Another shopping cart thread

[Pitrow]

A client of mine is looking to have a shopping cart installed on his website. I've never done one before, beyond the simple paypal shopping cart. What should I expect?

I mean, how hard is it to set one of these up? How does it connect with a merchant account? Any gotcha's that I should be looking for? Etc.

Thanks!

[esl]

You could try installing one via Fantastico in cPanel on a test account.

[Pitrow]

OK, so what am I doing wrong... I tried installing Cubecart via Fantastico on a test account and it seems to have installed properly, but I can't get into the admin section.

If I go to the cart itself it shows up, but when I try to go to the admin page I get a 404 error.

The cart is at http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~blah/shopping and that works fine, but if I try to go to the admin, which the email tells me is at /shopping/admin I get the 404.

I've tried:
http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~blah/shopping/admin
http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~blah/shopping/admin/
http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~bl...dmin/index.php

none of those work, all give the 404. I've also tried the same with the IP address instead of sentra.web... same result.

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by Pitrow

OK, so what am I doing wrong... I tried installing Cubecart via Fantastico on a test account and it seems to have installed properly, but I can't get into the admin section.

If I go to the cart itself it shows up, but when I try to go to the admin page I get a 404 error.

The cart is at http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~blah/shopping and that works fine, but if I try to go to the admin, which the email tells me is at /shopping/admin I get the 404.

I've tried:
http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~blah/shopping/admin
http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~blah/shopping/admin/
http://sentra.websitewelcome.com/~blah/shopping/admin/index.php

none of those work, all give the 404. I've also tried the same with the IP address instead of sentra.web... same result.

You are not supposed to use address like that, use your own domain instead.

[Dwight]

Originally Posted by Pitrow

A client of mine is looking to have a shopping cart installed on his website. I've never done one before, beyond the simple paypal shopping cart. What should I expect?

I mean, how hard is it to set one of these up? How does it connect with a merchant account? Any gotcha's that I should be looking for? Etc.

Thanks!

I've set up shopping carts for clients, and what I've come to suggest is either PayPal for a few items, or Sun Shop cart, http://www.turnkeywebtools.com

Sun Shop is not free, currently $189, but if the client needs a lot of functionality, it seems the best for the money. Fairly easy to set up, and the support is very good. They have a new version due out shortly, but I would consider the current stable version if you are in a hurry.

If you can convince your client to use PayPal with the cart, rather than another merchant account, you'll be happier and I think they will too, unless they get lots of sales every day. If using a traditional merchant account, you'll need a dedicated IP addess, ($2 per month) and probably a SSL certificate. I think that was $60 per year, but check with HG sales.

Also, once it's all set up, you can set up an admin login for your client that LIMITS what he can do... so he can run the store, add new items, change prices, all that, but NOT mess with the design... and he never even knows that, because his menu just doesn't have those selections on it..

Just make sure you charge enough to cover the software and your set up time.. it's not rocket science, but it does have a learning curve..

Good luck,

Dwight

[gwyneth]

I know this is a little late and you've probably solved your problems with Cube Cart...if you haven't, there are support forums at both www.cubecart.com and www.cubecart.org

Our co-op has been testing shopping carts for more than a month, and after installing more than 20 of them, some through the HG control panel (all four offered), some separately, and we decided to go with Cube Cart (for our live store I'll install the slightly newer, security-fixed version available at cubecart.com.)

Some of these carts were CGI-based, some PHP. Here are the reasons that Cube Cart won out over OS Cart:

1) The admin area is by far the best of the carts we tested.

2) Accepting multiple payment methods isn't just possible, isn't a matter of hunting down a hack or module, but Cube Cart acts as if it's a logical normal concept (it is, for every aspect of business except shopping cart software--you'd think it would be easy for customers to print an order form and mail in a check. HAH!!!!) With Cube Cart, more than a dozen different gateways and payment methods are built in and you can enable them or disable them--there's actually a check-off list in the admin area (only people who have spent weeks trying to hack an add on payment method might appreciate this).

3) Good shipping and tax handling, built in. Good currency handling.

4) Category structuring is both flexible and changable. Only people who've wanted to change a product category after configuration might appreciate this.

5. Very flexible about appearance--and not just colors. Amazingly, both experts at CSS and complete novices can work with it. Working with the actual layout of the store is extremely easy (via the PHP and HTML templates) and you can get it to look/feel like virtually any retail site, with the possible exception of Amazon, with very little effort. More effort, you could probably achieve that, too.

Because Cube Cart more completely separates the appearance from the functioning than the other 20+ systems we studied, the consultant can walk on water with the client. Since 'skins' are a drop down choice in the admin area, it's simplistic to copy and modify the ones provided, pop them in, and allow the client to change them at whim (they don't need to know how easy it is to devise new ones--and there are more than 500 available for downloading on the .com and .org forums.)

6. Nothing is locked down--one of the most annoying problems with some cart software is that if you make the wrong decision about store organization or where a product should go, you've got to delete and re-do something. Of all the cart software we tested, Cube Cart was by far the easiest to change.

As far as setting it up for a client, you might or might not like the fact that the admin area requires virtually no expertise to work with--we've got a member who can barely make subdirectories on her hard drive, but had NO problems adding products, putting in text, and uploading pictures.

Some consultants like billing for adding another T-shirt size to the catalog...some don't. But from the consultant's standpoint, Cube makes the stuff clients really can't figure out--such as rearranging where content boxes go, etc.--so easy and clean, that I'd think it would be much more profitable than the zillions of hours some other cart packages need for really annoying little things. Plus, if your client is really, really clueless, you will be far less annoyed doing the little stuff in Cube Cart. So overall, I think it would be a lot more profitable than OS Cart or Agora (shudder!).

We're going to pay the $80 to get rid of the "(Powered by Cube Cart)" up in the window title, but I'm the only person who noticed it. We budgeted a lot more to buy a package, but there isn't any reason to.

To be honest, it was about the 23rd or 24th system I installed. OS Cart was first, and I really thought it would be the way to go, as overwhelming as it is (I tried to explain about the 3500+ add-ons available but my members didn't understand.) But I kept installing and testing--and got more and more disgusted at how difficult achieving a separate printable form to send in with a check was (the Agora forum has something like 600 posts on multiple methods).

After I read somewhere on the HG forum that Cube Cart was the easiest cart to set up, I figured it would be awful (the last thing I associate with "easy software" is something that is also well-designed, infinitely expandable, and powerful!) The only reason I went ahead was that a know-nothing/know-it-all member asked if I'd tried all the ones that were provided by H.G., and I had to go through with it.

Amazing! I've been trying to come up with something negative to say about it for several weeks and unbelievably, the worst I can find is that it takes a small hack to get some things to appear alphabetically...a very small hack.

[justG]

Thanks for taking the time to post this. I really appreciate being able to take advantage of the time you invested to test various solutions. =) Since I don't have the time to do so myself, I was going to go with either OSCommerce or ZenCart, since both are so popular. After reading your review of CubeCart, however, I'll definitely take a closer look at it.

[gwyneth]

Cube Cart isn't perfect, but nothing is.

I'd figured when we really got going, we'd use OS, just because I like open system stuff and it had the rep for being the most powerful/adaptable...and co-op sales are a very strange hybrid.

But my quest started when we thought we'd sell six (6) products before then, or rather six sizes of one product, because Halloween was coming and slime mix is the one thing people who aren't coop members can order. So I threw up slimemix.com and thought, no problem to get an order form up that sends folks off to the credit card processor and also takes checks.

Hah!!! You'd think taking checks would be about as elemental a business function as exists, since there have been mail-in order forms as long as there have been magazines with ads. You'd also think that accepting both credit cards and mail-in orders would be a pretty routine affair, since millions of businesses do it every day.

Programatically, it shouldn't be a big deal, either, so when I started I thought, OK, I'll just copy a little code from the cart system we'd eventually use (or at worst, make sure the slime mix order form would conform to what we were going to be doing.)

A little investigation turned into a lot of investigation when it occured to me that if taking two payment methods was such a huge obstacle, arranging things for open co-op purchasing, which I'd always known would be complex, could become a nightmare.

So I certainly didn't set out to test 20-odd shopping cart systems on assorted domains, subdomains, subdirectories, etc. The very fact that the "two-payment method challenge" turned into that kind of quest is its own terrible review of most shopping cart systems--it's not as if we wanted to take gold dust or pukka necklaces for payment.

I'm about to put a suggestion in the Suggestion category for a sub-category about shopping carts so all the cart discussions could get herded together.

[esl]

I am developing an online store right now- this thread is very helpful. How secure would you say OS Commerce is? How easy to customize? Thanks.

[gtgeorge]

Originally Posted by esl

I am developing an online store right now- this thread is very helpful. How secure would you say OS Commerce is? How easy to customize? Thanks.

I have used both zencart and oscommerce which are both good and fairly secure if kept updated. Unfortunately keeping them updated is something I found to be too time consuming due to the many customizations. Since finding X-cart, (thanks Serra) I haven't looked back and we are replacing all the free stores with the commercial version. Of course there are always those that want "free" which is what they best for

[esl]

Originally Posted by gtgeorge

Unfortunately keeping them updated is something I found to be too time consuming due to the many customizations.

Thank you for the reply! So, do the customizations go away after each update?

[gtgeorge]

Originally Posted by esl

Thank you for the reply! So, do the customizations go away after each update?

There are many different files that need changes made throughout the system. Most of them are now in their very own template folder but some are not. I have found it very difficult to upgrade them due to the scattered locations for things that need to be added at each upgrade. And then sometimes the locations and way the program works changes makes it even more difficult.

I found myself not updating due to the hassle. For one storefront it wouldn't be nearly as bad, just have to plan each upgrade and expect it to take some time. Documenting all your changes is always helpful

Serra always recommended X-cart while we always stood behind Zencart. After comparing due to the frustration of an upgrade we became a reseller for X-cart so my opinions may be biased

I still like Zencart and Oscommerce and would recommend them as long as you understand the difficulty in doing upgrades. I have found some very nice stores based on them.

[esl]

Thanks for the detailed response.

[gtgeorge]

Originally Posted by esl

Thanks for the detailed response.

Your welcome, you might want to try them out for yourself. I prefered Zencart as they had a lot of the plugins/addons for oscommerce preinstalled and configured to work They also have a very active forum with a lot of helpful folks...

I figured you would get a good response from users using them though. They both are quite popular.

[gwyneth]

If it's a choice between Zen Cart and oscommerce, I'd take Zen...its codebase is more recent, it's more organized, and it's easier to find the add-ons or whatever else you need--oscommerce does have those 3500 add-ons, but sometimes that's a weakness, not a strength.

[esl]

How is upgrading Zen Cart?

[gtgeorge]

Originally Posted by esl

How is upgrading Zen Cart?

It was easier as they went template based before OSC. Not sure how OSC has progressed though. But while I said easier, I think I have a few more grey hairs after trying to upgrade 5 of them within a short period of time. Also with several upgrades over the years.

If you document each and every change it wouldn't be that bad I think. The next time I do one I will keep a file with all changes made to all files for reference.

[gwyneth]

Every time I go through this, I say to myself, "Next time, I'm going to pay somebody to do this." Then I realize explaining everything to somebody would be just as awful as doing it.

If ever there were a task for file compare utilities, it would be upgrading shopping carts.

Zen and Cube are reasonably good at providing a list of changed files, but of course that doesn't include your own changed files. There's a fairly extensive checklist somewhere in the Zen forum.

PSPad, one of the open source/freeware editors, has a compare function that I find better for "information compares" than some of the heavy duty compare utilities. Then I copy the output into its own file, save a write-locked copy to a directory just of version change lists, print it out and go to work.

(If you ever want the sensation that you're going insane, just run compare on two version change lists!)

For a relatively self-documenting way to track changes you've made, save the entire directory as a new copy, make the changes in that, then run a compare on the two directories and save or print it.