below.

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Can’t really have enough stash boxes to keep your valued bellongings safe from preditors lurking to snag it from ya.  Here is a brilliantly cool cigarette stash box that looks like a pack of cigs when you open it but reveals a special compartment when you dig a little deeper.  So, when the cops stop you and you are hiding contraband, just don’t offer them a cigarette.

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