Cube Cart vs. Zen Cart
I've been fighting with these two e-commerce systems the last few days. I've never worked with either of them before, so it's been a learning experience, to say the least.
What I have discovered is that I (and your experience may vary) can not stand Zen Cart. I liked the idea of it being free, and open source, and etc. etc. – but it's just unusable. I had already designed what I wanted the store to look like and needed to go apply that design to their theme. It took hours and hours and I finally gave up. One of the biggest problems is that tables were so embedded into the "basic" design, that modifying anything meant screwing everything else up.
Then I gave Cube Cart a try – (which is free if you agree to keep their copyright notice at the bottom). First of all, it's a store, I'm sure my client will have no issue paying the pretty minimal fee to remove the copyright – but before I ask them to shell out the money, I want to make sure that I can actually use the system, and apply the design. Which so far I've been able to do – mainly because their basic design is a CSS-based layout!! Not only that, the template files are easy to figure out and understand which one will do what. In just a few hours I've been able to get three times as far as I did futzing around with Zen Cart.
My only complaint is that I can't find a comprehensive "tag" (or XML) list and/or a good tutorial on how to modify everything about the template. It's been a lot of trial and error – and some of the things I wanted to do apparently require a mod (that usually costs money). Again, it would be nice to TRY some of them to see if it does what I want, but not all the mods have that same "try first – buy after" philosophy.
Still – modifying Cube Cart, even without a tutorial, had been infinitely easier than it was with Zen Cart. And the nice thing is that now that I've been working on modifying the Cube Cart pages for a little while, I feel a lot more confident about what I'm doing.
Update Well, I'm getting a little frustrated with Cube Cart. Ran into a few snags with shipping that I can't seem to fix. Going to give either one or both LiteCommerce and X-Cart a try. If anyone has worked with any of these shopping cart packages – I'd love to hear what your experience is. Liked it? Loved it? Hated it? Prefer a different package? (if so why?) Feel free to link to a post on your own blog that talks about it.
Update 1/4/07: One of the things we wanted to do was have a "fixed/custom shipping cost" for the products (ie. not have it calculate shipping based on weight or whatever) – as well as not make it required for users to have to "register" in order to make a purchase… X-Cart apparently does both of these… Going to try to install their demo version and give it a test drive. I'll keep posting updates on the progress…
Update 1/5/07: Well, heard a few horror stories about customizing X-Cart – as well I can't even install their demo because of that Ioncube thing. Here's a long list of other shopping cart packages. Eenee Meenee Minee Mo… /sigh
Update 1/7/07: Was considering Sunshop – but am now hesitating after reading this review. Next one up for review: Extcart / Avactis (are these TWO different packages? or the same one??)
Update 1/12/07: This has been quite the saga. I have tested out more shopping cart packages than I can count at this point. The ones that had the features I needed, had confusing templates. The ones that had easy to customize templates, didn't have the features I needed. I'm not interested in writing my own. Whole companies are made out of just writing this type of software, and that is not the business I want to be in. So I took a look at Squirrelcart. I had originally dismissed them because they didn't have a "demo/trial" copy I could install and play with. But at this point I was desperate. I looked at their online admin demo, and it appeared to have the features we needed. I asked their sales department for a sample template I could look at and they sent me one right away. There's a lot of files, but they're not completely confusing. The part that sold me was their documentation that outlines all the templates what they do and how to find the template you need to modify. As well, all the templates are pretty well commented so if there's something showing up on your page and you want to find the template it came from you can just view source and it's usually noted in the comments. I was told if I purchased the software I would have a 14 day evaluation period, so I bought it. I'm still in the process of customizing it for our client, but I've gotten pretty far in a fairly short amount of time. They don't currently support the payment gateway we've signed on with, but I'm told they can add it. Still waiting to hear the final word on that. So far I've been pretty satisfied and would recommend them.
Update 1/16/07: I spent a big portion of the weekend tinkering around with Squirrelcart, and implementing our custom template for it and I'm still very pleased with it. I know there's been a number of comments suggesting trying other carts, some of them I had tested and didn't care for. I know Squirrelcart is missing some features some other packages have, but the important part is that it had what we needed. Should a client come along that needed one of those other features (that Squirrelcart doesn't currently have), then I'll probably have to look into some other packages, but in the meantime, I'm satisfied with what I got. In any case, feel free to keep the comments and suggestions coming. It's always interesting to see what else is out there, and it will be good reference should I need to look for another cart in the future. 
IMPORTANT NOTE PLEASE NOTE THE DATES at which this post and comments were made. I have indicated the versions of the software discussed in this thread on this post (and summarized some of the comments as well – consider that one the "Cliff Notes" version of this very long thread).
UPDATED 8/12/2008 Due to the length of this thread, I've both closed comments on this thread and opened up a seperate forum so that discussion can continue. Shopping Cart specific forums are here. (I created a number of other forum topics close to my heart as well)
December 30th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
i'm struggling with a store. had the os commerce up and that was a drag. my site was hacked into. i'm sure it was my old version of phbb but i wasn't sure so everything came down. i'm dying for a good store. i'd pay money for the software as long as it did what i wanted and let me change easily what i wanted to change.
man i'm going to keep an eye on your post to see what you find. you know more about all this than me!!!
thanks for your blog!
January 5th, 2007 at 6:57 am
I have played with Zen cart, cube cart, and oscommerce and finally settled with the blank template from ecommercetemplates.com, its css driven. has a nice hackable php/sql backbone and is cheap at $120.
Have a search around there forums and developers and see if it meets your needs.
keep up the great blogging!
January 5th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I've used oscommerce and x-cart. Both are a nightmare, but x-cart is by far the most difficult to figure out. The smarty templating system seems to have been a bit overused. There's just way to may included files for each page. Some have 20 or 30 included files. Figuring out which one you need is a real pain. It can take hours to make small changes. Oscommerce was easier and didn't cost anything. Still, not so happy with either. I'm going to take a look at your list.
January 6th, 2007 at 6:21 am
Hi
I am using Oscommerce for the moment.
Everytime, i decide to use Zencart, i drop it because they dont have a payment module for 2Checkout.
And the one from the contributions does not work properly.
I think the only solution left would be to go for http://www.1shoppingcart.com
January 6th, 2007 at 8:10 am
i'm afriad to use open source php apps. i love php but after a horrible experience with phpbb i'm nervous.
1shoppingcart.com looks really good. i saw http://www.king-cart.com/. i like it because if i didn't sell anything for the month i didn't pay anything. then the monthly fee was 10 bucks.
if anybody checks it out, i'd curious to see what you think. i'm not too experienced here and would love to pro opinions!
January 6th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Hi
There is also one more which practically outweighs all the other shopping carts. But the only problem is the Hefty Price they charge $1599/YR.
They have compared their cart with others.
http://www.goecart.com/shopping_cart_software_comparison.asp
January 8th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Hi,
I'm X-Cart sales manager, and I'm sorry to read that there are some IonCube issues on your webserver. Let me give a piece of advise how to fix it:
1. Create text file in your web directory named test.php
2. Fill the file with the following text
3. Open the file in your browser by typing the URL like http:///test.php
4. Find line starting with safe_mode and make sure it is Off
5. Find line starting with enable_dl and make sure it is On
If the variables not set the required values, please consult with your sysem administrator about how to alter this.
If everything is fine
6. Open in your browser URL like http:////ioncube/ioncube-install-assistant.php and read the instructions shown.
7. Find line starting with "Configuration File (php.ini) Path" and edit the file specified on the right: add to the top of this file the line specifyed by the script (i.e. /ioncube/ioncube-install-assistant.php).
8. Restart your web server. After this things should work fine.
If this doesn't help, you can apply for my further help. Our pre-sale help is free of charge, of course. Together we can solve this problem and you'll test X-Cart then.
I hope to hear from you again soon.
January 9th, 2007 at 11:29 am
We use http://www.storesprite.com ecommerce which is really easy to customise and has a wicked control panel.
No need to know php – just html.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Hi,
I've used Avactis Shopping Cart to develop my store for selling jewellery. And as I found Avactis (http://www.avactis.com) is very easy for the design customization. And I like their backend. Earlier I tried to use OSCommerce but it requires PHP skills for the design customization. With Avactis I had no problems with design even with my basic skills in HTML and CSS.
January 11th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Hi
I have found a site which has reviews of all the famous shopping carts and they have a forum as well.
http://www.shopping-cart-reviews.com/all-shopping-carts.aspx
January 12th, 2007 at 11:37 am
check out http://www.phpcart.net
January 14th, 2007 at 9:14 am
I think the two good shopping carts are cs-cart.com and zencart.com.
The problem with zencart is that they dont support 2Checkout.
January 14th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Here are my 2 cents based upon my research.
Shopping Carts
* http://www.squirrelcart.com
o No latest products in the center of the page
o No support for multi-currency
o Different hierarchical view for Category/products editing.
o Only cart which has a server license. $1000 we can have infinite stores on a single server.
o Very intuitive interface especially for admin
o Very simple code and good design
o Can easily be maintained with single copy of store.
o Support unregistered purchase
* http://www.cubecart.com/
o WILL BECOME PAID SHOPPING CART FROM V3.1.0 EXPECTED IN 2007
o No breadcrumb navigation
o No advanced search. ie. Search within a category
o No latest products in the centre of the page
o No hierarchical view for Category/products editing.
o Specifying the order of category list not allowed
o Smarty template
o Googlebase feed available
o Search stats
o Various admin permissions
o Multi-currency
o Support unregistered purchase
* http://www.creloaded.com/
o No latest products in the center of the page
o Multi-currency
o Support unregistered purchase
* http://www.zencart.com/
o Template folder is spread out in various directories of the store.
o Does not support unregistered purchase
o unregistered purchase will have to be developed
o Much better help and guide than CREloaded
o Simpler than CRELoaded but not as simple as we want it to be.
o Categorywise latest product in the centre of the page.
o Multi-currency
January 14th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Again,
i say look at http://www.phpcart.net. Like you I looked at a MILLION carts. All the ones you mentioned and more. They all suck!! I haven't purchased it yet, but it appears to be very simple to use and easy to customize. it basically just a cart and an order backend. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, like cross-sell and stuff, but a CMS like Expression Engine can handle all of that. It works with authorize.net and a number of other gateways. I'll be very interested in finding out how you feel about the cart. I sell soft products —i.e. whitepapers, reports; so I'm very interested in their download manager. Also look at http://www.ecommercetemplates.com/. I can't remember why I decided not to use them, but everyone I emailed from their community really liked it. Please continue to keep us informed of your search.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Check the Feature Comparison between Squirrel Cart, Zencart and CubeCart.
http://www.shopping-cart-reviews.com/compare/Cubecart-and-Squirrel-Cart-and-Zen-Cart.aspx
January 15th, 2007 at 2:38 am
Squirrel Cart certainly lacks many features which are not present in Zencart or even CubeCart.
But the good one i think is http://www.pinnaclecart.com/
January 16th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Hi, ScriptyGoddess.
I wanted to say that, for the most part, I do really like Sunshop (which one must pay for; it's not free).
That said, Sunshop 4 is in beta testing (beta 2), and I believe is implementing a huge number of elements and changes requested by customers (among them, me) — including securing the complete login/checkout process. I've taken a (brief) look at the beta files and was delighted to discover that they've implemented the ability to edit-and-FTP templates (like WordPress does) and you can still edit templates through the admin section (I dislike having to click through a control panel to update templates). And, from what I saw of the templates, it's pretty much all tableless CSS. Plus, if you don't need the currency conversion or the mini what's-in-your-shopping-cart thingy, Sunshop can convert .php pages to static HTML files (this isn't a new feature). I'm really looking forward to it.
To be honest, we've done a bit of customization on Sunshop here and there, where clients needed something not immediately included in Sunshop. That said, most of the features I'd need seem to be included in Sunshop 4, so I'm happy. I'd had a fair bit of discussion with our programmer person; his take on it was that nothing's perfect, and that most software might have to be tweaked here and there, but that, of all, Sunshop had the best set of features that would work for us.
Anyway … I wanted to say the above, since my review apparently put you off Sunshop. As well, I'm happy to have read what you had to say about other shopping carts — and I love that you appended your updates to the original post, rather than strewing them throughout the site.
Thanks again.
January 16th, 2007 at 4:30 am
Oh — one more thing: it's Diane from developedtraffic.com, which I guess was not too clear!
January 16th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Hi Diane,
But good to hear they are fixing the security issue! (That was probably a big reason I dismissed them before)
Yeah, I will probably look at Sunshop again should the need come up. There was something else I hadn't liked about them – but after all the carts I've tried, they've all started to blend together. Some of them I actually had to try twice because after dismissing one I couldn't remember why. LOL! In any case, I can't remember what the other issue was.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I know what you mean; at one point, I kept a list of shopping carts, and went through them one by one. Some got crossed off because they didn't have one thing or another — but, unfortunately, I didn't keep the list, nor the reasons I crossed them off.
Not saying that one is "the best"; it's just that I'm looking for specific elements.
January 26th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I ran across this relatively fresh post while searching for a cart myself.
LiteCommerce: I have it on another site. Somewhat difficult to fully customize and the support forums are worthless… but the direct company support has been top notch.
CubeCart: I'm testing it now on my site –> the checkout process is HORRIBLE. It takes 8 cumbersome and confusing (even for me a bit and it's MY store!) steps for a new user to make a purchase. User registration is also required which I hate.
Ideally, I would love to find a great cart with a single page or two-step checkout process. Something like http://www.volusion.com/one-page-checkout-benefits.asp but not in a hosted solution.
Good luck. Hopefully I too will settle on a solution soon!
January 27th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Give Quixpo (http://www.quixpo.com) a try, if you can find the time. There is an online demo available.
January 27th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I finally made my decision. I picked Zencart. I am using it to provide a hosted ecommerce solution to our customers.
Reasons for selecting Zencart was feature rich as compared to cubecart and squirrelcart. Phenomenally better code quality than it's nearest competitor CRELoaded.
Code quality rankings : Squirrelcart(best), cubecart, zencart, CRELoaded
Features rankings : Zencart & CRELoaded tie(Very good), Cubecart & Squirrelcart tie
January 28th, 2007 at 8:46 am
We have been using Litecommerce (from the same outfit as X-Cart) and been reasonably happy with it.
So far I have not found anything about the interface that I could not somehow modify to suit my purpose. As someone mentioned above LiteCommerce (and, I believe, X-Cart) default to requiring that a customer register with the cart (i.e. set up an account) which a lot of customers balk at. But I was able to change this to allow customers to buy without registering.
My main issue with the LiteCommerce cart at present is that it doesn't produce W3C compliant HTML and it does not use mod-rewrite to produce search-engine-friendly URL's. In that respect CubeCart is already better (the current version is supposed to produce compliant XHTML) and the next 3.1 version is supposed to use mod-rewrite to be more search engine friendly. If anyone else is aware of a cart that currently uses mod-rewrite, I appreciate their posting the name and link.
Currently LiteCommerce, and I am finding, most other carts rely on producing a parallel static html equivalent of every dynamic page in your shopping cart. This parallel site has to be rebuilt every time you change anything (new product, changing prices, etc.) and seems amazingly clumsy and inelegant.
Particularly as a lot of other PHP app's have long since added mod-rewrite type links (e.g. Word Press, Menalto Gallery2, etc.).
Thanks for starting this blog posting. There are obviously a lot of us out here with the same problems.
January 28th, 2007 at 10:25 am
That's good data, Doug.
With respect to shopping carts converting .php pages to static HTML, this can be a good thing *if* you don't add products on an ongoing basis (which means the server doesn't need to pull from the database), and *if* you don't need ancillary functionality, such as those little "you have 1 item in your shopping cart" things.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:38 am
I am developer and have experience with a lot of shopping carts. Personally I would recommend LiteCommerce because it is very easy to use and you can purchase as much functionality as you need. Also a lot of my clients does not have any programming experience and prefer to edit templates with some Design software like Dreamwaver or FrontPage.
So LiteCommerce will be the best solution for small and medium-size projects.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
I'm the product development manager at http://www.pinnaclecart.com. I invite all of you to take a look at our product. It's very easy to customize, supports all major gateways, source code is available. To address some specific concerns I see on this board:
Our cart is built on a template system that allows you to completely manage the look and feel of the site without HTML, but if you want to get a unique look and feel, you can get into the HTML code you will find it very easy to change.
Our cart does use mod-rewrite to produce SE friendly URL's and ranks very well.
We are going to be launching a "true" one-page checkout within the next couple of weeks, it will be the fastest possible checkout process on any cart.
The cart is developed using PHP / mySQL.. The code is well laid out, and easy to understand and modify.
We have both ioncube and Zend available.
Our cart have one of the easiest to use admin areas of any cart in the market. I invite everyone to take a look at our demo.
We support multi- currency, multi-language.
While we do have a few add-ons to the cart that have been developed by third-party developers, we try to integrate most features into the cart itself.
Froogle, Shopzilla, Bizrate, Shop.com, Google site map feeds are all part of the core product, no add-ons needed.
Needless to say, we have much, much more to offer.
There are many great carts out there, I recommend doing your homework and make sure you compare solutions before you make a decision. If you have any questions regarding our product, I welcome anyone to call our toll-free number and we would be more than happy to assist.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:17 am
I have used Zen Cart and OS Commerce. I believe Zen Cart to be much better and actively worked on. With 1.3.7 theyhave PayPal express checkout which is nice. The code is not perfect for example adding third party modules is very clunky but they have a way of adding things in extra folders that allow you to add menus etc. without changing the main code.
The templating system is not perfect but all of the css, images, and English text definitions can be overridden fairly easily.
When I am creating a new template I do the following in the root directory of Zen Cart installation (example is unix shell Linux or Mac OS X):
for i in `find . -name classic -print`; do
dirpath=`dirname $i`;
cp -r $i my_new_template_name
done
Then I do:
find . -name my_new_template_name -print
find all the directory that have overrides and start making changes.
See http://www.arkhambazaar.com for an example.
Hope that helps.
cheers
February 4th, 2007 at 3:42 am
Hi
I really liked PinnacleCart from the rest, it does have features which others cant even come near but the only let down for me was the Price Tag.
$597.00 One-time license fee
While the other carts range under $200
February 4th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Hi,
Excellent Blog!
Im facing the same and another problem regarding the carts, as im also looking for the ultimate customizable cart, but it seems that WE need to be more flexible then what the cart developers promise by saying `fully customizable` etc..
Does anyone up here, thought about the carts sql exported databases? the reason im bringing this isssue its because i found out that it will not be so easy to move a `house` without concidering all the info(products) you uploaded to the cart which probably takes ages!
For example, imported databases of x-cart will not work with zen cart or osCommerce or creloaded or vise versa, so what you do for example if you got around 1000 products of database include pix, images, categories etc? and just want to move a cart?
For me the store front is very important, so lets say that i got a site already with around 1000 products(cre loaded), all is set up, but im not satisfied with the storefront or cart, and really want to try some other cart that ill be able to customize easily, how ill take all the info (database) and connect it with the new cart i wanna try or like?
Sounds pretty easy, well its NOT, you should concider twice as much before you even starting to upload products into the cart and play with the skins, as it will NOT be so easy to move a cart.
If you got comments regarding this issue, i will be more then happy to hear, as im really looking for the right solution.
Cheers
Alon
February 5th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
You have a point, Alon.
There's a difference between just moving a website with a shopping cart, and switching to a new shopping cart, whether you move it or not. But you're right — there may be some issues to take up if you are switching carts.
February 5th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
http://www.phpshop.org/
Works, and is free. Uses Php4 and Mysql.
I can't say I like the look of it.
Things I had to do with it.
Customer shipping changes.
Some tweaks in setup needed.
Authorize.net, got it to work. (See their aim guide).
February 8th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I have had pretty good success with Cube Cart in the Past. I am definately going to check out the Squirrel Cart.
I noticed some of you were looking for definations for the CSS on Cube Cart. Here they are. It took me some time to find them….
.searchBtn — The "GO" button for your search box.
.searchBox — box that you write in for search
.textbox– The number that shows up in the quantity box from the view cart page
.submit — The "Join Now" button for mailing list, and the "Add" button for adding product codes to shopping cart.
li.bullet– little bullets that show up for the catagories
li.bulletLrg — bullet for "tell a friend"
li.num — numbers for products in sale and popular products
.txtSession — text for "Search for" "Welcome Guest" and brackets
.txtCopy– text in info box "products 2, catagories 1, prices: US dollars"
.txtSiteDocs– text "subscribe to our mailing list" and "Email"
a.txtSession, a.txtSiteDocs– "Login" and "Register"
a.txtSession:hover, a.txtSiteDocs:hover– mouse over for "Login" and "Register"
a.txtButton– "add to basket" button on product pages, and "buy" and "More" butttons on Catagory pages
a.txtButton:hover– rollover for "add to basket" button on product pages, and "buy" and "More" butttons on Catagory pages
.txtOldPrice– This is the price which by default appears with a line struck through when the item is on sale.
.txtSale– Price that shows on Catagory Page and product page
.txtOutOfStock– Text that tells a product is out of stock.
.txtSiteDocs, a.txtSiteDocs — links at bottom of page"about us, contact us . . ."
a.txtSiteDocs:hover– rollover for links at bottom of page"about us, contact us . . ."
a.txtDefault– text for categories box "Homepage, sale items", text for products names in Popular Products box and Sale Items box
a.txtDefault:hover, a.txtLink:hover, a.txtLocation:hover — rollover text for categories box "Homepage, sale items", text for products names in Popular Products box and Sale Items box
.txtContentTitle– Main Titles like "Welcome to Cube Cart" and Catagory Titles
.txtBoxSave– color of the text in the Sale box that says how much they save
.tblList– main area on catagory pages where the list of products is
.tdListTitle– text inside the main area "Image Description Price"
.tdEven– background color for the first product listed then every other one
.tdOdd– background color for the second product listed then every other one
.txtCartPrice– text for dollar amounts that show up in cart box on homepage- per item, items in cart and total prices-
.txtCart — Text "items in cart" and "Total" in cart box on homepage
.cartTotal– included dashed line that appears in cart box on homepage
a.txtCartProduct:active, a.txtCartProduct:link, a.txtCartProduct:visited– text for Products in cart box on home page
a.txtCartProduct:hover– roll over for text for Products in cart box on home page
a.txtviewCart:active, a.txtviewCart:link, a.txtviewCart:visited — text for "veiw basket" button in cart box on homepage
a.txtviewCart:hover — roll over for text for "veiw basket" button in cart box on homepage
.cartProgress — text inside cart that progresses as you go through check out "Cart— Address— Payment — Complete"
.txtcartProgressCurrent — this is the text color that shows up for the page that you are on in the progression of the cart, for example when you are on the address page, address is this color and the rest are the color you specified for .cartProgress
.quickBuy– Inside cart txt that asks " Want to add more items? Enter the Product Code:"
.tdcartTitle — txt Inside Cart at the top "Qty, Product, Code, Stock, Price, Line Price"
.tdcartEven– background color for second product inside cart and every other one
.tdcartOdd — background color for the first product inside cart and every other one
.tdCartSubTotal– includes line above subtotal
a.txtCheckout– text and box for "continue" button on cart pages
a.txtUpdate — text and box for "update cart" button on cart pages
.txtStockWarn– text for when an item is out of stock
.txtError — text for when someone messes up while filling out information during cart process
.txtCopyright, a.txtCopyright — text for Copywrite info at bottom of page
a.txtCopyright:hover– roll over for Copywrite info at bottom of page
.dropDown– width of drop downs
Layout.CSS for Classic Skin
body — entire window attributes
#pageSurround– large floating window inside window
#topHeader– top section of page surround
.boxTitleLeft, .boxTitleRight — top area of boxes in left and right columns where title appears
.boxContentLeft, .boxContentRight– main area of boxes in left and right columns
.colLeft — left column attributes or positioning
.colMid — middle large column attributes or positioning
.colRight– right column attributes or positioning
.boxContent– middle columns box (where to change colors, background, borders, and some text)
.colLeftCheckout — check out pages positioning for left column
.colMainCheckout — checkout pages positioning for main column
.siteDocs — positioning and attributes for box at bottom that contains "About Us | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions"
.pagination — main large box on catagory pages
.regSep– the "need to register?" box in checkout
February 12th, 2007 at 2:40 am
I think you should stick with a single shopping for a job you set out to do. Changing them in the middle of a project definitely hurts your deadline severely. I researched thoroughly before choosing a cart. At first I wanted to use 1shoppingcart.com for several different reasons. I don't recall all of them right now, but the 30-day guarantee was enticing along with inherent support for a number of things (mainly comissions from any registered affiliates I might get along the way).
I decided to go with Zen Cart because it's free (all the time) and open source (I wanted to support the open source community). I also liked the initial look enough to settle for it while I spent a couple of days making a template. Getting use to the way the Zen Cart is set up took a bit of research and work, but it was all worth it. It wasn't difficult at all; I mean it's made to be extended and personally I think the designers did a fairly good job given the complexity of all the logic that goes into it.
I intend to try another shopping cart as soon as I'm completely satisfied with my current site enough to leave it alone for a few weeks. I would greatly appreciate it if you'd give my current site a look-over and tell me what you think: http://www.AudienceTechnologies.com. Other than the lack of products, I am satisfied with the site as a whole (look and feel included). But mine is just one opinion, and is likely biased.
February 12th, 2007 at 5:42 am
As an osCommerce nerd since many years I would always recommend to use osC but the learning curve is pretty steep. But maybe the concept of http://www.shopify.com is of interest for you. It's template-driven (very nice shops can be seen on their homepage), has many nice functions and an interesting pricing concept. You don't have to pay anything for the shop but they ask for 3% comission for things you sell.
February 12th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Actually – when there are so many reasonably priced shopping carts out there, and many free ones too – I can't think of one client of mine that would be willing to pay a 3% commission fee on every sale to the shopping cart software. Next thing you know all our software will be requesting a cut of the money we make from using their product. I'm thinking they're marketing that more for the "I need to set up a cart for my own store but am completely clueless how to do it" crowd. (And with my clients – isn't that what they're paying me to do?) I don't think a 3% commission needs to be paid just to get a decent shopping cart package.
February 13th, 2007 at 7:59 am
I don't happen to like the 3% charge per item sold model either, particularly has one is usually paying 2% to 5% for each credit card transaction. But the developers can charge whatever the market will bear. The 3% charge may work for some customers.
In an earlier comment, someone was complaining about pinnaclecart costing $600 compared to $200 (or free) for some of the others. If pinnacle really does have things like XHMTL/W3C compliant page generation and mod_rewrite links then it may be worth 3x to the shop owner.
The challenge for a lot of folks is to prove that they can sell enough through their online store to justify their effort and investment. We started out with LiteCommerce (total cost with modules, etc. was about $200 with a bid of configuration effort on top). If our online sales this year are high enough, I think switching to something like pinnaclecart for the $600 may be justified. I do think having W3C-compliant pages and mod_rewrite links are very helpful with the search engines.
–Doug
February 20th, 2007 at 9:36 am
I am going through the same exercise now. I have installed litecommerce and find modifying the templates to be fairly easy. But deciphering the code is impossible. I need to perform heavy customization and am very comfortable hacking PHP. But trying to understand someone elses code and thought process is maddening.
Plus — a warning to those of you that like to debug — any cart/code that uses ioncube (like litecommerce and apparently X-cart according to the comments above) CAN NOT use Zend remote debugging, which I consider essential for fast PHP development.
At this point, I'd take a simpler cart that has really well documented code, over a bloated impossible to understand cart. While complex plugin architectures and APIs are great for the core developers, for anyone else they just add confusion, unless that are well documented.
Any thoughts on a cart with a solid core, and great code that can be easily modified?
February 20th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Hello,
Take a look at Pinnacle Cart. The code is very well laid out; we intentionally use only one developer on the main code base for this exact reason. You'll notice it's MUCH easier to understand.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:57 am
Pinnacle Cart is good but its price it too high.
You can get other carts under $200.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:22 am
The price for any of these cars is trivial compared to the cost of custom programming. It's the total solution cost that is a killer, not just the cart. Factor in the hours required for skinning, custom coding, etc. and the $ add up quickly.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:35 am
In an sense, both Cliff and AjnabiZ are correct. If pinnacle has the features claimed then (having wrestled with the lower-priced LiteCommerce cart) the $600 pricetag isn't excessive.
Equally well, for anyone just getting there feet wet with ecommerce and unsure whether there is a market for their products; $200 and some sweat equity is easier to justify than $600.. Especially when you are trusting that the cart is as good and easy to setup as is advertised *and* you are hoping that you will sell enough products to make it all work.
The pinnaclecart product only comes with a 30 day money-back guarantee which doesn't really seem long enough particularly for someone building their first cart.
February 22nd, 2007 at 7:12 am
I am going to abandon litecommerce and will probably switch to cubecart or squirrelcart. Any thoughts from people in here regarding features of one versus the other, support, code quality, extensibility, etc?
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:01 pm
use zen cart with ZenMagick : http://zenmagick.radebatz.net/
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:46 am
Seems like we all go through the same process! I have created websites using the following:
eCommerceTemplates: easy to redesign but if you want to redesign the table structure of the products and cats then you have to do this deep within the php files – not great. This is also the case with the CSS version (it has tables!) so I moved on after doing one site.
Then I moved to CubCart which I do like but the CSS is quite heavy and redesigning from scratch can be hard work. I might be easier to use one of the templates as a base and design from there.
For a really easy CSS shopping cart you might want to try Quickcart from http://www.opensolution.org.
I'm now looking at http://www.tradingeye.com which I think is beautiful and just about affordable but it won't run on my Zeus server so some mod is neccesary if you don't use Apache with mod rewrite.
So I might look at some of your great suggestions too!
Thanks,
Konrad
April 4th, 2007 at 11:58 am
It sounds like you need personal help and support which is something that the larger commercial (or free open source) carts don't provide.
I've been working with my shopping cart application for several years now, providing one on one support with all clients from installation, customization and additional features, it's just proving terribly difficult to drag people away from the big horrible existing carts!
Anyway, check us out next time!
April 19th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I set up Zen cart for my new web company 1 year ago. It took me 3 months of tweaking and adding my own CSS classes but the result is I now have a template which is so flexible I can make it look exactly the way I want. I created a guide whilst I did it showing exactly what style and what PHP file does what so I will never forget.
I can now rattle out professional shopping carts at super fast speed.
In my view, Zen Cart is definitely the best mainly because of all the information and tutorials available.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
First, I want to say thanks for posting this blog and eanabling all these great responses.
I'll keep this short, since i'm looking for help. I need to find an ecommerce solution that can do all of the following:
- handle digitial content
- provide download link security (time based expire, or other)
- enable user accounts such that users can log in and re-download their content at a later date (downlods may be limitted to n-downloads, or non-expiring.)
- Handle multiple currencies (I have a large non-US customer base).
So, if anyone reading this has suggestions I'm very open to them. In fact, I'm hoping that someone out there has dealt with a similar requirements list.
Thanks again!
Ed M.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:23 am
I don't sell digital content but I do *buy* software online and I have noticed two ecommerce solutions that folks are using:
If you haven't already, check out kagi.com and esellerate.net
I have purchased and downloaded software using both and they seemed well designed and easy to use.
–Doug
April 20th, 2007 at 6:31 am
I ended up going with Sunshop – before the recent price-hike – for my site and then again for a friend's site I'm doing. It is a little much to style (I'm running 3.5.1 or whatever it is, not the new betas) but only, I think, because it's done in an unconventional way. It's one big template file and you can either do each little piece in the admin panel or do the whole thing on your site and upload it when you're ready. But once I got the hang of a few things, it wasn't too bad. That would – so far – be my only complaint about the program, besides price. I have a third site I would love to use it on, but the girl I'm doing the site for is just starting out and cannot afford that at all.
April 20th, 2007 at 6:58 am
I know what you mean about the Sunshop templates; I've felt the same way.
I also pestered TurnkeyWebTools about it, particularly in one long, elegant plea in their forums where I suggested that clicking around in the Templates area of the admin panel wasn't the best use of anyone's time — and suggested that they look at the way WordPress treats templates — a folder of files that you edit and FTP onto the server (no clicking through any admin panels). So, from what I can tell from inspecting the files in Sunshop 4 (which is currently out of beta and into the Release Candidates), they've done just that.
They've also addressed a long list of customer "wishes", so it's looking pretty good — including the fact that it's gone to (mostly) table-less CSS code. From what I understand, the Sunshop 4 upgrade function is also working now, although I'm not exactly looking forward to updating old templates to the new version (just like I had to take time to update old WordPress templates to the new templating thing in WordPress 1.5).
Just to note: I have no interest in Sunshop other than as a designer/user, but if you want to see the Sunshop 4 demo, it's here (don't know how much they've updated it, though):
turnkeywebtools.com/products.php?p=ss-shopping-cart-software&s=new
April 20th, 2007 at 7:16 am
Sunshop: "Software with 98% open source code".
I abandoned a cart — not Sunshop — after spending a lot of time and money that was also "98% open source code". Be careful when selected carts that encode source. I have nothing against companies that want to protect their IP — only natural. But encoders generally conflict with debuggers. So if you intend to heavily modify your cart and it uses something like the Ioncube encoder, you will not be able to use the Zend Studio server-side debugger, which I find invaluable.
April 20th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Hi,
I have recently checked the official website of a brand im selling, and saw that they rebuild it. I was quite impressed from the results, and because they have their online store in it, i tried to look for traces of the cart they are using, you can check the site over here http://www.chammyz.com . and the cart they use is actually "Virtumart" which can be found here http://virtuemart.net .
Its free, and if this is kind of results you can get, and it looks working with CSS, then it should be alright, i still didnt test it or review all of what it offering, but i will like to hear your comments regarding it.
Cheers
Alon
April 20th, 2007 at 8:02 am
That is a good point, Cliff — and an issue we've run into before. Thanks.
April 20th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
I see a lot of zen cart fans on this site. For those non-technical folks who want to use zen cart there is a hosted solution http://easystorehosting.com
My top 3 favorite shopping carts are
Pinnacle cart
Zen cart
Squirrel cart
April 25th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I don't know how long it's been since this article has been written but Zen Cart 1.3.7 is not using table based templates. If you look at my site you'll see that it's all css.
I feel that the author should at least update the story since it's incorrect and has actually just become a haven for people marketing other shopping carts and hosting programs.
visit http://www.zencart.com and see for yourself. None of the other suggestions have a better community of support and users.
John Patrick,
http://www.birdoasis.com
April 25th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
John – the article was originally written in december of 2006 as is noted in the info box at the bottom of the article. I made a few updates during the time that I was making my decision as to what shopping cart I should use for a particular project. At that time, Zen Cart was still table based. I don't feel this has become a "haven for people marketing other shopping carts and hosting programs" – I am and still interested in alternatives. I tend not to drastically update existing articles, as this is a snapshot of what my review was at that time. Thank you for updating us that zen cart is now CSS based. I will have to take a look at it again… I am certainly open to the idea of writing a *new* article reviewing the latest version.
April 25th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I second Jennifer's comments. If you look at the number of comments attached to this blog entry, you'll find that the entry has struck a chord with a lot of us who are trying to figure out which shopping carts to consider.
It would have been helpful to point out that ZenCart has been upgraded to use CSS instead of tables. The criticism and the demand that the entry be rewritten seem unwarranted.
If John is an expert on the latest version of ZenCart perhaps he will tell us whether ZenCart now supports mod_rewrite and SE-friendly URLs. And does it produce W3C compliant XHTML?
I just ran a validation check against http://www.birdoasis.com and it didn't validate (64 errors), see:
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.birdoasis.com%2F
I didn't check the errors in any detail… But some are clearly pilot error on John's part but some also appear to be invalid code being generated by zencart.
–Doug
April 29th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
DianeV, thank you, it's good to know. I do a lot with WordPress, so I'm very comfortable with that type of thing. But I am not looking forward to upgrading the two sites either, ick.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:25 am
Hello all.
Unfortunately most of free shopping carts have limited SEO capabilities "out-of-the-box". It takes considerable amount of time to get it to standard (imho).
Among paid carts I would like to select X-Cart, because of clear XHTML Transitional compliant nesting. I am talking about 4.1.x branch.
BTW, they have issued a new version.
April 30th, 2007 at 6:32 am
X-Cart is what I finally ended up with. I think the code is really ugly. Not a class in sight. And clearly a lot of overhead associated with making it work on many version of PHP, shared hosting, different browsers etc. But it works and is very easy to hack. Unlike some solutions that have elegant code, but are impossible to understand.
May 1st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I'm considering X-Cart as a choice, but what concerns me most is the "security" side of the business.
While most of you seem (reasonably) involved in the design issue, I'm instead trying to give more weight to the reliability of the code.
I've read dreadful things about X-Cart on the internet: db problems, security holes,…
Also, in their site there is no sign of patches, closed bugs,…
By showing his wounds, a soldier also witnesses his strenght and survival skills.
Internet is not a placid sea to navigate, and trusting a ship which has no history/experience of storms…
Sadly, X-Cart site shows an immacolate picture of the cart, which is unbelievable.
What is hidden behind the curtain? Is it really (why not) that trustable?
Does anybody have something to suggest on the matter?
By the way, X-Cart is 100% open-source (they encode just the trial version). And, Jennifer, they also offer a 30-day moneyback policy: just like you bought Squirrelcart…
May 1st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Unfortunately, you can't view the X-Cart forums until after you buy it. The forums are pretty active, albeit way more questions than answers. There are some pretty good security threads and I think the code is probably fairly well secured. Issues I've had so far: the session ID can be exposed in the URL. Code folders live below root, but they have pretty good .htaccess rules in place.
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:11 am
One of the good points in X-Cart **could be** the rich features that are available in the core; I mean that the less you have to customize the core (and/or add modules), the easier it is to upgrade and/or apply security patches (which recalls my previous post…).
Thoughts about it…?
As for the modules/customizations being not cheap, I would suggest to give a look at things like http://www.scriptlance.com/
Useful also for other carts, as well…
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I have tried many carts. I think the two which come out are cs-cart and pinnaclecart(too high price)
Has anyone tried out cs-cart ?
Zencart is plain useless for me since it does not support 2Checkout, the most famous 3rd party processor for INternational Merchants.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
CS-Cart now has SEO Urls and Mod_Rewrite.
Thanks AjnabiZ for pointing to it…
Looks quite interesting, overall…
May 4th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
CS-Cart is really, really feature rich, and like X-Cart, it uses Smarty templates, which I love. It's like a well-designed, OOP version of X-Cart. I though it was pretty darn slick, but the issues I had were:
1. I didn't need most of the features. If you do, it's a bargin.
2. It is still fairly young and the forums are a bit thin, so you might be going it alone at times.
3. It requires JavaScript. The AJAX features are cool, but I like a non-JS fallback.
The CS-Cart people do seem responsive and custom mod pricing was very attractive.
May 7th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I'm putting together a store for the first time and have been looking at many carts as well, but it's tough to pick as many have already stated.
Has anyone used Cartweaver at all? I'm really looking for something that I can drop into my existing site rather than manipulating templates. It seems many of the cart programs out there rely on templates.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
X-Cart did a lot of really great things–things I looked for in a shopping solution, however managing a 70k+ items database isn't one of them. 40 seconds per page? The slowness in running general browsing forced me to modify the SQL used on some pages. Even then, between the over all slowness and the poor flexibility to work with existing tables proved fruitless.
Ultimately, I use ShopScript plus supplementary pages written in lasso. I'd be interested in finding out about feature rich shopping solutions that manage large databases successfully.
Still haven't found what I'm looking for.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:20 am
Do anyone know of a shopping cart solution that has some sort of product customization module?
For example, if someone wanted to customize a computer?
Any responses are very much appreciated!
May 16th, 2007 at 7:20 am
2Cliff: Are you kidding? X-cart code is not ideal (just because it is a commercial product not academical software) but it is far better then most others. X-cart code is divided into specialized modules which execute only when needed almost without redundancy.
For comparison: CS-Cart have suspicious combination of OOP and plain code.
Finally,about features, to my mind, Xcart is rapidly developing software and always provides latest features required for successful project. So I use X-cart as main solution for most projects.
Hope this helps
May 16th, 2007 at 11:58 am
I believe that any software seems to be quite 'perfect' at the beginning, however, later you may find some shortcomings.
If to consider my experience, X-cart didn't disappoint me at all, it justified all my hopes, thus I can say that you can trust the company.
Also, for Luigi, I would like to mention that they provide professional support service and help you without delays. When you become their customer, you can get all information about their patches/upgrade kits, etc (however, yes, this information is not displayed on their sitem but to my mind it is not a point for doubts).
It's just my positive opinion I wanted to share with you.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Just curious, and I realize your post was originally quite a while ago, but have you looked at ClickCartPro or Joomla CMS with its shopping cart addition? I like ClickCartPro alot and am very curious about the Joomla option as well for a full featured CMS.
May 20th, 2007 at 8:08 am
I've used x-cart for years, and I'm completely fed up with it. So much so, I'm in the process of rolling my own for the day job. From getting credit cards stolen due to an extremely stupid vulnerability to an exceedingly slow and byzantine database structure to practically being forced to pay for the upgrade service they offer due to the many customizations I've created, we've run the gamut of issues with x-cart.
That said, it was the best solution for us at the time when we started using it four years ago. It was easy enough to hack to make it do what we needed it to do — watermarking pdf sales online, for instance, but we've outgrown it. Hence rolling my own.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
This is a reply for David who was looking for a Cart with a customization module. Quite a few of the ones discussed here have them. If you do a google on "litecommerce product options" you will find a description of LiteCommerce's module. I am not in love with LiteCommerce but it works and, with the modules I have purchased, cost about $250.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Also a reply for david who was looking for customizatin. SunShop will let you do that. I am currently using sunshop and like how it works, but it does not integrate well with Quickbooks so I am switching to ClickcartPro and I can everything with it that I could with Sunshop plus better integration with QuickBooks and PeachTree.
May 20th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Kit, thanks for your contribution.
Just to try and bring this thread to the next level, are you willing/ready to share some of your knowledge (at your ow website, maybe)?
I guess it would be most welcome and useful to the whole community, here and beyond.
Could "rolling my own" also mean that you have some amount of code to share?
And, when reporting "an exceedingly slow and byzantine database structure", do you also have more specific and in-depth comments and advices about the matter?
May 20th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
POP QUIZ ~
You are a broke idiot still trying to earn more than .99 cents to cover your hosting account. You know that you will hafe to settle for a free shopping cart, but you want one that is not to difficult to switch in case things go wrong, and of course gives you the most control without having to spend to much of your family time trying to learn it.
What would you choose?
and do you mind if I ask whats wrong with OScommerce.
Thanks
May 20th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Hello
After having struggled with the question of which Cart to use.
I am opting for CS-Cart, it has the most features and it has some very nice reviews. I have checked their forums and the team is very responsive.
You might want to try it out
http://www.cs-cart.com
Their template system is based on Smarty.
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:02 am
Hello,
To the Blog Owner, my post on Zencart's non-availability of 2Checkout module holds true till today.
If you go and search on their forums, you will find 2checkout module problems. The only module which was released was by a third party and it was for a very old version of Zencart and the original author is not supporting any upgrade of it.
So there is not 2Checkout Module which works with Present Zencart version. You can read all the horror stories with the 2checkout module, which is NOT released by Zencart Team. And for that matter, Zencart team was stated in the forums, that they will NOT create any official module for 2Checkout. They have a grudge against them.
This made me go away from Zencart to CS-Cart.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:48 am
@jeff: What's wrong with osCommerce? Are you kidding? Has anybody ever had a pleasurable experience customizing OSC? I tend to avoid views showing nested tables, nested within other nested tables.
Anyway, CS Cart does look appealing, and I have spent much time customizing Zen Cart. Once you get into it and fully understand its templating system, it's really not too difficult. There's a tool kit for developers in the admin area that allows one to search through all the source code files. This makes it a little easier to track down the code bit of interest. Still, though, it is based on OSC… which many may want to avoid.
The biggest problem with many e-commerce scripts is due to their attempting to meet the needs of every store. A developer can easily end up spending way too much time trying to work around the script and fit her site into the script, rather than focusing on developing a quality, coherent site.
There's no winning script, and there's no loser. Just make sure to use a script that fits your site; don't fit your site into a script.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:57 am
Whoops, in regard to my first comment where I said: "It’s one big template file and you can either do each little piece in the admin panel or do the whole thing on your site and upload it when you’re ready."
I meant that you can do the whole thing on your computer and then upload it.
Just needed to clarify there; if you get a chance, Jennifer, could you please edit the comment here and on your new cart post to reflect that change? I don't want to confuse anyone.
Thanks!
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:07 am
Valerie, I don't know if this helps anyone, but if you're talking about Sunshop, Sunshop 4 offers those editing options *as well as* individual template files that can be edited and uploaded (much like WordPress). Sunshop 4 final should be out in weeks, but they've had to rewrite much of the cart (and many are already using RC versions).
Can't wait to have a look at it myself, when I get some time.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
Regarding SunShop 4… I posted a bug months ago regarding default file permissions on Linux installations and it has yet to be addressed. This is the kind of support I expect from small open-source projects (i.e. none)… not commercial. I'd be careful with SunShop.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:32 am
Thanks, Cliff. What default file permissions are you speaking of? Or should I ask here?
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Thanks Diane and Cliff.
I'm still running the 3.5.1 (that right?) version. Since I'm new to the program I was waiting for stable 4 before upgrading. Now that I've done all the work, I'm almost scared to upgrade, heh.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
In the tar distribution file… when you untar the distribution file it should already have the read/write/execute permissions set… otherwise you have to go through scores of directories individually setting the permissions on files before you even get a working installation… a royal pain in the you know what.
I too have been waiting for a "stable" release before I launch a new store… I don't want to go through and do all my customizations with a release candidate or beta and then have to redo them.
May 25th, 2007 at 5:02 am
I've heard some good things recently about JShop.co.uk – the template design supposed to be easy to redesign.
Has anyone of you tried this? What was it like?
May 30th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
To be honest, I think Zen Cart is the best open source e-commerce shopping cart hands down … and it has a super community of users as well.
Between OSC, Cube Cart and Zen, I'd take Zen any day (I've tested all of them). They are all built off of (or originated from) previous OSC builds.
Also, the latest releases of Zen Cart (1.3.x +) utilize a "tabeless" (CSS based) layout. Making it much easier to customize than older versions. For "features", and "future", I personally can't see any other cart moving forward as good as Zen Cart is (and will).
May 30th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Do you know that Zencart is the only shopping cart which DOES NOT OFFICIALLY support 2Checkout.
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:31 am
I am stuck in another hole. I wanted to go with CS-Cart. I checked out their forums and wanted to know if I can transfer my Customer details such as Passwords, from OsCommerce to CS-Cart.
I found this thread.
http://forum.cs-cart.com/showthread.php?t=1951&highlight=oscommerce
Someone had replied with the following:
——-
Unfortunatly, I cant see it being that easy.
The passwords are encrypted and cannot be decrypted (easily if atall)
both systems will use a different "secret key" when creating the password hash, which means you would first have to decrypt all the passwords
then re-encrypt them in the CS-Cart format.
If however they are held in plain format (in OS) which I very much doubt, your task will be a lot easier.
—————-
Now, I wonder other carts have the same problem.
Switching to a new Shopping Cart is really painfull.
June 3rd, 2007 at 5:35 am
Has anyone tried out ClickCart Pro. How does it compare to CS-Cart and SunShop.
June 3rd, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Comment from AjnabiZ said: "Do you know that Zencart is the only shopping cart which DOES NOT OFFICIALLY support 2Checkout."
This is not actually true. Although 2CO is not "built into" the initial Zen Cart install, it is available (and works very well) as a third party contribution.
You can find the mod under the "Downloads" section at Zen Cart and under the "Payment Modules" category. 1st one on the list.
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Actually It is true.
You can find Zencart's developers view on supporting 2Checkout. They have just given up and they have said it clearly that they will not support 2Checkout.
Please, go and search for 2checkout in their forum and you can read all the problems being faced with the present 2Checkout 3rd party module. Its really buggy.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I don't know why you all think that 2checkout doesn't work with zen cart. I've been using it since I setup Zen Cart and it's working fine.
All you have to do is make upload your products into 2checkout and everything works fine.
Does it really matter what the developers of Zen Cart support 2checkout, as long as someone in the forum will help you out. I'm there for you if ya need help.
2checkeout's forum is filled with people that just don't read the instructions, but 2co does need to improve their customer service. I recently had to send a reply to my ticket asking why they had a ticket system if they didn't answer the tickets.
But all in all at least a third of my sales are with 2CO and I haven't had a problem since I uploaded my products into the 2CO system.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Check out PHPSuperCart.com. I downloaded the 30 day trial demo and it looks good so far.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Just wait (if you have the luxury to wait on a project) for Magento to be released somewhere this summer. It promises to be very good (built on the Zend Framework).
http://www.magentocommerce.com/
June 19th, 2007 at 6:29 am
Has anyone been able to use either without needing to customize code? ShopScript worked for what it offers, but again, needed to rewrite several queries.
What did you use, and what is your site it's use on?
June 19th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Zen Cart is what I use on http://www.birdoasis.com
You always have to at least change the template so that it looks the way you like it too, no matter what software you choose.
Sometimes you have to change the code if you want something a bit different that the designers have in place. For instance I haven't found one system out there that has a working multi vendor module.
So I'm learning php so that I can change the cart myself.
I also had to hire someone to install google checkout for me since google didn't write it to the designers specifications.
So I feel that no matter what you choose you'll probably end up changing something or other.
By the way, I wrote an article review about a new book that's out for Zen Cart and the book is now the top seller of all time on http://www.lulu.com. Not that my article had anything to do with that. The book is called eStart your web store with Zen Cart. Check it out.
John Patrick.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:19 am
Zen Cart had a CSS template system with v1.3.0, 9 months before your original post – you must have been looking at an old copy of the default template… and not reading the forum, which had lots of advice on how to use the new system.
The base install has also been XHTML Transitional valid since then, contrary to another post here (what individual owners do is not controllable by the developers).
And, in regard to complaints about required customer registration, there are two mods available for optional or no account creation. No store can operate without gathering some information from their customers; it can be treated as an "account" or not.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:34 am
If Zen Cart was using a "CSS template" when I used it – then it was some kind of mix of css with tables. While I don't mind using tables where appropriate, there was a great deal of tables being used for LAYOUT. I hope it's improved since then – because if that's what people are calling the "new and improved" CSS template – I think I'll pass and find something with less tables.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:37 am
When did you try Zen Cart Jennifer? Because it used to depend on the template you choose to use, but the one that comes with it is all css.
That said, the wysiwyg editors are still using templates. This would be true with whatever cart system you choose as I understand it. I hear that fckeditor is now offering an upgrade for css output.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:41 am
Looks like I jinxed myself with my comments about 2checkout. I recently received an order for 1) Cart 22. Which translates to one item 22. Which is a hummingbird feeder for $10.99, except for the fact that the order total is $45.08. HA! There must be something else on the order. I'm waiting to hear from the customer on what she ordered.
I think this is a 2checkout problem, but I haven't confirmed it yet.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:04 am
We're going back over 6 months now – so I only remember what I noted in the post – and that was that I picked the most basic template to start with that they had so that I didn't have a lot of garbage in there when I was re-formatting the template to emulate the design I had already done for the site.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:12 am
There is one table used to control left, center & right columns. I understand this is primarily to make the layout more robust – pure CSS layouts are reportedly easy to "break" when editing especially by inexperienced users. A few people have reworked the code to be completely tableless.
Your beef may have been with the product listing page, which is presented in a table since it *is* tabular data. Some may want to present it in a non-tabular format, and this would require some custom coding.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:21 am
Since there is no edit facility, I need another post to respond to your post made while I was writing.
When v1.3.0 was released, and for several updates, the stock installed template ("Classic") was a modified table-based one to make it easier for users to transition to CSS. People in the forums warned frequently against using it for new installations, saying to start from /template_default/ instead. Recent releases have a completely CSS version of Classic.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:36 am
Yes Jennifer, you're right about that. I think that's when I went to joomla and tried virtuemart. Which was good but didn't have all the features I wanted plus there wasn't a google checkout module for virtuemart so I went back to Zen Cart and found the full css template.
I'm glad I did, because it's been working great for me. Until this latest 2checkout problem. Oh well, there's always something isn't there.
John Patrick,
June 27th, 2007 at 1:25 am
This is a great running commentary on shopping carts. We devel;oped our own inhouse one [for Verde coffee] but instead of continually trying to reinvent the wheel we decided to use a fully developed basket. Until I saw all the comments we were going to go for the ZEN Cart because it has such a strong community and lots of add ins being developed all the time, but again this takes time to set up and integrate so after reading most of the above we are on the point of buying the Pinacle software, the price is not really an obstacle – staff time inhouse to build a zen cart as we want it could easily cost more.
I am more interested in the SEO implications -on pinacle you can generate html pages with pretty good meta fexibility, google seems to be able to cope with PHP ok as they have indexed 2500 of our pages but YAHOO and MSN are perhaps not so clever – so on the basis of getting traffic and search engine visibilility would Pinnacle be better than Zen or am i missing something?
July 4th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Well, I gave Zen Cart another try with a project – the client had specifically asked for it (mainly I think because it's one of the most well known and free ecommerce packages) however, once again, I absolutely hate it.
In this particular project, there is already a site in place. They asked me to attach a shopping cart with the same look/feel as the rest of the site so they can sell a few items (probably only ever 2-3 at one time)
1) Yes the "default_template" is technically *mostly* css based – but I am having a GREAT DEAL of problems trying to customize it. There is A LOT of code in there and it's not easy to take it a part. And like I said, it's "MOSTLY" css based – there is still some tables controlling a good portion of the layout.
2) The admin interface is absolutely unusable. I can't figure out any of the options, they're not organized in any kind of manner – there's no good descriptions of what each setting is – and some of the settings relate to things that may or may not be in the template (like size of columns – this should NOT be here – it should all be set up in the template system). You have to click on each item most of the time just to figure out what the heck that particular line item controls.
Since this is a very small store, there are WAY too many options and "features" and no easy way to turn them off.
There's some documentation on the forums, but where I need more in-depth explanations, they just give an "overview". I don't have time to "get-used" to the way Zen Cart does templates… it should be more intuitive.
So, I'm now going to beg the client to consider using something else and this will probably be my last attempt at trying to make Zen Cart work. If you're happy grabbing a pre-made template and only tweaking it a little, then maybe it would be okay – although I still have a LOT of issues with the admin so it's definitely not ever going to be an option for me.
July 4th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
I appreciate your posting that, Jennifer — as I appreciate everyone else's input. It helps all of us evaluate various software.
Actually, I believe I tried ZenCart a couple of years ago, and had the same reaction to the admin panel.
I'm not sure there's a perfect shopping cart out there. But some give us more difficulty than others.
July 6th, 2007 at 9:56 am
[...] I wrote in the comments on this post, I have a new project that needed a shopping cart again. I tried Zen Cart again, and again I [...]
August 4th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Great thread! Well, I have been in shopping cart hell since I have been online. That is nearly 10 years now. Last 4-5 has been with clickcartpro. I have to be honest, it is a great cart since it has never once created an error or caused any vulnerability issues. The new CCP6 is CSS based and the programmer is a very innovative person. However I do not think that he really understands the needs of a business that is selling & shipping a lot of products. The admin area is not user-friendly, for me the cart is missing some basic needs such as:
1) Being able to edit an order. Yes, we product based companies have customers that call or e-mail and need to add to their order. A cart calling itself a shopping cart in 2007 must have some pit y on the user and have this simple option available.
The programmer is a programmer and speaks and writes just like one. He sees everything like one too, which is a okay, however for a business owner who just needs a cart that has all the above (and more), I feel that one needs more than a programmers eye when designing a "shopping cart". He takes things very personal and you can hear it on his postings. I can understand his point, but does he get ours? Our customers are complaining everyday that the cart is outdated, instead we have to spend time fixing the problem over the phone or spend unnecessary time offering support to customers. Are we not allowed to get flustered?
2) Users are forced to sign in or cannot checkout (though the company is working on an update soon, well soon can be 12 month when it comes to CCP!)
3) There is no easy way of updating multiple orders. So, if you get 20-50 orders in a day, at the end of the week you will need to click 150+ individual orders to update them. I am not sure about others, but wearing 50+ hats as a small biz owner, I barely have time to think.
4) The admin backside is not functional, you can get lost between the X-core and the Click Cart Pro and go back and forth and not know where you are, also there are no stats. Many business owners like to know their stats.
6) Support is not the fastest. You can type to the company until you are blue in the face and maybe hear back in 3-5 days. You get help on the forums though. However, if you need a lot of help, this cart will allow you to pull all your hair out for free.
7) Cart is missing some basic customer service functions, such as allowing customers to "become members" and give them specials, very much like X-Cart or CS-cart does.
9) This is minor, but some of the edit areas need work. When it comes to adding products – the long description of a product has a tiny and thin box for you to utilize. Trying to put in some xhtml code in there and then try to view it – well you will either go blind or spend 45 min per product.
I have never found CCP to fill all my needs. I have been very frustrated with them from the beginning and can honestly say that have tried to walk away from them many many occasion. ZenCart, Cube Cart, OS Commerce, DigiShop, X-Cart, Squirrel Cart, Pinnacle Cart and CS- Cart has all been looked at and tried. Out of my list, I leaned towards Pinnacle Cart and CS-Cart (love admin and all the bells and whistles), however Pinnacle Cart is still missing some basics and I cannot see spending $600 and still not have them. CS-Cart I almost almost bought, is too new and I am nervous about the security issues, other than that – this would be my ultimate cart!
Now, I am still with CCP and will stay with them until someone else can step up and beat their code that allows me to feel that my customers are getting the best security one can get. Perhaps CCP programmer may decide to bring in help that will think out side of a programmers box and provide us with what is needed. In that case, I would not move an inch! CCP6 can be an amazing cart only if……
August 10th, 2007 at 10:13 am
We have been using xcart since 2000 on our primary site which generates sales in excess of $1M per year. The first thing we did was heavily modify xcart to achieve the look we wanted.
This involved literally a couple of months of backend design and digging deep into the code, which is Smarty based.
When a big security threat was found we were told we should upgrade to the current release. However, because we had customized the store so deeply this was not possible. Our only choice was to install the new version, and then redesign all over again.
Now it's been almost 7 years and we have not applied one single security or program update, due to the fact that we would have to rebuild once again. Instead, we keep a strong firewall, good antivirus and spyware detection at all times, but we also know that it's only a matter of time before we get hacked (notice the lack of our website url in this post). Also, there were many features xcart did not have that we needed. These features we coded ourselves into the cart, and while possible, is very painstaking due to the smarty code.
So, recently we too went to search for a new cart. We put together a list of features that we absolutely must have and started looking. We downloaded, installed and worked with dozens of carts.
Finally we decided on ZenCart.
And the reasons were simple. We were able to find and download numerous templates for the system, and with the click of the mouse, we could change the entire way the site looks. While other carts are also templated based, what we really liked was the plain PHP code which was easy to work with (and contained none of that smarty bs).
Our new site is already up and running, in less than one week, and with the design we created. But best of all, we are no longer locked out of the ability to apply patches and security updates. And, every feature we needed (sans 1) was already present in the cart! And the one that wasn't (FedEx shipping) had a contribution that we modified slightly and works great.
So far I am very happy with ZenCart.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:09 am
After reviewing this web site and others we have finally gone with Zen Cart. A lot of people have thought customising the css template difficult – we did not have that problem. We are actually still building the web site but you can see at verdecoffee.com/zencart. Admin panel is easy to use and there are so many standard features and add in modules that the more we look at the software the more we like what we see.We have downloaded and have used the seo module which converts the php result to an html ref and there are so many more relevant and good looking adaptions that all things considered it does seem -for us at least – the best option we could find.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:57 am
I have tried them all.
In my opinion – The only one that is clean and easy to use is still cubecart. They have some javascript issues with regards accessibility but that is nothing compared to the time I had with the Zen cart admin – it is a usability nightmare. The layman is supposed to be able to update his own products and categories easily.. I couldn't make head nor tail of some of it.
Yes with zen cart It's easy to change some of the layout in the admin…but major design changes beyond that are a huge learning curve. I gave up.. it should not be that time consuming for simple changes.
cubecart is missing a lot of functionality.. you can buy mods or pay for customisations… far from perfect ..but I'd rather start with a clean foundation – than untangle all the spaghetti I don't need.
August 20th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Pinnacle Cart Software.
I have been using Pinnacle Cart for the last 6 months. I do like their cart. It is good. Well laid out, and the admin area is great. It still needs more things, but it is better than most others out there.
I do have a valid complaint though.
They told me before I bought the software and spent months of time developing a website that on my feed,
Old Items would be removed when updated.
And that I could have the feed plus my own items. But that was not the case.
I added in the feed and some of my own items. Sales went more and more down.
I reported the problem. Their Cart cannot delete SOLD OUT items. It just keeps adding and adding, so you sell more and more sold out items. I reported this 3 months ago.
It is still not fixed.
Seems that their cart puts everything into 1 single database instead of separating feeds and putting each feed in its own separate database.
At least I think that has a lot to do with the problem.
I have lost thousands of dollars as a result. I would have never purchased their software if I was told before hand that this problem existed.
Donno what else to say, I just hope they fix this soon so I can start making money instead of loosing money every day.
To avoid taking a huge loss like me, If I were you, before I purchased this software, I would find out exactly what this problem is, and what solutions
they have come up with to solve it before you buy their cart.
Hope this helps, John.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:43 pm
2formadmirer: To my experience, in any free solution there is at least one unresolved critical security bug, constantly. It may be not well-known to public, but it is a critical security hole.
 It seems that you don't care about your business since you choose free solution without any official support service provided.Any free solutions, even quite old and time-proven, issue a numerous security patches regularly. Now ZenCart is full of bugs and minor/medium security holes.
Simply, try a to search for "zen cart critical security vulnerability 2007".
Not to mention the fact that ZenCart has TERRIBLE source code, which is permanent nightmare for developer.
August 24th, 2007 at 1:33 am
I'm afraid that **any** piece of software is subject to bugs. If you search for "xxx critical security vulnerability", where xxx might be anything, from "php" to "windows" to whatever you like, you're probably going to find out tons of problems. That's natural, organic, cannot be avoided: just like health in humans, it is a continous, dynamic quest, and never a static condition.
And this **does** involve also commercial software. There is a bias, though: at times people selling software are interested in hiding problems, while opensource is exposed anyway.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Luigi – words of wisdom – think of all the Microsoft problems! Over the years the various ms platforms have been a nightmare – remember millenium edition, and while you dont have a commercial support my experience on the zen cart forums has been very positive – all my questions have been answered so far!
August 24th, 2007 at 2:16 am
ZenMagick is an alternative to avoid the zen-cart templating nightmare. It's still not complete, but there are already a few sites out there that use it.
* Full control over all HTML without the need to modify core files
* Plugin support (some popular zen-cart mods have been ported that way)
* Ajax support (with more to come)
* Simple OO API that let's you do stuff like:
$product = $zm_products->getProductForId(1);
$manufacturer = $product->getManufacturer();
echo $product->getModel() . ' – ' . $manufacturer->getName();
August 25th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Hi everyone,
I know it's not cheap, but many hosting companies include it in their hosting packages ($40-$75/month): Miva
It's easy to customize, just learn the table structure, you can add your own CSS. It's not a shopping cart that will allow you to set up a shop for $200, more like $700 plus customizations, but everyone will be happy. I love ZenCart for my non-picky customers that have a low budget. But anyone that is very picky is gonna have to pay for Miva with me. Yes, there are additional modules to purchase and the prices spikes up.
September 4th, 2007 at 6:36 am
hmm i think i might be going insane?
Jennifer,
Did you try ZenMagick?
Do you prefer Cube Cart over SquirrelCart?
To All,
Are there any new (maybe better)solutions?
Any updates to the old solutions worth noting? (amendments to old complaints)
How has Magento panned out?
How can pinnacle cart not disable products that have sold out?
ClickCart Pro vs. CS-Cart vs. SunShop 4 vs. Pinnacle might be an interesting article.
Thanks to all who contribute.
-Jesse
September 5th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I will be going with Magento Commerce. It is by far the best one is features as compared to the rest.
http://www.magentocommerce.com/blog/announcing-magento-beta-and-launch-of-the-magento-community-site/
September 5th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
You're sugesting the use of magneto commerce?
Their own site site advises: "We highly recommend not to use in production environments".
September 6th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Got to be a plant Mr Magento!
Not even a working system yet!
September 6th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Just browsing some of the older posts and thinking about Jennifers comment about zen-cart having too many options.
ZenMagick intentionally doesn't support zen-cart's admin options that are layout related. In fact, I have been thinking about a patch to disable options that are not supported in order to make the admin interface more readable. Maybe, something I should really do.
I also think while doing that I could regroup the options as even after about 2 years of exposure to zen-cart I still struggle to find seldom used options again (usually I end up reading mysql_zencart.sql!)
Incidentally, I saw some SQL the other day that would change all config descriptions and prepend the config key (aka the upper case define to be used in the code…) Not perfect but certainly a help!
September 6th, 2007 at 4:19 am
Actually, I've been extremely impressed with Magento so far. And I've tested a lot of others, including x-cart. I hope to have it working live on my site within a month.
September 6th, 2007 at 5:14 am
No coupon facility – or did i miss it.
September 6th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Magento (I want to call it Magneto!) looks very promising. Unfortunately, I need a non-beta solution today. I'm leaning toward CS-Cart based on features and reviews.
September 6th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Chris,
How long do you estimate design, installation, etc. will take you overall? Could you email me with any tips or problems you have come accross? jphillips (at) norcaldesigns (dot) com. Thanks!
September 9th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
@Owner.
I wanted to know how did Squirrel Cart come out when you worked with it last time.
Which version do you have now?
I have seen its demo and I am impressed by it.
Is it easy to implement Tracking Features of Google Analytics, Stuffed Tracker, or ShareaSale Affiliate Tracking code. ?
September 9th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I've updated that site to the latest version of Squirrel Cart, and in fact, I just used it for another (simple) implementation that needed more features than CubeCart offered.
I haven't used the features you were asking about. But installation and customization was relatively quick/easy. It may be worth a try to see if it does what you need – they have a money back guarantee…
September 10th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Hello Jennifer,
Thanks for the reply.
I read one of review of SquirrelCart, which mentioned that it did not handle SEO URL's that well.
Have they improved in their latest version ?
September 11th, 2007 at 5:36 am
Hello
Has anyone tried out viart.com
It does have a lot of options. I have some reviews at shoppingcartreviews and they say that the cart is filled with features but the support is lacking.
September 11th, 2007 at 5:48 am
Hello
For those who are using Pinnacle Cart, There is another cart built upon it.
ClearCart
Check out its reviews here:
http://www.shopping-cart-reviews.com/carts/ClearCart.aspx
This is what the shoppingcartreview site says about the cart:
Quote:
"
ClearCart is based on PinnacleCart with a series of enhancements, bug fixes, usability improvements – basically taking a good product and polishing it till it shines. They also have a hosted version of the cart for a monthly fee.
"
But when i checked the site, its pricing had changed:
Quote:
"
$250 cart setup, $100/month
"
I guess they have went towards Hosting Platform.
September 11th, 2007 at 5:51 am
Hello
I would like to say that every one of us who runs an online business and has to market it, are troubled by selecting a good cart for online business.
Where I see it, every other cart is built with a programmers view and is geared towards programmers.
Whereas, the programmers have no or little knowledge about on how to run an online business or to market it. They pay very less importance to Marketing and hence the produce useless carts which is filled with features but still lacking in the marketing field.
September 11th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
AjnabiZ: Fair comment.
That is why I, as ZenMagick developer, am so desperate to get feedback; here, in a couple other blog threads elsewhere and via my blog and the zen-cart forum.
I have had over 100 downloads in the last 10 days or so, but not a single piece of feedback.
Occasionally, there is a post about problems and that people do no like ZenMagick. I do not have problems with that – ZenMagick is certainly not for everyone. However, if it is true what you are saying, and I do not doubt that, why is it so hard to articulate what is not good or missing?
I have integrated at least 5 zen-cart mods into ZenMagick since people started complaining about the lack of support. (mods people where asking for support)
I'd be happy and willing to do more, but without anyone telling me which it's hard to do (I won't just port all 200+ mods!)
September 11th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
@ DerManoMann
The main function which is missing from Zencart is the 2Checkout Module. It does not work with the latest version of Zencart, just search for it in the forums. It is also not supported by Zencart.
You should work on developing a working payment module for 2Checkout V2.
September 11th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
@AjnabiZ
Oh, well. I am not going to continue this discussion that we started here: http://www.radebatz.net/mano/2007/04/04/features-and-more/
All I'd like to add is that I finished work on a custom payment module for another (paying) customer just last week. Apparently it was important enough for him…
You are welcome to suggest any other improvements as long as they are related to what ZenMagick is, though (storefront, support for existing mods, new UI features (what about a whishlist?), etc.)
September 11th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
@ DerManoMann
I think you are still angry at me.
Anyhow, I have not tried ZenMagick as yet.
I am looking for a paid solution now. So far, CS-Cart, ClickCart Pro, Squirrel Cart and Viart have been really interesting.
CS-Cart is reported to get slow.
http://forum.cs-cart.com/showthread.php?t=3570. This is the only concern I have with this cart. It has many features and is quite powerful.
ClickCart Pro is being developed by one Developer/Programmer and it takes ages for updates. As is evident from their forums. Its admin panel is a nightmare, though if you can spare a lot of time reading through, then you can get a hang of it, but sometimes you get mixed up.
Viart, I have just found it a few days ago. I have installed it free version. I am testing it right now, it is quite powerful. Price is reasonable around $179 and Yearly Support is $99.
Its admin panel is clear and easy to use as well.
Squirrel Cart is also in the line up. I need some more reviews on Squirrel Cart. Its admin panel is really very easy and intuitive.
Zencart – Not thinking about it right now. I just want to give these Open Source projects a break.
Exception:
Magento Commerce, this one has to be kept under a watchful eye.Since they have just released a Beta version, i think it will be before they release a stable version and I dont think i can wait that long. It depends !!!
Here is its Demo :
http://www.magentocommerce.com/demo
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Hi,
Very interesting read!!! I've been testing my ass off the last couple of weeks.
osCommerce wasn't really an option in the first place because my experience with it being a "hell of a mess" coded solution. And i like clean and tidy.
So, the next step was testing CreLoaded – osC powered up – it didn't took too much time to figure out it was a mess as well, only with some additional features.
But after a comparison with ZEN Cart, which was serious candidate in the first place because of the reviews and tips from people around me. And i have to say, excellent stuff and besides that, free. The only downside i was able to find up to now was the limitations of multilangual EZ Pages.
But then i somehow ended up here after visiting http://www.shopping-cart-reviews.com and i a new world opened up. I mean, complete webshops packages for +- $200 is very accaptable.
I've now tested some mentioned here and liked SquirrelCart, Sunshop, CubeCart and especially Pinnacle Cart.
My findings were that, even the look very neat, Squirrel & Cube lack features which can be titles as "standard" or "essential" for a good professional webshop.
I loved the interface of sunshop but read some mixed user reviews about it, so i will investigate further.
Pinnacle is just breathtaking. The flexibility and options look excellent allthough i wasn't able to test many features in the demo, so that's a BIG downside, because now i have a hurdle of purchasing it and test it within 30 days, which is shorter than the time i need developing the webshop from A to Z for my client. But maybe this is something to discuss with them. I mean, if you can build such a flexible system, i think they will and can be flexible
What i really liked about Pinnacle is that it's easy to edit or modify templates. Not only for me, but also for my client. He really wants to be able to change things himself, having a little bit experience in the field this will be the best solution for him i think. I hope he sees it too and will be prepared to pay a little more money.
Anyway, back on topic.
I also checked the GeoCart demo, very nice too, but way to expensive. And hosted solution, which i don't prefer.
Magento looks veryyyy impressive. I think i can't wait either. I couldn't find template managing though. But we'll see with the first stable release. On to keep an eye on for sure.
Also i hear very good news about the new rivised version of osCommerce.
We'll see. For now it probably will be Zen Cart or Pinnacle Cart – depending on my client.
I will keep you guys up-to-date. Interesting topic
September 24th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Pinnacle Cart Update.
Long Story Short, because we complained here and with the BBB, etc,
Pinnacle Cart went out of their way to destroy our company!
Yes, we have been offline most of this month thanks to Pinnacle Cart!
We were promised that sold out items would be removed and would never be a problem before we signed up in March 2007. It took us months to figure out that they lied and That no sold out item had ever been removed from our database.
It created massive amounts of people buying sold out items, and we lost dozens, well really hundreds of orders as a result, and hundreds of orders we could have had!
Instead of trying to fix us,
they gave us a 10 day notice to leave,
but refused to let us download our site!
DO NOT TRUST PINNACLE CART!
We posted on here before, telling people how Pinnacle Cart Promised to remove sold out items, which was mission critical and they were well ware of that.
Days, weeks, months went by and they never fixed our critical problem that they promised never existed!
We filed complaints, etc with BBB and in fact this place.
We went offline for 8 days in a row in September 2007, with no way to contact customers, no way to tell anyone what was going on, We begged them to move our site, or let us host our site, and they did not even bother to respond. Just let us stay offline for another week!
Then just 4 days after we are back online, they send us an email demanding
we take back complaints or they will turn us off for good.
Well, they turned us off for good.
The night before they turned us off, knowing very well it would take days, weeks, months for us to get online again, they gave us some strange backup of our site which we still cannot figure out what it is. And we told them several times that if they turn us off, they are putting us out of business! They 100% did not care. Offered no options, etc, We begged them not to do it, but they did not care and did it anyway.
How can anyone trust Pinnacle Cart when they do not let you download a backup of your site?
Will not fix critical problems they told you never existed?
Not fix critical issues for months that cost a small business losses every day?
And then take the liberty to just put you out of business rather than come up with any type of solution?
Instead of promoting our business, we were stuck writing Pinnacle Cart support Tickets, taking daily losses, upsetting and loosing valuable customers, and
months of SEO work, time, money, and a lot of pain and mental hardship!
We were getting approx 5,000 Unique visitors, had almost 300 sales, and it was growing largely by the week.
Pinnacle Cart however put a stop to that. They erased all of our SEO info when they basically forced us to move to a crappy test cart that did not work.
We told them we were only willing to do that if only the products change and if anything else changes at all, that NO, we did not want them to make this test cart live. They told us it would not be a problem. Only the products would change.
So, long story short, they moved the test cart over, and it erased all of our SEO Work. Removing over 30,000 SEO Indexed pages on Google and other places.
Then they took us off line for 8 days in a row because of a so called DDOS Attack which they did not protect us over, nor fix it quickly as most every expert says could have been fixed in a day or two,
but hey our customers paid the price, and of course made us loose credibility with all of our customers.
Then Pinnacle Cart shut us off completly for making complaints just a few days later!
Now they sent us their lawyer.
Isn't that great? All of this years hard
work ruined by 1 company that lied to us from the start. And they are going to sue us now?
I read here that they are going to try to specialize on hosting? Oh my God!
Something needs to be done.
If you have been screwed by Pinnacle Cart as well, please email your story to storepulls@yahoo.com
September 24th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
@ Arno
I would recommend that you give
viart.com
and
Jshop.co.uk
a try. Both of them are extremely easy to skin and they are filled with features.
September 24th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
@ John: That sounds harsh! But i wonder why they would put you offline and on what base they will sue you – if it's them that did everything wrong?
One thing i would never do: use a hosted service. Especially with eCommerce it's just to tricky to give them both all the leads, all the data and the power of plugin you on or off.
Anyway, i was looking at Ixxo cart. A german distributor that used Pinnacle and enriched it with all sorts of extra features and multi language functions, a thing Pinnacle lacks.
Anyway, i was already testing Viart and looks pretty full featured indeed. Allthough i wasn't too fond of the interface though.
Jshop is new to me … will look into it.
Untill now i haven's find a better tool than Pinnacle to be honest. Sunshop came close, but user reviews weren't that positive. GoeCart looks neat too, but is way to expensive.
All the reviews i read about Pinnacle where superb … this is the first negative thing i've heard about it. Anyone else has bad experiences with Pinnacle?
Viart an Jshop are next on my list. Already peaked at Viart, but need to invest some more time to conclude.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
I'm a fan of Sunshop, which is pretty easy to use. Of course, if you want to do your own themes, or customize it, then you need to know something. Otherwise, it's pretty advanced and useful. In my opinion.
September 25th, 2007 at 3:26 am
I don't mind using CSS, DIV etc. But i do prefer a package that makes it easy and clean, not like osCommerce and CreLoaded.
Why i like the pinnacle features, which Viart holds too from what i've seen of it, is that the client is able to update his webshop himself the easy way.
I will get intu Sunshop again. V4 could be perfect.
September 25th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Hm … I forgot to mention i'd like a shop with multilanguage feature.
Untill now i haven't found many. Only ZEN and Ixxo (Pinnacle reseller) have it plus the additional features i need.
Sunshop -> 1 language setup
Jshop -> 1 language setup
ViArt -> 1 language setup
Also i found the Viart interface a bit messy.
I like the looks of Sunshop, but isn't very logically structured.
So, i still think Ixxo is the best option. Allthough i'm in doubt with the posted story of John, but that's the only negative thing i've read about it and i don't know the details. It can be just an angry customer after not paying the bills? Or not …
Otherwise i'll stick with ZEN.
Anyone else has a good Multi Language store solution?
September 25th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I forgot to mention i need a shop with multilanguage options.
Jshop -> 1 language setup
Sunshop -> 1 language setup
ViArt -> 1 language setup
Also i find the ViArt interface unclear and messy.
So, i think i'll settle for Ixxo (Reseller Pinnacle with addition features like multilanguage) Licensed version.
I'm a bit in doubt with john's post thought, but i don't know the details. Maybe it's just an angry customer after not paying the bills, i can't tell.
Anyone else has experiences with Pinnacle/Ixxo?
Other mutlilangual solutions?
September 25th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Sorry for the double post. Got can't find page when posting. Delete the first please… and this one
thx
September 26th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Viart does support Multilanguage
September 26th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
jShop also supports Multilanguage
September 30th, 2007 at 2:33 am
hello, all: well, cant believe I just read this long "shopping cart" thread, at what is now 5am! But, as somebody here said, being in cart-hell aint fun. This has been one of best posts I can remember in a while, and like all of u, as of late been trying to decide what cart system to use. Practically cross-eyed now with so much testing and downloading of trial versions, from CubeCart, to Viart, squirrel, and a real mess of other ones.. for some odd reason I have been lately on the verge of going on with OSCommerce, which is a surprise to me.
Almost went with Cubecart, except found some confusing code customization along with other issue i cant remember now… seems so many are elegantly made but missing key features, or all right features but with most confusing code… specially cause I am definitely not a PHP expert, just a dabbler…
At first I almost gave up on OSCommerce, and I still might, if some other minor issues dont get solved… but as far as customization, I did find it somewhat approachable, after one gets used to the css, php and basic template structure. In the end, so far was the one cart I came to customize very close to matching my current site look… CubeCart got on my nerves after a while. OSCommerce does have the advantage of being free, but beacuse of it, weak (maybe even dangerous) support system since is really member supported, but at least I did get prompt feedback from their forum… which cant say same for Cubecart's
I also found this great little cart which is free: Maian cart, at http://www.maianscriptworld.co.uk/free-php-scripts/maian-cart/free-paypal-shopping-cart-system/index.html, which even though very unassuming really had lots of stuff many carts didnt even have, like what seems now, the holy grail of cart features: make purchase without registering, and automcatically manage inventory levels upon purchase… seems like so many of these carts had one or the other… unless you paid 100-300 bucks for it. Anyways, the big drawback was the fact I coulndt really customize shipping, just flat rate.. not good! but maybe somebody may find it useful.
Anyways, I'll keep looking some options here offered, some do look interesting, let you guys know how it goes..
October 12th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
@Arno,
I am taking a look at Ixxo Cart. Lets see how it comes out.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Ok, i'm very curious what your finding / experiences are with Ixxo.
The only issue is that the developer of Ixxo refuses to give the code of the features he added, and i, on my end, don't want to be reliable on him. Willing to pay, yes, but be reliable, no.
I also checked ViArt & Jshop, but just didn't like the interface / usability.
I'll take a look at Maian Cart … My client doesn't do shipping costs (all included) so it might be the solution for me for this project … but it's a big drawback for probably all my other customers which might need more shipping flexibility.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Does anyone on this site have experience with Shopfactory 7 ? I am a merchant, not a programmer, and want a Simple Solution that is not server based. Shopfactory seems to be one of the few solutions. I looked at Actinic but did not particularly like it.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:52 am
@Jennifer, is there a way to create an account here. I am tired of entering my details again and again.
@Arno, i checked out Ixxo. There plus version is nice but its extrememly costly.
I did not see any difference between Ixxo and Pinnaclecart.
When i tried to download its free version, i received an error.
[quote]
Fill the form below and get started now
{scform}3{/scform}
[/quote]
So as far as testing is concerned, i could not get the free version moreover, i was let down with the high price tag whereas Pinnaclecart is cheaper than it.
I am also looking into
http://bakesalehq.com/
It has limited features.
October 15th, 2007 at 8:28 am
About Ixxo – their main improvement with Plus is the full multilanguage features. Also credit point system and some other additions.
Compare here: http://www.php-shop-system.com/ixxo-cart/ecommerce-features/compare-versions.html
I also had some issues with the demo. Ixxo send me this link instead:
http://ixxo-net.com/console/create-shop.php
It creates a clean and full functional Ixxo shop to test.
It is expensive yes, but the extra features are the ones i need. So i can take Pinnacle and develop them myself, but that will be way more time consuming thus expensive. So that's why it would work for me, but i have not decided yet, but it's the most easy to use / user friendly interface i've seen so far which is worth something too. I liked Sunshop too, but the navigation is a little less interesting + no multi languages.
October 15th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Just check this shopping cart.
Its Java based but extremely fast and powerful
elasticpath.com
October 15th, 2007 at 10:14 am
@Jennifer, thanks for considering my request. I think, if you implement account creation feature, then maybe, you might get regular users. : )
@Arno, Yes, creditpoint system is really interesting. I really do not need Multilingual so that is out of the picture.
I was wondering, what are the main differences between Pinnaclecart and Ixxo.
Also, does Ixxo give out the source code that we can make our own changes and additions.
October 15th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
OK, did I get this wrong or Elastic Path is about $50K to run??? hmmm… maybe in another planet…
October 16th, 2007 at 7:05 am
@ AjnabiZ:
Plus = Ixxo – Standard = Pinnacle:
http://www.php-shop-system.com/ixxo-cart/ecommerce-features/compare-versions.html
About the source code. I gives the code of Pinnacle, but not the extra build in features of plus, which is the thing what worries me. I'm discussing this with Ixxo at the moment. If they are not willing to give the code i will have to look for another solution.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:36 am
@Adrian, its an enterprise solution. But I was really impressed by the features, there is not even one php shopping cart which is capable of doing all of what is included in Elastic path.
I contacted them for a price quote and they responded $35,000 per dual core.
Thats quite expensive.
@Arno, full source code is important for me as well as I also make a lot of changes and additions.
I have come down to 3
1). ViArt
2). Jshop
3). PinnacleCart
Jshop and Pinnaclecart does not provide any trial version to test out.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:40 am
@Arno, i need your advice.
Is Ixxo really worth the price along with the added feature ?
October 16th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Viart has just released a new version 3.3.1
The following new features have been added:
*Stream Video feature for articles
*Bonus Points functionality
*Possibility to see and edit the newsletter users list
*'Pre-Order' button for upcoming and out of stock products
*New settings to send emails directly via SMTP
*Possibility for a merchant to add options and components to his products
*A final check for products stock levels before submitting an order
*Related products functionality for articles and articles categories
*Possibility to set different payment systems and different shipping methods for different users groups
*An option 'Manufacturer Image Type' for the block 'Product Details' to control the display of the manufacturer image
*'A New block which enables your customers to switch among different active templates
*Ability to run PHP code in the product fields
*A new option to prevent customers from repurchasing the same products within a specified period of time
*An option to select what columns to show on basket, orders, checkout and invoice pages
*Possibility to specify in how many categories merchants are allowed to assign the product
*A secondary menu can be now displayed under the top header menu
*Additional settings for the block 'Shopping Cart (Recommended Products)’
*An Image Preview functionality on File Select popup and appropriate option on Products Settings page
*Support of DB2 database via ODBC
*A new {shipping_code} tag is added for order notifications
*Reflecting its international team and focus, Brazilian and Norwegian messages files have been added, German and French messages are updated
*New payment system modules for Cybersource and Korta credit card processors are added
*A new field for a product code has been added (which is to be used separately from the manufacturer code)
*Possibility to use product and manufacturer codes to show their barcodes on packing slips
*Option to select what kind of image – default or small to show for subcategories block
*Possibility to export/import specification data for products
*Possibility to specify the depth level of visible menu items in navigation menus on each page separately
*New orders tax report
*A new coupon tax free option to exclude any tax calculation to the coupon has been added
*'Image type' settings have been added to the block 'Shopping Cart' to control small preview images on the Basket page
*Allow a merchant to view his merchant sales orders
*Importing RSS feeds into the article sections
*New admin privilege groups permissions for products & categories section
*A new block "Products (Who bought this Also bought)' has been added
*A new option to specify prices including Tax'
I have only included the headings not the details.
If anyone needs the details, i can email them.
October 16th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Well, not sure when this happened, as I haven't been by CubeCart's site in a while – but their latest version (4) is no longer free. In fact, it's $129.95 – if you want to remove the copyright notice, it's an *additional* $89.95 (or if you buy both the license and copyright removal at the same time it's: $179.95). :/ Unless ver 4 is drastically better than 3, I'd probably opt for Squirrelcart over CubeCart. In fact I just recently did another store with Squirrelcart and discovered a number of nice features I wasn't aware of before.
October 16th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
well, that's a bummner, I had my feelings these CubeCart and other "Free" carts might do that – start charging afterwards… get people on board and then stick it to them… Oh, well. In the end, as hard as it is to believe, i have decided (for the foreseable future, anyways) to use OSCommerce… still a bit leary, but what the Hell…
October 16th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Adrian,
I've tried oscommerce. You'll save so much work by choosing Zen Cart. It's free. There's not charge for using Zen Cart. Zen Cart started as a better OSCommerce, but now it's evolved into something even better than when it started.
Good luck with your choice.
JP
October 17th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Just a quick note
Check out
http://www.interspire.com/storesuite/
New Shopping cart which is going to be released.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
@Adrian:
Indeed, i agree with JP, drop OSC and go for ZEN, waaaayyy better and cleaner. Save yourself the trouble.
@AjnabiZ:
I can't advise you on Ixxo. The guy i'm talking to is very friendly and willing to help though, but that's no guarentee once you buy the shop ofcourse. Also i've no idea how "solid" their added features are. If there are no issues there's no need to worry ofcourse, but how do they response on your request once something is wrong and you're not able to get the code. I will not continue with Ixxo if they're not willing to give the code. I will then probably return to ZEN or maybe ViArt – allthough i found the admin interface even crappier then ZEN's and ZEN is free and open source.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
hmmm.. since you you guys are talking so highly about it, gonna look deeper at Zen cart; perhaps I might have looked at it too fast before and didnt give it a chance… and if it's open source, then even better! I have found the OSCommerce "coding" customization a bit confusing, even though better in some ways to others; dont know how I could have missed Zen cart.. anyways, see the site I am working on at http://www.whateveretcconsign.com; just beginning but did like the fact I was able to get OScommerce kind of close to the existing site design.. still a bit a cumbersome.. thanks guys!
October 21st, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Does anyone know of a "pure" cart only that i can integrate with my own custom checkout script?
October 25th, 2007 at 2:13 am
*A Response to Jennifer's last post on 10/16/2007, 11:33 am and the following post by Adrian.
Cubecart version 3 is still available and is still free (except the same "powered by CubeCart" removal cost). CubeCart 4 is their newest addition and has a lil' more features.(and Cost more)
I recently downloaded the 30 day trial for CubeCart version 4 and its nice and clean like version 3, but the import feature(the only reason I was willing to pay for this one) is still very new and doesn't work very well at all. Therefore I will continue to mess with CubeCart version 3(Did I mention that it is still free?)
Nice blog by-the-way, I just read the entire thing all night, never seen it before. This has been a huge help for me, thanks.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:36 am
Hi there,
I am making a decision on my first shopping cart. At present step we plan to sell about 10 products.
I am looking at Litecommerce by Qualiteam. It is pretty good and simple.
I need Google Checkout and UPS modules. But I am not sure if they certified by service providers.
Does anyone have en information about litecommerce and its modules?
Any help will be appreciated.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
So I inherited a new client this morning. Their site is currently hosted on Pinnacle Cart. Two previous designers and developers have fought with the system and ended up never being able to accomplish some of the custom layout things they wanted. However, after my discussion with them this morning, I know for a fact that I can do what they want in Squirrelcart. (Whether that's just because I've now worked with Squirrelcart for awhile and I just haven't gotten to know Pinnacle Cart yet, or not, I can't say) I poked around in the control panel (on Pinnacle Cart), and again, maybe it would be easier having actual template pages in front of me (ie. a NON HOSTED site) – but their CMS was enough to make me want to spork my eyes out. I spent two hours trying to figure out where things were. And then I sent the client an email recommending that it would take quite a bit of time to figure out Pinnacle cart, or I could do what they want in half the time on Squirrelcart.
Again, this is just my opinion. I really like carts where I can figure out the templating system quickly (like I was able to do originally with Squirrelcart). Maybe Pinnacle Cart's templating system just takes some getting used to – but that is time I don't have and my clients don't usually want to pay for. I know Squirrelcart has some limitations, but on the whole I'm still very happy with this cart.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Thanks, Jennifer. It's good to get evaluations of software. I may be looking into Squirrelcart myself.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
@Jennifer, may thoughts exactly.
I hate it when companies dont provide a trial version to download and test it on a local server.
I do not get the point that they want us to test on their demo setups.
We have to look at the file structure and how the templating system works, not just placing all the files in the admin section and allow one to edit them.
October 30th, 2007 at 7:41 am
For the person wanting to use Google Checkout and UPS.
Zen Cart ( http://www.zen-cart.com ) uses both, module is free, but complicated to install.
October 30th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
This is for Duncan…
I have been using a Lite Commerce site for a couple of years.
It works and I have been able to get it to do what I want but I do not like their template approach.
Their customer support is quite good.
They charge for their modules which can add up.
I am not familiar with their latest version but the version I am using is still tables based and it does not produce W3C compliant pages.
I am now developing a shop using Turnkey Web Tools Sunshop 4.04. I liked the fact that they use layers and CSS rather than tables. Also all their modules are included in the original purchase price. The only problem I have so far is that they have not issued any documentation on how to customize the 4.0 version and I am finding a few minor bugs.
So… A mixed message. Lite Commerce will get the job done. Some folks like their templating approach. Their customer support is effective. Things like W3C compliance and divs/CSS versus tables may not matter to you.
–Doug
October 31st, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Ok, some updates – that new client? Actually we'll probably end up going with CubeCart (paid version, with copyright removal) because they wanted to sync QuickBooks with the cart. Also, CubeCart had some shipping options they preferred over Squirrelcart. Sync-ing with Quickbooks is not something CubeCart does out of the box, so we'll probably end up buying an application from this company: http://www.datalinkuk.com that would handle that. Squirrelcart has talked about doing Quickbooks integration on the forums – but that was awhile ago, and there has been no ETA given as to when it will be done, unfortunately.
Also – I think someone had posted (maybe on the other thread where I tried to summarize everything here. Heh) that Cube Cart CAN do credit cards on the site (and not forward you to authorize.net's site) and I spoke with their pre-sales department and they say it can be done, and explained how to do it (I think I had the wrong type of Authorize.net account activated on the site) and they pointed me to where you would edit the template file as well. So feeling better about CubeCart these days… lol
November 1st, 2007 at 2:02 am
Hello
Thanks Jennifer for pointing our http://www.datalinkuk.com
I might give them a try.
Do tell me how it went with http://www.datalinkuk.com
November 1st, 2007 at 8:04 am
I mentioned previously that ShopScript was what I was using currently. Looks like there is a new version out based on ShopScript called WebAsyst (they just sent me an email.)
http://www.webasyst.net/shop/
It doesn't look that much different than he previous version although their website is prettier.
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:47 am
Chris, the main difference is that ShopScript is for you to download and run on your own server, while the latter is a service.
Both look nice and are suitable for small shops.
November 5th, 2007 at 6:43 am
wow! lots of good info here. thanks!
I've been doing a bit of cart testing and usability research for about 3 years now.
John's post regarding Pinnacle certainly caught my attention.
I created a test site about six months ago with a hosted Pinnacle reseller and I have to say that I've found some serious load speed and visitor usability flaws.
When I filed a support ticket regarding these problems, I also got a 'too bad, tis sad don't let the door hit you in the ass if you don't like it' response.
My criteria for a top cart solution is first and foremost the customer experience. As developers or site designers we have two customers,
1. the site owner
2. the site's visitor
Our primary challenge is to convert a visitor into a customer who then buys regularly from the company or owner of the site.
Good cart structure includes both search engine and conversion optimization.
It appears to me that John was a customer of a hosted Pinnacle cart solution. He built up a viable online business which was then demolished because he filed a legitimate support ticket about a programming flaw that was seriously impacting his customers.
How can that be justified?
November 5th, 2007 at 9:52 am
This is such a great blog! I have been trying a bunch of these suggestions. Anyone know of an open-source/free shopping cart solution that includes AJAX driven pages?
November 5th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Hello Everyone,
My name is Craig and I work for Pinnacle Cart. I just wanted to quickly address the latest posting regarding our product. We do have a network or reseller that sell and support the Pinnacle Cart application and while we have no control over the hosting environment the resellers place the application on, I can tell you we have conducted independent latency testing with Fat Bear Incorporated and Pinnacle has consistently loaded faster when compared to all major eCommerce applications on the market. Our number one concern is your customers experience and our code is constantly optimized to insure the cart will respond quickly. Again, this cart maybe sitting a “stacked’ server and as we all know having too many sites on one server will create latency in response times, regardless of how the application is coded.
My suggestion is to contact us directly and have your store moved over to our servers with our support.
I’d also like to address your comments regarding John. This client was using a product loader from another company and that company changed the structure of the data without notifying us of the change. We addressed this issue, issued an update and the application works perfectly. John’s company wasn’t “demolished†and interestingly enough, John still uses Pinnacle Cart, though he is supported though one of our resellers.
Thanks everyone!
November 5th, 2007 at 11:16 am
@Craig, I think it's very encouraging that you're here reading and responding to users and potential users of your product. But I will say that when I called asking for support on how to customize my client's site, I was directed to your support section and it wasn't terribly helpful. Apparently, completely customizing one's cart (ie creating new template files) is not really part of the "manual" – it's in pieces all over the knowledge base. This is not terribly useful or helpful. This is just a suggestion (so do with it as you see fit) but I would ask you to take a look at Squirrelcart's manual and how they went through a fair amount of detail explaining how to customize the look and feel of the templates, where each file was, etc. (not only that but their code is well commented, so when I needed to find an "include" or template piece, I could view source and it would tell me how to locate it) This kind of thing helps developers get up to speed on software quickly, and makes them more likely to use your software. If you had something similar, my first response to my new client probably wouldn't have been "Get off Pinnacle Cart now!" I urge you to improve your documentation. It probably doesn't seem like time/money well spent to do so – but I think you may not be aware of potential customers that walk away because you don't already have this.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for your suggestions. I’ve looked at the documentation you discussed and we actually have similar documentation under the “Appearance Settings†area in our user manual. Additionally, we complement that with over 20 additional articles (one of which outlines the files needed to be changed to create a new template) on advanced customization in our knowledgebase. That said, I agree with you that you can never have enough documentation on using the product and I will work with our support team to improve it. If you have some specific needs, please feel free to contact me directly.
Thanks again for the feedback. Our goal is to provide our customers the best cCommerce application available and your suggestions certainly do help.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:47 am
I also like to comment on this. When i contacted Pinnacle (a few times) the response time was very low in the first place. Also the response wasn't very helpfull at all, just a notification it was(n't) possible with Pinnacle … without any constructive advise on how to approach it. Short and inpersonal.
Also i've been directed to numerous resellers as an excuse not to help/advise in a proper manner and now you all push the trouble people had on the resellers. Doesn't sound like a reliable / realistic / succesfull company profile.
Anyhow, on a positive note. I do like the cart, especially the graphic interface of the admin, but like said before – i have no clue / idea on how to do skinning / templating and the documentation is very limited to get a better feel / impression on what to expect, so at the moment i'm working on ZEN as it seems to have all the things Pinnacle don't deliver. And besides that, it's free.
Just my experience. Nice to see you do read this and respond to it, but the story is very similar to my Q's to Pinnacle. If i summarize your story it doesn't say much (if you look at the previous doubts/Q's from previous posters). You only want to share what the cart does well. Not on what you / your support could do for us as service (constructive advise).
I don't want a hosted solution. I've my very own partner for that and i am aware of hosting slowness with multiple sites etc … I just don't want to be reliable on your hosting because of client protection / leads. And having a custom script in your shop is very logical since the features of Pinnacle are pretty limited. So the feeling i get if i'd get a warning (which i refuse, because it's a good addition to the shop), then my shop will be put offline, isn't very comforting and even more reason not to use a hosted solution.
In short, what you're saying:
* Don't use our resellers
* Do use resellers to get support
* Use our hosting
* Don't change the code, or your shop will be put offline.
Maybe it would be nice to share some proper documention with us to give us (the confused constumer) some insight to drop our (my) sceptism. Since you're reading this
November 5th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Jennifer, were u able to hack squirrelcart for use with gift certificates?
November 5th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
@David: ZenMagick (together with zen-cart) includes Ajax support.
The demo site shows off some of the Ajax features: http://demo.zenmagick.org/index.php?main_page=ajax_demo
There is also an example of drag&drop in the category list (drag product images onto the shopping cart on the right hand side).
November 5th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Hi Craig,
Thanks for your response. I would like to know more about your core product, especially because my interest is based on conversion performance testing, and I prefer to evaluate research results with an open mind. That said, I'm currently evaluating best of breed alternatives.
It's apparent to me that with the growth of online commerce, merchants who have the business savvy to run viable online stores will become more discriminating. Now that there's more competition, and the Credit Card companies have notified all of us about PCI compliance and liability, the cart usability and support bar is rising.
November 5th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Hi Craig,
I just took a look at your recommended Pinnacle hosted solution Fat Bear Inc.
$195/mo for hosting is too rich for us to test Pinnacle Cart conversion performance. They don't seem to have a brags list of successful client sites. Any other suggestions?
November 5th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
I had posted a post, but it did not show up.
@Ajax Shopping Cart
http://bakesalehq.com/
November 5th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
keep away from Oscommerce/Zencart and its forks such as Zenmagick.
Complete Ajax Shopping Cart
http://bakesalehq.com/
November 7th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
@AjnabiZ
So we meet again
Would you care explaining again why to keep away from ZenMagick? I honestly respect your opinion, but just claiming something without giving any reasons seems a bit unfair.
Disclosure: I am the author of ZenMagick
November 8th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
[...] the ability for users to register on the site, so if you tend to leave a lot of comments (*cough*Ajnabiz*cough*) now you don't have to complain to me about entering your use info each time. [...]
November 9th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
@DerManoMann
AjnabiZ seems to have an issue with lack of support for 2Checkout, and pipes in whenever there is a chance. If you check these posts, this rant goes back to January, and is always the same message.
@AjnabiZ
We all got your point on why you hate ZenCart. Please stop ranting and start developing with whichever tool you like.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
BTW, great article and thread. This gives a good consensus of the current thinking of a wide spectrum of the shopping-cart developer community.
November 10th, 2007 at 2:05 am
@MikeQue
Thanks, I know about the 2Checkout issue, we had a discussion about that on my blog too! Maybe I should just implement it in a way that he would be forced to use ZenMagick – I'd be curious to see what happens
I agree that this is a really good thread, even though I might be responsible for a couple off-topic posts.. I actually didn't realise how many other cart systems are actually out there…
November 10th, 2007 at 2:11 am
Forgot to mention, the other good thread about carts that I know is as SkillShare, even though it is not as long…
http://cssbeauty.com/skillshare/discussion/1034/zen-cart-oscommerce-customization-suck-big-one/
November 11th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
PINNACLE CART,
I see what Craig said back to all of you about me.
The lies need to stop now. Craig said a 3rd party that I use changed their back end and that is all of the problems I had.
I assure you all that it is true what Craig said, but had nothing to do with the problems I had with Pinnacle Cart, in fact after 3 or 4 months of reporting this problem, the problem Craig is talking about was only around for the last 2 weeks I was there, and it was the 3rd parties problem, but
it was a temp thing, and Pinnacle blames everything on that which is not true. After 4 months of loosing 90% of my sales because Pinnacle Cart never took the time to even try to help me,
never ever fixed the problem, blamed other people, then wanted to charge me double per month, etc. there is 100% no excuse for treating customers so bad.
I have learned a lot more about carts now, and it was really wrong for them to tell me I could have my own items plus the initial feed.
It will not work that way, but easy to fix.
The simple way to fix the sold out item problem was this.
Delete all of the feed inventory, since their system never worked to begin with to remove the sold out items as they promised it did, then bring them all back in fresh.
Wow, that was all I needed! But the problem was that I had over 2,000
items that I put in by hand. It took months to take pictures, etc, and put it all into the cart. they would not allow me to export that area, nor lifted a finger to try. Basically all they had to do is give me a backup of all my work, then after that, I delete the feed, bring it back, and then bring my feed back. This is a pain because it has to be done a couple times a week, but this would have solved the problem for now, and easy to do, but required their help which they refused to lift a finger to try and help.
Mike at Pinnacle Carts solution was to put me on 2 different Pinnacle Carts. Which makes sense, but that is again not what I was promised from the start, not what I agreed to, and not the way I want to run a site, thus
having 2 sites to do the same job as 1.
It was Critical, I had 4 Fortune 500 companies I few to, spoke with many people, got purchasing departments to list me, etc, and all of it was lost because of this stupid problem that Pinnacle Cart could have easily fixed.
But to get over the problem., I agreed, and then Pinnacle wanted to charge me double every month for what in fact is their problem in the first place that they never bothered to fix. Why should I pay double per month?
So anyway,
The problem was that they would not bother to even look into nor fix my problem. The biggest problem that I have had to send them dozens of support tickets for problems on their own cart. Then they fix some of those, but these problems are problems with their software on their hosting.
Then they force me to use that Test Cart. Wow was that is mistake,
not only did sold out items not get removed, the Update feature was broken, I could not even add in any products manually.
Then there were lots of other problems, during this time,
they gave me a 10 day notice to leave.
But at the same time, they wanted to work things out?
Bottom line is I spent those 10 days reporting problems daily to them.
I have everything very well documented.
Then they went offline for 9 days. Then came back, and 4 days later, Mike at Pinnacle Cart told me that if I did not remove the BBB complaints, and this one here, that he would just turn off my website!
Mike blamed the 3rd party for everything, and funny because had nothing to do with them, and all my support tickets went to deaf ears.
Then Mike just turned off my website perminantly!
I had approx 700 People a day going to my site.
I spent all year promoting my site.
And Mike at Pinnacle Cart just turned me off and put me out of business!
It should be criminal to intentionally go out of your way to damage a small business like Mike at Pinnacle went out of his way to do.
I do love their cart, but the support is absolutly horrible, and they do not care or even think about you as the customer, and your customers.
That is the problem here, great cart, horriable people running the support with no business ethics or morals. And that in fact is the story and the problem. But to intentionaly go out of your way to destroy a customer who only wants what he was promised from day 1, worked all year trying to help get there, and issing dozens of not hundreds of valid support tickets,
then just without any proper notice turn you off, is criminal.
Okay, to long, I prob wont write here for a long time, just wanted to get the facts straight.
Thanks, John Lerner
November 11th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Sorry, forgot to mention.
After they kicked me out and gave me no options to keep my website online, I was down for 6 weeks.
The 700 to 900 people going to my site a day got lost. When they took us 100% off line, we had many pending orders, and it was a mess to clean it all up. Full page ad in a Magazine to get traffic was already published, there went another $800.00 dollars for nothing, ppc accounts had to be shut down, etc. Actually that ad was running for 6 months, and most of that time we had Pinnacle Problems. Anyway, Pinnacle Cart did not say hey here is a price if you want to buy the cart and have your own people work on it,
They would not even give us a backup of all of our work until hours before they shut us 100% offline.
Anyway, forcing a client to make complaints is a last resort, and I gave them 3 months to fix me. I think I was being more than fair.
I know one thing, if someone put a BBB complaint about me, I would do anything to fix that customer as fast as I could.
Why didn't Pinnacle Cart?
After being off line for 6 weeks in a row, we lost pretty much all of this years traffic. And again, they offered no solution to a problem that was easy to fix, and after being down for all that time, we still lost months of day and night work, all of our products, all the SEO, all of the rankings, the PR level, all the repeat customers, and even now we only have 40% of our merchandise back online. The backup of our site they gave us was corrupt, and no one has been able to get our work out of it, etc.
I told that to Pinnacle Cart, and they did not even respond.
Why did they just not spend a little time to fix this issue?
Why go out of their way to destroy our company?
Why offer no solution to purchase, or move the existing cart?
Why do they require you to give 30 to 60 days notice to leave,
when in fact, they can give you a 10 day notice and ban you?
I found nothing at all on their website about this 10 day notice.
30 days would be fair, or something like that, but not make you
work on a bunk test cart full time reporting their own problems back to them, then they just shut you off.
I told them after they said they were going to turn us off in 4 days,
hey, if you want us to leave that is okay, but do it proper and give us 30 days to move, just like you require clients to do.
They refused and knew very well we had a lot of traffic and sales going on daily, and they shut us 100% offline anyway.
Craig was trying to work on this,
so was I, after the 10 day notice, and we agreed to try to work this out.
It was Mike at Pinnacle who sent me a nasty email,
and went out of his way to hurt our company. When we agreed to work this out, all I said I would do so in a 100% possitive manner as long as Mike never spoke to me again. Mike broke that rule and starting being nasty again. All my trouble tickets for that 10 day period were positive, and I will show them to anyone who wants to see.
That is why this is so wrong. I have every single trouble ticket, and there are I am sure over 100, emails, etc, since day one to the end fully documented with text, screen caps, etc.
These people should stop doing their own customer support and get a team that thinks like business people, and knows how to answer questions, and actually help people.
But either way, they hurt our company a great deal, and were negligent,
dis honest with us from the start, and went our of their way to damage us.
Okay that is all I have to say. Thanks, John.
November 12th, 2007 at 4:04 am
I think the Pinnacle cart issue is heating up.
if anyone would like to go for a free solution, should wait till First quarter of 2008.
Magento will release its first production version Q1 2008. When it does release, it will break the backs of oscommerce and its forks such as Zencart,CRELoaded, ZenMagick etc.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Hi,
Has anyone tried the free version of http://www.openfreeway.org seems very good. It has many cool features and its free!
November 28th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Thank you Jennifer.
Very informative discussion.
Have any of you shopping cart gurus tried the Avactis Shopping Cart?
If not why?
I installed this for a friend (she is just this side of computer illiterate) and so far she has had no problem installing her product. All of the bells and whistles seem to be there and more for the up and coming business owner.
The design integration was far easier than any of the popular carts I have tried over the past 12 years. I designed an index page for a template and simply added a combination of perhaps 10 PHP code calls to that template for the other necessary cart documents. The site design took me a day (graphics and all) entering the PHP code calls (I now little or nothing about PHP) took less than 30 mins.
The $199 price tag is nothing compared to money in time lost with weeks spent trying to configure ZEN, Cubecart, OSCommerce and a few others then tossing them in the end.
John and his difficulty with Pinnacle is a great argument for owning your own cart on your own good server.
Like John I learned the hard way when 5 of my domains got shut down because the host failed to pay his bills. I recovered my money paid … hundreds of others did not. It is likely John will not recover what he has lost either. Hopefully he has learned a valuable lesson.
Be in control of your own business or tomorrow you might be out of it due to no direct fault of your own.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:55 am
I've been watching this blog for a couple months now and finally have the nerve to write. I searched for a while and followed everyone's advice as to pluses and minuses of each Cart.
sorry to say after installing and uninstalling Zencart on my dreamhost server about 3 or 4 times… I have said "enough is enough"
The things that people say about it are great but I have never realized anything good.
I don't have the time to keep searching and testing. Thats just crazy talk.
I have a full time job and the comment earlier about a cart that wont take away from your family…. Heck, I haven't seen one that doesn't do this. Maybe I should pay for one, but isn't that why I'm here, I have no money to buy something that will or will not perform (pinnacle??) and 3% is out of the question.
A few more gripes before I go onto what I will do:
The tutorials on their site are laid out in a mess – hire a damn designer or usability expert!
All the cart sites I have seen are not SEO friendly at all and take major modding but after that can you update the cart? It depends? good answer ;-(
The instructions are written by/for php developers IMHO, which I have no skills in – other than the marvelous boaddrink scripts or file uploaders..etc.etc. SO working with it is a serious PITA!
Zencart took over-night to send me my new password which I had misplaced, by then I already emailed DH and asked them to delete everything on that domain since whatever permissions were set didn't let me delete anything correctly via FTP. (dont care to find the answer on this… so dont even think about it – I know I set it up correctly the first time, Admin areas and all… but got sick of the learning curve.)
All this backend stuff I did see looked cool, but not for any user I can think of.
Horrible usability and the last thing I'll say is that most sites look the SAME coming from zen-cart without major modding.
This to me is bogus, because I shouldn't have to know PHP to change a template based site written in clear CSS.
I can say more, but for someone who knows HTML, CSS, javascript, Zen-cart pissed me off.
That said I can not wait for Magento.
I hope it does what it says it does.
I think I'll start testing Magento and Maian's script on the side.
Hate to leave the community of Zen-Cart lovers, I too had high hopes.
Am I wrong for thinking I could have got a cart working on skin and bones in a week at night after my regular job is done?
I have built whole sites in a two days!
November 29th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
So – just another recap on my latest Shopping Cart adventures. With my most recent client – we purchased CubeCart 4. I feel they have made some significant improvements in the code of the templates. It came with 3 default themes – all of which were thoroughly CSS based. Not only that but the few issues I've run into, their support has been FANTASTIC. Even before I purchased the product and was just testing it to see if it would work.
They did purchase the product from http://www.datalinkuk.com/ to integrate with Quickbooks. It apparently worked wonderfully as far as I'm told.
Of course no cart is perfect and has every feature you want – but overall, I'm really impressed with CubeCart 4.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
[...] scriptygoddess » Blog Archive » Cube Cart vs. Zen Cart Should a client come along that needed one of those other features (that Squirrelcart doesn’t currently have), then I’ll probably have to look into some other packages, but in (tags: shoppingcart code tech blog) [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
No one has mentioned anything about the "canned" products that Yahoo and GoDaddy and other hosts like them provide. Has anyone tried those out? If so, what are the pros and cons?
January 24th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Well I started using cubecart 3 which was annoying with all the mods you have to get to make it act how you want a cart to act.
Now i tried the demo of cubecart 4 and then decided to buy it and the copywrite removal all for just over £100 and it came with 6 months paid support which has helped me a lot even to now.
I have completely switched out the main template with my own fully accessible CSS layout which is good for DDA and google. I got the seo urls working perfectly with little fuss. I figured out how their modular system for pages works pretty quickly without any knowledge of PHP – I'm an ASP dude so i thought it would be tricky to learn but it wasn't.
I have even added a few of my own personal mods for on the fly thumbnail generation etc.
All in all I'd say cubecart 4 is a great option. fine it has its problems – like a few of the admin options seem a little cumbersome sometimes, but they are updating stuff all the time – and the updates work really easily – as long as you make a note of where all your mods are in each file its really easy to reapply the ones that get overwritten.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Does anyone know of a good shopping cart application that will allow for product personalization? I have a product that I need to include a number of personalization specifics and typical shopping cart features. A lot of the software I've tried doesn't support this, and I'm at a loss!
January 26th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I love CS-Cart, lots of tools right out of the box without paying all the extra for every little add-on. Not too expensive either.
January 27th, 2008 at 7:11 am
After reading this entire thread for an informed sense of shopping carts I now feel like a Buddhist monk who has realized there is no good or evil. I am overwhelmed yet again about the nature of web development and its humbling score of complexity, with that said I have a few questions that perhaps can be answered.
From all the comments made here I've come to the conclusion that for a developer like myself who seeks to spend very little on a solution, have scalability and design a look through CSS (even as a beginner) that CubeCart is the way to go. But I say this with some concern, namely as to purchasing of version 4 is the only way to have a successful experience with CubeCart (if your responses are version specific please say so):
1) Does anyone have any personal experience with international sales with this solution? Incompatibility or limited compatibility as was the case with one gentleman's concerns with Zen Cart's use of 2Checkout.
2) Another issue that came up was SEOs (Search Engine Optimization). How does CubeCart relate on this topic? (I hope I have the correct definition of SEO as related to this thread)
3) How does it do with load speeds? I do understand that hosting and the number of products in your store can play a role in this topic. Any references and tactics would be much appreciated, database or coding practices.
4) Is CubeCart W3C compliant in the HTML or XHTML it generates?
5) Are there any issue with search-engine-friendly URL's, either their generation or other related effects that CubeCart is associated with?
6) Are there any issues of security?
Now if some of these question result in finger points to the CubeCart website that is fine I intend to head there myself. I just thought it would be great to relay the basics on these common issues that the other top contenders where scrutinized over, resulting in a well rounded thread on the leading shopping cart solutions.
A brief background of myself might help with finding answers and having others have a standard as to what they are looking for in a solution. I intend to build a website to sell rings and other accessories while keeping in mind that I may potentially sell to clients over seas as well as having a progressively growing inventory. The word that keeps coming to mind is scalability.
My skills can be summed up as someone who can edit and code HTML and CSS, look at PHP and JavaScript and not be afraid of making some edits but as for coding from scratch I’m not up to the task yet. MySQL is my only database experience and that’s with one eye on the User Manual found at their website. Also dabbled with UNIX commands (file permissions and navigation that’s about it). Please take these abilities into consideration if you think CubeCart to be an easily customizable shopping cart solutions.
Please excuse any of the questions that aren’t applicable to shopping cart development, as I am still unfamiliar with this branch of wed development.
Thank you to all the posters past and future. (If yah got through my post you sure are patient)
January 27th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Hi Jorge,
Here's some answers from my experience:
1) Yes. One of my clients that I used CubeCart 4 for was also selling internationally. Any of the problems we had I do not think related to international sales. (I think we narrowed it down to browser issues vs. requirements of cubecart – ie javascript turned off, cookies not being allowed. We have now started testing for those events and put up wording on how to turn on javascript or cookies – and if people refuse – then we give them the phone number to place their order over the phone) Since we added that, I haven't heard of any problems on the store. (I should probably put a post on how I did that. I wish CubeCart did all that built in since the cart requires it)
2) You CAN turn on SEO friendly URLs for CubeCart. Requires a change to the htaccess file – they give you the code to add. Very easy to do.
3) Not sure about speed. The sites I've set it up load acceptably fast. However, they don't have crazy huge databases. BUT CubeCart DOES have a "cache" feature – so it's not hitting the database each time someone wants to view a page. But if a store is big enough, I'll bet searches still take a little time. Still – overall I have no complaints about the store being slow to respond.
4) Yes. It is XHTML compliant as far as I can tell. Obviously the template also plays a role here…
5) No issues that I noticed.
6) Again, no issues that I know of… According to their website they do have the application "professionally security audited".
February 28th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Hi like one of the above, I've been up all night researching and it's hitting 6am! Does anybody know of a shopping cart that would allow digital downloads from a secure server in a different location? The downloads are approximately 5gb each and so I would have to purchase a Dedicated Server. Thanks
February 29th, 2008 at 8:43 am
@Kalvinder
I'm sure there are other carts that do this too – but I know for sure that CubeCart does. You can specify the downloads be located in a folder outside of the root directory – you can also set a time limit on the downloads (ie. the download link that the customer is sent expires after 48 hours or something like that…)
February 29th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Hi, thanks for the reply, much appreciated. Just wondered with CC if the secure link would appear after checkout? And be sent in an email? Thanks
February 29th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I know it's sent in an email – I'm not sure if it's also shown in the browser (if it is – you may have to access the "order history" in order to see it) I haven't used this feature yet for any of my clients – so I don't know the details. You can download a trial version of CC 4.0 and use it for 30 days to test it out… I really have been happy with that package.
March 1st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
My my my it's 4 o'clock in the morning and I can't remember when I read an entire blog from start to end last time. Tons of roses to Scriptygoddes for this blog.
I also have to comment on pour John Lerner and his mess with Pinnacle Cart. Is this for real? I mean come on Pinnacle, we are not living in dark ages 15 century, where King's and Pope's could do whatever they wanted to a peasant. Scary beyond belief.
Now to my own problem and I am looking for suggestions from all of you, even from "dark ages crew
"
The idea is an reversed shopping cart, no sales, no shipping just pure old fashioned advertising site. The only thing that a user can do is "window shopping" products, menus, stores and to register for an e-mail about new items say every day, week, 2 weeks and so on. Perhaps a rating system also.
Now for the delicate mater, the backend is where the stores are going to make the input with pictures, price, dates, product description with of course their profile: phone, address, fax, city and so on. When they are done with the input they should immediately have a total cost and of course the means of payment. All what they input is adding to their profile so they can easy check the inputs history.
Is there such (free) application out there? Should I try something like Joomla or Drupal or perhaps one could make some modification in Zen Cart for instance?
Feel free to mail me if it's more convenient at avramovic.d@gmail.com
Yours humble Dragan
March 1st, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Thanks for the info! I will investigate CC, CSCart, Jshop, and Viart and post any useful results.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Hi, just an update regarding 'Recently Viewed Items'. Some have it, some don't. JShop has recently viewed items and sections, albeit via a link as default. From what I can see CubeCart (I haven't installed it yet), TradingEye, PaceRetail, SquirrelCart don't offer it as default. As mentioned by others, Viart's admin isn't organised so I gave it the boot.
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:37 am
“Repeat Last Order” feature
My main goal is to find a cart that has the feature “repeat last order”
I don’t mean the ability to just view history. Ability for customer login and one click to “repeat last order” would be great! Or… allow a returning customer to go to a previous order and reorder part or all of that order?
I too have just read this blog and found it both helpful and confusing. Something that may be helpful is to direct comments to different groups of users.
Programmers
Developers
Hackers {courageous}
Hackers {timid}
Novices
No Computer Skills
What may be a great cart for one group may be unusable to another so………
……where is a cart that has “repeat last order” feature?
Signed ,
Hacker {courageous}
March 26th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Hi.
Just an update about zencart, now the zencart template is table free and is completely controlled through CSS.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:24 am
@hacker
While I would love to clean up the comment thread in this post, but aside from the fact that what you suggest isn't currently possible in WordPress, it's gotten a bit out of hand.
Kudos to all you who actually read through all of it – I did make this post:
http://www.scriptygoddess.com/archives/2007/05/21/shopping-cart-roundup/
that summarized what had been written in the comments at the time I posted that – but to keep on top of it would mean giving up my day job! LOL!
I can turn off comments so it doesn't get any more "messy" – but I don't think that would be helpful either. So it's a mess. I apologize.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Hello
I finally bought Viart Shopping Cart after investigating tons of shoppings carts from paid to Free.
Viart is fast and stable and it has all the features I require.
You should take a look at Viart, it really is a monster of a product.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Hello
I finally bought Viart Shopping Cart after investigating tons of shoppings carts from paid to Free.
Viart is fast and stable and it has all the features I require.
You should take a look at Viart, it really is a monster of a product.
http://www.viart.com
April 11th, 2008 at 5:04 am
Read the reviews here:
http://www.shopping-cart-reviews.com/carts/ViArt-Shop.aspx
April 12th, 2008 at 2:53 am
This is a very interesting thread.
I've just taken on a client who is 6 months into the development of her website. The current developers promised the site finished in 6 to 8 weeks with a full online shopping experience for local and international customers. They are nowhere near achieving that goal.
This has taken her half a year and cost close to $15000, because the developers have basically reinvented the wheel. I can't believe people still do that in this day and age. Granted, the client does have some specific needs – but, if they had chosen any one of these existing cart solutions, they would be where they are today but six months ago. The rest of their time could have been spent optimizing work flow, adding eye candy and making sales. In relation to this figure, $600, even $2000 for an out of the box solution is peanuts, compared to the time and hassle of building one from the ground up.
However the client has one specific need:
1. There needs to be a way to interface with a distributor. So, rather than having an area in the backend for distributors to view orders, the system must dynamically interact with their system to keep orders and inventory synchronized.
None of the systems I've looked at seem to address this one issue. Are there any carts that let you add a logical step to the ordering process to synchronize with an external system? Would it be easy to hand code such a system?
I'm considering Cube Cart with some custom modifications, and I'm also looking at Magento. Are these two products good candidates for custom coding if required, or will they support interfacing with external stock control and order processing systems?
Cheers for this very informative thread!
May 10th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
[...] good luck. on this make sure you read down into the replies, much more info on lots of carts. scriptygoddess ? Blog Archive ? Cube Cart vs. Zen Cart Research over 200 shopping carts at Shopping Cart Reviews Shopping Cart Review [...]
May 11th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I decided on Zencart. There was a slight learning curve, like every new program has, but the support on the forum is great.
I currently have two sites that are powered by Zencart:
http://mistkits.com and http://custommainetotes.com , and am completely satisfied with Zen's features.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
We opted for Zen cart for http://www.fancydressheaven.co.uk but have had to put in an unbelievable amount of work to get it to work the way we want it to. I wouldn't describe it as free because of this – but the open source-ness is greatly appreciated. Our main issues at present are trying to find a store management system that stands alone and doesn't interfere with any existing code (which might be customized) and the slow speed of page delivery (even taking into account or high level of graphics).
May 20th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I didn't have time to read all the comments to see if what I'm about to suggest already was suggested but here it goes anyway: Wp_ ecommerce works great in my opinion. I did have a problem getting it to work with google checkout, paypal however works fine.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Zen Cart 1.3.8 with Pay Pal Website Payment Pro is a very powerfull store management system.We recently upgraded and now we are working to customize a theme found here.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Just to update everyone on my CS-Cart experience. It has been very good. I'm happy with the out of the box features, and their support has been decent too. Smarty template engine is used, which I like. If you require custom features / PHP coding, the CS-Cart team can do it, at a reasonable price.
Starting on June 16, 2008, free updates are only available for one year, then a maintenance plan and fee must be paid to continue to download updates. Current license holders are exempt from this change.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Chose Jshop, it's lightening quick (unlike some users of magento), very stable, support is superb, forums are very helpful. I believe it has more features than CC. It's all CSS so no problems there. You try hacking ZenCart….! Zen's admin is a nightmare for anyone who's not a techie, although it is free. Jshop's admin is much more organised and intuitive than the others mentioned here. I can leave my colleague to manage a Jshop online shop quite easily.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:54 am
well, it's been a long while since I have written here again, but figured would give a little more feedback… I have used OSCommerce off and on and did find it customizable enough, though very awward in its customization since it did rely on table and html codes as opposed to CSS coding. I agree some of the other carts like Viart and Avactis seemed pretty good too.
In the end, and after much trials and tribulatiion, cart-testing to the point my eyeballs are in the back of my head, I have prettty much returned to Paypal, specially for the small business-site owner, seems it works just as good, clean, reliable, easy to implement, you keep control of your own site. It doesnt come with inventory-tracking, but one can modify the script so it is able to dinamically track inventory levels out of your own database product listing, I was able to do that. You can even modify it even more to be able to sell digital products and send customer their own link after product it's been bought.
John Lerner's experience is very telling of what could go terribly wrong. Very scary stuff he went thru. That's why Paypal seems to be a very good choice for most small e-commerce sites. Many people just dont realize how far one can take Paypal and modify it to one's needs…
Anyways, just a thought!
July 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Re: cubecart 4. I purchased this and the copyright removal. I skinned the site with some difficulty but was reasonably happy. There are a couple of weird things re uploading pictures, but once you know about them, they aren't really issues.
But there are a couple of nasty issues that I've come across that have stopped me in my tracks.
First, if a customer goes partway through the checkout process , ie. to the screen where they enter their credit card data, then realizes they forgot something and clicks the 'continue shopping' button, the cart dumps – everything gone. Very frustrating for a customer with heaps of stuff in the cart. Devillion say it's a design feature and not a problem and I don't think they are looking at fixing it.
The other thing happens sometimes and only on some sites, at least as far as anyone knows (you can only find out if a customer tells you or you do extensive testing using multiple computers and locations), clicking 'add to cart ' sometimes doesn't add, sometimes it does, sometimes it empties the cart. I have had this problem for some time and they respond to the bug reports (there are quite a few there, not just me), by saying the error can't be duplicated, so they close the bug report. There is also a recent report by someone saying that not all the items in a cart were added into the total that was charged to a customer. Last time I checked there was no response to that yet.
anyway, to me these are fairly significant issues and I'm now wondering if I should just write off the money and time and effort I've spent and go to something else……….
Thanks for this thread – very informative, and making lots more work for me by increasing the list of carts to look at LOL (wow, it's deja vu all over again – I seem to remember being at this point months ago…sigh….)
Renate
July 18th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
@Renate – I've had customers complain about the empty cart issue. However, recently, with the latest version of CubeCart, and the changes mentioned in this forum thread here:
http://forums.cubecart.com/index.php?showtopic=32026&pid=149799&mode=threaded&show=0&st=0#entry149799
have seemed to fix the issue.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I did all that and I still have the issue intermittently. This morning it was consistent, I went out this afternoon, no changes, no nothing, now it's intermittent. I find that kind of thing scary, esp. when live stores need to have customers complaining in order to find out the issue exists – most people would just walk away.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:54 am
renate, i know jshop doesn't have this problem. also i was going to purchase viart for a client but having emailed their sales team four times, i've only received one reply in pigeon English that didn't even answer my questions. i will try once more but if that's how their support works, i don't want to know.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Well, after a catastrophic laptop failure, I am back to work at this cubecart mess. I upgraded to the latest version and it seems like the adding to cart problem may have been fixed – at least so far. but there are issues with the preset payment gateway i need (doesn't work at all), and if you go partway through a payment process and back out, it still dumps the cart while giving the customer and option to 'try again'. I will have a look at jshop.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Just a heads up – was looking at squirrelcart as a replacement for cubecart – they have now got seo-friendly urls – and the rest of it looks great. i nearly bought it til i remembered Canadian tax rules, – what a let down, it can`t handle them
July 30th, 2008 at 8:33 am
As a designer/developer for the past 10 years I've used almost every cart package under the sun. Everything from MonsterCommerce, Miva Mercant and Yahoo Stores to Squirrelcart, OSCommerce, ZenCart, ProductCart, SiteDirector, Digishop and Pinnacle Cart. I've also recently been experimenting with Freeway and Magento.The sad truth is that they all are lacking in some ways. After building dozens of sites I've found that the the safest bets are ProductCart if you need ASP and Pinnacle Cart if you need PHP. They do have high licensing fees but if you're a professional designer a $600 license fee is more than acceptable to be able to achieve professional results. Besides, you should be billing that fee back to the client.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:38 am
@Andy – Just out of curiosity – since you're referring to a $600 license fee, I am assuming you are not referring to the hosted solution. Have you had experience with both? The only one I had experience with was the hosted solution and it was horrible. If they're basically the same thing, I probably won't use it – but I'm curious to know if they really are two completely different set ups.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Holy smokes this is a long thread. I wonder if I should just create a forum on this topic. LOL (not like that hasn't been done before, but based on the number of comments on this thread, it seems like maybe there's still room for one more)
July 30th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Andy's reply is typical of designers. I'm a store owner/designer, and I gotta tell ya that if you came to me and asked me for $600 for a cart license I'd fire you on the spot.
I once paid someone over $300 to install Google checkout on zen cart and that alone made it hard to break even in 6 months. In other words we didn't have enough customers that used Google checkout to justify the programmers fee.
Therefore I won't pay to have anything done, that doesn't have a guarantee that I won't make my money back in a month.
This article was started comparing open source carts, even though I disagree that cube cart is open source.
I sell bird feeders, and birdhouses online for a living, and $600 buys allot of stock that will sell fast. You have to understand that most online merchants don't have the money to pay such a huge licensing fee. It's the merchants like myself who sell less than $100,000 worth of stock in a year that drive the open source shopping cart movement.
So for you designers out there thinking that you can simply pass on the cost to the merchant you'd better know the merchant's profit and loss status before they laugh you out of the office.
Heck I know of many b&m merchants that still use open source carts simply because they can generate sales without putting out a licensing fees. One of them sells books. Tons of books, and they use oscommerce. If you went to them with a presentation that involved a $600 fee, outside of what they would pay you to design it…. you'd better leave the car running.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:41 am
@John – I think in a case like yours – if you can't afford $600 for the cart, then you probably can't afford a designer (at least not me)
(Which is totally fine. If you're savvy enough to get your own store up and running – more power to you! But when someone has enough money to hire me to do work for them – then I would hope they have enough money to cover the rest of the costs involved. Otherwise it ends up being a charity project – which i've done too). As well, it would be a bad idea to assume that clients want to take the risk involved with using a cheaper (or free) cart…
I agree – I think the open source market is driven by small business who can't afford the larger carts – however, after working with a number of online stores for small businesses, the flaws that can crop up in the cheaper or open source carts can possibly cost them that $600 in lost sales. So I disagree that carts in that range should always be off the table. (It took over 6 months to get a fix in place to stop customers carts from emptying when they went to checkout with CubeCart!! Who knows how many people gave up and shopped elsewhere in that time)
The thread was actually started not specifically comparing open source carts. I just needed something relatively affordable, easily customizable and that worked. CubeCart still fits that bill – and thankfully the bug fix they have in place will now make it so my clients stop losing money!
July 31st, 2008 at 5:30 am
Hi,
Thank You for this wonderful post. I am a novice in web programming (good in C/C++ though) and was looking high and low for a shopping cart for my brother's website. I was really confused… but I read the posts and everbody else's comments almost through and through (2 hours!!). It was a great help and shed light on some of the issues. I am now looking at some of the more "appreciated" carts mentioned in the posts. I also agree with you when you say that "As well, it would be a bad idea to assume that clients want to take the risk involved with using a cheaper (or free) cart…". I am working with a designer friend for the over all layout and trying to do the coding myself. I thought it would be interesting to learn how to do this!!.
Thanks to all of you for the reviews and the quality of idscussions. Most web dicussions tend to dissolve into hyperbole and evangelism.. but this discussion has largely been informative and intelligent. kudos to all of you!
take care
hsc
July 31st, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I love this thread
I've been following it for a year now. A very informative read. Maybe we could bind it in a book or something and share the profit 
Anyway, as a designer/developer myself, i disagree with john patrick. I understand his position, but $600 for a good (note! GOOD) shopping cart is worth well it's money. You have to understand in 80% on the online business there's already a succesful company with plenty of money. Now, having a solid and reliable base is something most companies are willing to pay for.
It doesn't mean, the more expensive the better, ofcourse not. You must be mad to pay for something that's even worse than another system half the price, or free even.
Anyway, to come back on webshops. I'm about to finish my first Cube Cart webshop. I must admit, it's a solid and good featured package. Not everything is great, but it did have the best match with the requirements of my client. That's always my point of view. What does my client want/need and select a package that suits that need.
I still think Cube could win more souls if their backend was a little better designed and better structured. Especially the backend code is a mess and not easy to work with.
I want to invest my time in getting to know Magento. I believe it's very clean and solid built. I think this might become THE shop for the future, and it's free
It's the first time in a long time i've heard a good experience with Pineaple Shop. I found the support/service (a year ago) very poor which made me choose other packages. Might be something to try again … because i really liked the visuals and clean structure of the shop.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
This is for anyone who is interested in Pinnacle Cart. I ended up getting Pinnacle cart (replacing my Click Cart Pro X Core – KHXC) for one site and Sunshop for the other.
Pinnacle cart may be all that, but what good is it, if you are not able to disable your cart when you are on vacation. After spending $600 for a license, I should not have to spend hundreds more to have this simple function programmed into the software.
I mean, rent a shop, but the landlord won't let you have a door to it. Duh!
Sunshop is far ahead of Pinnacle cart in many senses, wish list (pinnacle cart just released a new version with this in it), gift registry, can close your shop when you wish etc., however I personally had easier time skinning Pinnacle Cart.
I dislike using Ioncube – orders mysteriously vanish from Pinnacle Cart here and there, there is no way you can re-email yourself a copy of the order when the cart fails to e-mail it to you. I was not able to get updates via the cart had to manually try, which did not work. Admin section really needs work, my Authorize.net key code is not encrypted when entered. Most other carts I used always encrypt this! So, for $600, I got a so so cart, sure it is better than some, but if I had known what I know now, I'd just get two licenses for Sunshop, much cheaper and it works.
I am going to probably try to sell my Pinnacle Cart license (if that is possible) and just get another Sunshop.
Very frustrating learning new software only to find out something as simple as being able to disable the cart when in need is not even implemented in it.
Hope this helps someone like me.
Kay
July 31st, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Hi Kay,
I'm the product manager here at Pinnacle Cart. I wanted to comment on your post as it may help others who use the cart or any cart for that matter. You are correct, at this time we don't have a global "disable" feature on the cart as we don't believe this is the best way to temporarily shut down the application. Doing so may risk search engine positioning and back links to your site. My recommendation is simply put up an index.html page stating the cart is temporarily not taking orders, hide your payment methods and post a comment on the site, all of which can be done very easily from the admin area. This way you can maintain your existing links without losing valuable positioning.
Every feature we add into the cart comes from your valuable feedback and if there is something we can add or make better, please let us know and we will work to get it in.
As far as not getting e-mail through the cart, I would suggest contacting us directly so we make sure everything is set up correctly and you’re getting all the orders placed on the site.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I've been working in e-commerce for nearly nine years and I've been reading this post for almost that.
Jennifer I'm glad you finally came round to CubeCart (v4), it's my personal favourite right now. And you found the contShop=true parameter for going back to a *full* cart rather than an empty one, good. Just a little more PHP probing and you'd find out how to avoid the orders from building up in the customer's order history with 'payment pending' status. But let's stick to comparing and choosing a cart.
One thing this post has revealed for sure, there are many options available and nothing is perfect. The key is getting the right solution for you personally.
If you are looking to sell on the net and want everything free to set up and working smoothly but are inexperienced then please just bite that 3% (typical sales commission for hosted solution) bullet and go for a good hosted solution such as Shopify. Other options might include Big Cartel (good but it's for only for creative types) and Moonfruit, although from what I've heard from friends, the latter is far from ideal although it does allow for flash. Why not just add some PayPal buttons to a plain html site to get started?
If you want everything to be free and to run smoothly and have lots of features and you want to run (set up, host, customise, test, fix, maintain, develop) a website yourself because the hosted cart commission or designer-developer fee is too much. Then be prepared to spend months if not years banging your head against the wall / desk / monitor. Be ready to say goodbye to any hope of a social life, to lose your family and friends and to become a proper blind, RSI-suffering geek in the process. Even after all that you'll probably still find that every tenth customer can't order for some mysterious reason.
If however you have planned your new business well, saved some cash for the big push and are ready for some proper e-commerce action with the help of an experienced specialist then I definitely think CubeCart is a winner. Ok the checkout process is not ideal for everyone, since orders are created before the transaction is complete, but it can be easily customised (by a good developer) to be (in most cases) however you want it.
But like many of the good e-commerce platforms you need to have the proper skills to really make the thing sing for you.
I'm a front end developer so it for me CubeCart is an absolute cinch to 're-skin'. I code all my (clients') sites to XHTML strict standards and build my own DHTML features where necessary.
Yes the folks at CubeCart are very helpful and things do get fixed very quickly. The community forums are also very helpful.
Re-iterating; if you have little experience with coding (HTML & CSS) complex dynamic websites then you will always be stuck with something very close to the default look with virtually any packaged shopping cart.
If you are hiring a developer who knows what they are doing – check for a list of live websites by that developer – then when it comes to features I believe the 3rd party modification system for CubeCart is fantastic. Typically we're talking around $10 – $20 for fairly hefty pieces of functionality such as an extension to the shipping system that allows for any rule(s) you can imagine or a 'shop by brand' section.
Still with CubeCart, I find the PHP all very neat, tidy, sensible and easy to modify. The speed of the site is superb, especially when you un-include unused functionality, which is also incredibly easy.
There was mention of knowing what dynamic tags to use in the HTML templates – just check the php file of the same name within the includes folder. Ok not quite as good as a index sheet but hey, I'm sure that'll turn up in the community documentation at some point soon.
Magento, now there's a beast, a very beautiful beast, but will I make it through the maze? Let's say the jury is still out on that one as far as fully customised solutions are concerned. The potential is definitely there though for this to become the e-commerce staple.
Jshop, I tried this a while back and couldn't stand the code – messy, difficult to work with. Looking again at the current demo, I'm seeing a horribly busy site with divs, nested in divs, ad infinitum (almost). But at least it validates as XHTML transitional. It's been around a while and has had good reviews. Sorry I can't be more useful there.
In the past I have also tried osCommerce, Zen Cart and StoreSprite but didn't like any of them nearly as much as CubeCart. Either because the code code was heavy and complex, the style templates were not properly separated from the PHP code, the features were lacking or I simply didn't trust it or it seemed glitchy.
Pinnacle (I see Craig has been back again trying to save face but failing – Craig, if it's really as simple as putting up an index.html page up then surely a system as robust, feature-packed and pricey as Pinnacle would be able to cope with that?? But no, the administrator has to learn HTML. When it comes to talking about how Pinnacle might handle this feature it is by disabling the site completely. Oh dear. (May be take a look at how CubeCart handles this nicely via the admin)), partly from Craig's own responses here and also because the demo home page has 124 validation errors, is something I would not trust for a second, let alone pay $600? dollars for.
Viart, as for Pinnacle, is something I've not used and so cannot judge but when I go to the demo and click on any category I get a blank page. Poof! there goes my faith in that one.
I realise I have not really catered for those who have some HTML & CSS experience, and a fair idea of working with MySQL databases and PHP but are still pretty green. I guess I would still recommend CubeCart just don't set your sights too high straight away. It's a good package to learn on because it is coded with clarity.
Lastly, when it comes to the decision between free open source (eg. osCommerce) packages or community driven, centrally managed and licensed software (eg. CubeCart), I will nearly always, go for the centrally managed solution because of the of support for and integrity of the product.
ok, here are a few sites I've built using CubeCart:
http://www.lenstore.co.uk (v4)
http://www.oyster-pearl-jewellery.co.uk (v4)
http://www.boejumpsuits.co.uk (v3)
http://www.shankari.co.uk (v3)
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I've tried CRE-Loaded and it was a complete disaster, I would NOT recommend this solution to anyone. The template is a nightmare to edit, and you'll find yourself spending large amount of time fighting with various language files, making the same edits four times in a row.
I've heard too many times, OS commerce is a nightmare to configure just right, and get the template looking and functioning just the way you want.
I'm still trying to decide on a proper solution.
I did notice, someone made a comment that Cubecart 4.0 can't function without javascript/ cookies. I would hope I could find a PHP based cart that does not require any of this to function. At least for me, forcing customer registration is a major issue as well. Some customers just don't want to register and you will lose them if you try to force it. I noticed Zen Cart by default forces registration, and requires an edit or a module to allow this.
I want a sharp, cutting edge look to my store, and I'm going to have probably 10,000 to 50,000+ SKUs.
I need an admin panel that will let me edit a few hundred prices at a time by category/ subcategory.
I'm willing to pay more for a superior solution; however, (as ironic as it may seem) some of the most superior solutions are not expensive at all. (e.g. Pinnacle doesn't seem superior at all-yet they demand a much higher price than cubecart, cs-cart, or squirrelcart.
I'm still debating which cart is best for my situation.
1-CS-Cart $265
2-eCommerceTemplates $150
3-Squirrelcart $115
4-Zen Cart (free)
5-Cube Cart 4 $179
For me theres a few critical concerns, and I'm not sure if any single cart address all these well:
1-I need to manage thousands of SKUs and I want to be able to do quick price updates: The ability to make price changes on at least 50-100 items at once by category/ subcategory then update (I really don't want to be on a spreadsheet, I want to do it through an admin panel). I dont mind if the admin panel itself is sloppy, as long as it's easy to do updates.
2-order process management:
maybe this is just assumed, but having a good system that makes it easy to manage orders is important.
2-Easily customizable template: I want to make my template look exactly how I want, cutting edge, professional–so I can exert all my CSS/ HTML skills.
3-I think it's important for pages to validate/ be W3C compliant… I know this effects SEO ranking of pages
4-SEO friendly URLS are critical (one reason I love wordpress)
5-built in anti fraud measures would be nice (CRE loaded had a nice module for this–too bad the software was just too sloppy for me/ not user oriented enough). e.g. an automatic link to a service like 'maxmind' anti-fraud. any good system will log user IPs as well, for anti-fraud purposes. the particular industry the site will be built for is prone to fraud, so anti-fraud/ order screening measures must be taken…
6-decent security: I don't want a cart that fails to quickly patch much needed security updates
7-upgrades/ updates: i want a cart, which can be updated without bringing the store down for an extended period of time & without requiring tons of re-working/ rebuilding (some carts require the store to be re-built just to get the latest update).
I've noticed no one else has mentioned anti-fraud measures on this blog, which is fine. Perhaps you're lucky enough to never see fraud, or manage this issue.
Anyway, for someone like me, with a 'big' store, quick, easy price updates are critical. I like to price things myself at times & not always just have employees do it… But I can't commit to spend a few days a month changing 1 price at a time on 1,000's of SKUs. I really only have a few hours a month for this.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Multiple fulfillment is a nightmare!
I've read this (brilliant!) thread and a thousand others and all I can find is e-commerce packages that DON'T allow more than one fulfillment warehouse -like Zen, here: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=593093
Has anybody found one that will allow orders (or parts thereof) to be sent to different agents depending on the content of the cart?
Keep up the good blogging!
August 5th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I decided to try Zen Cart, so far I've been fighting to get every single URL beautiful, so I've been modding quite a bit. It's taking a while to learn the template, but I think in the end it will be worth it since you really can do anything with Zen Cart.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
@Jc – Not sure if this will do it – but squirrelcart allows you to set up different "warehouses" that can ship your products (but not sure if that's for inventory control, etc). Worth looking into to see if it does the job you need…
August 5th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
So – sorry to do this – but I'm going to close comments on this post for now. I appreciate everyone's input. And I think there's still a lot more to discuss and learn from each other on the subject. But if this thread gets much longer, it will REALLY be of no use to anyone. I will be setting up an "about shopping carts" forum in the very near future so the discussion can continue… hopefully in a format more usable than a single thread.
I'll update this post/thread when that's up and running. Stay tuned. 
August 12th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Please note:
Due to the length of this thread, I've both closed comments on this thread and opened up a seperate forum so that discussion can continue. Shopping Cart specific forums are here. (I created a number of other forum topics close to my heart as well)