What's the Best Shopping Cart to use?

[DanStief]

Hi!

I just became a reseller and would love to hear your opinion about which shopping cart to use. My choices are:

• Angora via the C-Panel
  
  Three options through Fantastico:
  
• CubeCart
• OS Commerce
• ZenCart.

I have used Miva Merchant for all the shopping carts in the past and it is an awesome program with incredible flexibility. But that is not available here, so your commments would be appreciated so I don't choose a solution to try that doesn't work very well.

I will use PayPal as the merchant account which most carts now support by the insertion of your email adress. Key to me is having it be hacker proof, I will hook it up to a secure certificate.

And I would like for it to be able to deliver a digital product automatically at the time of approved purchase.

Thanks in advance for your comments or suggestions.

Dan

[MachineDog]

Shipping is something you'll have to do yourself. Which means you'll have to be checking the orders everyday. Unless you can find a company that will do this for you there's no other way. That's mainly why I've stayed away from selling items. Personally I like the ease of use on osCommerce.

[DanStief]

Thanks for your feedback. More important to me at the moment is digital delivery. This isn't the case for clients who will be physically shipping products. OS Commerce seems to have more features and more enhancements compared to the others.

[MachineDog]

I've seen people have downloadable products with os Commerce. I just have no idea HOW.

[amartins]

Yup oscommerce allows for digital delivery as well as limiting the amount of downloads that can take place, its set up as a virtual product.

http://www.oscommerce.info/kb/osComm...figuration/162

HTH

Antonio.

[DanStief]

Thanks for the inputs. I guess I will give OS Commerce a try. Thanks a lot.

[jlgreer1]

I have used osCommerce for a couple of years. I tried ZenCart a couple of months ago. It operates very well and is easily upgraded to newer versions with security patches.

Jeff

Check Out Goldbar,s Online Shopping Cart for Business Soloutions,email tools,shopping cart,online tools
http://www.goldbar.net

[holmescreek]

The one that doesn't make a visitor sign up for an account before they can get a shipping total!! Don't you just hate that?

[gwyneth]

I just posted a rather detailed message in the Web Services forum about my experiences installing and testing more than 20 shopping cart packages over the last two months, and Cube Cart was the overwhelming winner.

It would be hard to say whether its biggest advantage is how amazingly easy it is to set up assorted payment methods, as many as you want! (After contortions with the other 20-odd packages, my jaw dropped when I saw a list in its admin area that lets you check the ones you want and uncheck the ones you don't--AT ANY TIME). Or its flexibility.

I still can't believe there's so little to complain about--my test notebook ranges from 100+ flaws (at which time I stopped writing them down except for fun) down to 15, but for Cube Cart I found only two in the three weeks it was tested. They're very small flaws--consider that one is "costs $80 to remove 'Powered by Cube Cart'". If I'd weighted the flaws according to importance, the range would be even more spectacular.

[Hoggs74]

I really must agree. I did a store for one of my clients, and I used Cube cart, and was amazed at the ease of customizing and setting it all up. Plus is has some really neat admin features that help with order tracking and printing invoices, and packaing slips. My clinet loves it. Check out her store.

www.gettingprettypersonal.com

[gwyneth]

As I noted in the much longer account in the Web Services category, I was initially deterred by accounts of how easy Cube Cart was!

Even though I should know better intellectually, after 25 years translating tech stuff to the rest of the world, I automatically assume that somebody calling something 'easy' doesn't know as much as I do. Or that anything called 'easy' is like a moped compared to a Ducatti.

Isn't it funny how 'easy' can be interpreted with a sneer?

So far--and I keep trying to justify my inital arrogance--I have not found ONE thing you could do better with OS Cart (legendary for its "power") than with Cube Cart. The functionality offered by OS Cart's 3500+ additions is either built into Cube Cart, or a matter of small hacks, or pasting in a line or two of PHP code. I'm not saying that if your client wants a payment gateway run by a North Korean bank that takes gold nuggets you'd have no problems--I just ran out of scenarios for which those OS additions would represent a better way.

My new mantra is: remember, a guy in the 80s won the Indianapolis 500 with a Chevy big block lifted from a schoolbus.

[Dwight]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

I just posted a rather detailed message in the Web Services forum about my experiences installing and testing more than 20 shopping cart packages over the last two months, and Cube Cart was the overwhelming winner.

Based on your posts, I have placed CubeCart on a test site... it was easy to install, and I'm playing with the settings now... A couple of things it doesn't have I would like is, NOT requiring a shopper to 'register' before buying products... also, I'd like to sell gift certificates... Zen Cart has certs, but still requires registration... Any ideas or thoughts about these features is appreciated...

[gwyneth]

A couple of things it doesn't have I would like is, NOT requiring a shopper to 'register' before buying products... also, I'd like to sell gift certificates

I'm in the middle of testing a couple of ways to do the former and will provide more detailed info later tonight or tomorrow. My initital thoughts are to rearrange the registration related content and change the verbage because virtually all ordering involves taking customer info at some point. That's just one approach, however.

Gift certificates can also be handled several different ways depending on the options you want for buying them and then later using them to pay for things....entirely different issues, behind the scenes!

Some well-received "paid mods" for both can be found at cubecart.org. I'm trying a couple of free ways first, and I'll report back. The paid mods are not expensive, but since I'm doing this for our co-op, and this type of selling has issues related to both but not exactly either, I want to figure out the best strategy so I can do things right the first time.

Meanwhile, searches through the forums at both cubecart.com and cubecart.org would be worthwhile.

Remember that gift certificates are also called 'gift cards' in the UK (it kills me that when you read the PHP code its clear that because they don't understand the distinction between states and counties here, or the purpose of the latter, and there's not really a direct translation to the way counties are organized over there, they've gone way, way, overboard to make sure that no matter how we crazy Americans have set up our country, no matter how inexplicable the British software designers have found our governmental units, Cube Cart will be able to handle it.)

BTW, apparently the registration/checkout aspect has been the subject of much discussion--Cubecart 2x had a quick-checkout option that may or may not be somewhere in Cubecart 3x, depending on which messages you read.

[e_a_g_l_e_p_i]

I am using Avactis Shopping cart and it has a very user friendly interface with very professional help files, they even have help videos which helped me a lot. I highly recommend them.

http://www.avactis.com/

[gwyneth]

I'm modifying my opinion slightly with Zen's newest release (two minors up from the Fantastico one).

It does various media sales much better than Cube, has some built-in things (gift certificates, discount codes), and so on. But as an offshoot of OSCommerce, though it's much better implemented, it still has some of OSC's flaws--I really think the admin section interface is clunky.

Let me put it this way: if I were going to have to provide support to any clients using one of the three, no way would it be anything but Cube: clients can't break it and they can handle the products, etc., themselves. If I were going to use it myself, I'd probably go with Zen. If I were charging for the implementation, I'd go with X-Cart.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

if I were going to have to provide support to any clients using one of the three, no way would it be anything but Cube: clients can't break it and they can handle the products, etc., themselves. If I were going to use it myself, I'd probably go with Zen. If I were charging for the implementation, I'd go with X-Cart.

I'd say that providing support for X-Cart is just as good as Cube. Customers can handle adding and changing products, its very easy. If I were doing it myself, I'd use X-cart, because I can't sit at a screen and enter products, I'd rather just upload spreadsheets. And of course, If I were charging, I'd use X-cart because its difficult to charge a good rate to install something that is free.

Add to that, if they need any major X-cart work, you can always sub it to x-cart themselves.

[rmowles]

Old thread but I assume Sierra is still around...

I've been checking out x-cart on their site and like the feature list but can't for the life of me get ahold of anyone. The forums are for registered users only, the 1-800# is either disconnected or good in the USA only, they don't list a local number, their domain name is registered anonymously and I haven't had a reply to my contact request since last weekend...

Is this typical?

[Dwight]

Originally Posted by rmowles

Old thread but I assume Sierra is still around...

I've been checking out x-cart on their site and like the feature list but can't for the life of me get ahold of anyone. The forums are for registered users only, the 1-800# is either disconnected or good in the USA only, they don't list a local number, their domain name is registered anonymously and I haven't had a reply to my contact request since last weekend...

Is this typical?

I had an x-cart install a few years ago, and the responses were about 24 hours from question to answer, but remember they are in Russia, so the time zone can account for that.. It has a ton of features, but I found it very difficult to set up... Sun Shop is still my choice if you need full features.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by rmowles

Is this typical?

They don't do phone support very well, as they aren't in the office during US work hours. I haven't really used their phone support because of it. Ticket support is very good, but as was said, its about a 24 hour turn around on tickets, which is fine for shopping carts, as they aren't really in the business of break fix. I have purchased some upgrades directly from them and they were all done fine and a customer purchased some fixes from them with about a 12 hour turn around.

However, as a non-customer, hell will freeze over before they talk to you. The product is solid, but they ain't into sales support! The forum is a very good resource and there are a lot of independent companies doing x-cart work.

. It has a ton of features, but I found it very difficult to set up...

X-cart is more for cart developers than novices. My first cart was a ***** to setup because I didn't know Smarty. Once I got past that, I'm sold. I'll not use any other system. Keep in mind that the scratch cart is a bit ugly, but works very well right out of the box. The problems start when you need to customize the design elements, not in the actual function of the cart. If wonder if its a good cart, take a look at this site I currently am doing support for http://traditionink.com/

I didn't design most of the cart, but I did design the stuff in the left column, which is a very complex database driven dynamic pull down system that you aren't going to see in a simpler cart. They just wouldn't support it.

For a $200.00 investment, it's worth the money. I felt the same way when I couldn't access the forum, wondering if it was just a POS that had a nice website. In fact, when I purchased my first cart, my credit card was frozen because of a large charge made to a Russian company. (I purchased 3 carts to start with). However, once I saw the forum, I felt much better. I've got several x-cart stores online right now for customers and I'm adding another one in a month or so for my family business. PM me if you want to see or purchase x-cart. I'm sure I could get you a copy to play with for a few days and answer any questions. As I said, I also sell support for x-cart and do custom modifications and even full setups.

[rmowles]

Thanks for your replies guys, I appreciate it. It seems to have some great features that require major contribution installations in oscommerce, but I've done so many modifications I'd need to either pay for someone to do them all over again or take a crack at it myself.

I'll PM Serra for some more feedback... if others are interested in learning more we can keep going over the forums...

Thanks!

[Serra]

Originally Posted by rmowles

Thanks for your replies guys, I appreciate it. It seems to have some great features that require major contribution installations in oscommerce, but I've done so many modifications I'd need to either pay for someone to do them all over again or take a crack at it myself.

Mostly with x-cart there isn't much need to modify x-cart to do anything. Either it does it already, which is normally the case or Firetank or x-cart sells a module that does it already. Basically, no one needs to custom mod x-cart.

The only thing that is difficult with x-cart is the look and feel, because of the smarty. As with everything, its difficult because is flexible.


Here is a fairly simple look and feel example for x-cart: http://filermedical.com/

This site took about 3 hours to setup the look and feel to match the main site. (I didn't design the main site, that was another company, I just matched their design in the cart)

Thanks for the information on X-cart as I was trying to decide if I should choose them for my merchant account. I think I am going to go with http://www.cardservicesales.com for my online payments. Has anyone had any experience with them?

[gwyneth]

This review site lists several hundreds of them, has a moderately advanced Advanced Search to narrow the choices, and actually provides some useful info.

Shopping Cart Reviews: view all shopping carts