Shopping Carts...pulling my hair out!

[ian-d]

As a merchant seller i went through a stage of pulling my hair out finding a shopping cart solution. I finally did but instead of using the full cart software/database etc i created my own site and simply used the software for the cart and checkout.

This works really well, and still does, but my next business has a whole lot more products, so don't want to be spending unneccasary time coding each product.

I've searched high and low for a decent shopping cart, but to put it bluntly, all from the off set are crap in terms of the template designs etc. I've tried configuring my own design to suit a cart, but its a long job that i really don't have time for.

Can anyone think of any decent solutions where the backbone software is good, but ultimately its the design element thats outstanding from the off-set?

Anyone got examples of their merchant sites and what they did to them?

Any help appreciated!

[Rynert]

Hi Ian, I used a heavily customised version of VP-ASP on my site (Homebrew 4U - Homebrew Kits and Equipment.)

A big upfront workload, but once done is very scaleable.

[scifind]

Originally Posted by ian-d Can anyone think of any decent solutions where the backbone software is good, but ultimately its the design element thats outstanding from the off-set? Anyone got examples of their merchant sites and what they did to them? Any help appreciated!

X-Cart?
Good robust software and uses a phptemplate system. So it should be easy to create a template and just insert php elements where you want the navigation, products etc to be displayed.

Must admit I am still a fan of osCommerce based stores. But customisation can be a pain. There are loads of off the shelf templates - but get a money back guarantee as there are so many versions now.

[ian-d]

Looked at x-cart but found that cs-cart is a more polished verion (by some spin-off staff unhappy with x-cart), but again, being based on a phptemplate means i'm inexperienced in changing the design!

I've tried oscommerce a number of times but always fallen out with it for its design capabilities. Was even considering a template from monster templates to suit oscommerce but the problem is i have no idea how good/accurate they are, and how easy to install. Has anyone used one, i have no problem spending money for a solution pre-done, as i could be making money now!

[justhomdotcom]

I vote for x-cart as well - it's VERY easy to change the templates.

I would vote for cs-cart as yes it is more polished but is lacking in 3rd party developers (if there were more i'd be over like a shot).

If you have programming skills to make your own coding mods then i'd say cs-cart.
If not then x-cart (plus they have their own development team which can do the mods for you at a very reasonaible price)

[ian-d]

Ah adam, we've been expecting you....

I was hoping for input from the merchant of merchants. So presumably your current cart is with x-cart? I'll take a further look, i didn't spend much time with it because cs-cart existed!

I'm not a programmer though, i can knock code togeather for a design, but run out of patients easily!

[justhomdotcom]

Yes we use x-cart for all our sites plus some others that I developed for other clients.

The added benefit of x-cart as well is that if you ever started doing affiliate marketing with your sites (in terms of being a merchat) I helped in the beta testing of quite a few 3rd party mods to make things easier for merchants for example the firetank feed generator I had a lot of input on regarding what features should be included etc.

X-cart Shopping Feeds|FiretankSoftware.com

We had them develop specific modules for POR, Affiliate future and Affiliate window.

The beauty of x-cart (and cs-cart) is that although it's not open source, the code is totally open for manipulation

Also it has got a VERY good community forum where virtually any question you ask will be answered by those in the know (although it is community forum and not x-cart tech support)

The 4.1.x version has just gone stable (out of beta) as well so now is as good a time as any to use it to create your shop.

If you need any advice on it i'd be happy to have a chat on the phone to answer any of your questions

[ian-d]

Your a good man adam, i'll take a look at it early next week and give you shout if required...and yes, i'll be launching an affiliate scheme so the add-ons would be useful

[ian-d]

Hi Adam/all, how frustrating, after taking your advice i decided to download the x-cart solution, spent 20 mins installing on my hosting space only to find i cannot use it because x-carts have some 'IonCube' software which doesn't work on some hosting. There only suggestion was to alter the code on a php.ini file i don't have access to, or buy the full version which doesn't have this problem...as if!

I thought ok, i'll go onto the forums, but find they are all member only, then tried sending a support request, only to find thats members only too and i need approval from them first, so i've emailed them! arghhhh

I'm hoping they come back with a solution as i really like the look and capabilities of it, but never mind, i'll give cs-cart a try!

[justhomdotcom]

Ahhh , when you say "hosting space" am i presuming that you are running on a shared server??? If so forget both x-cart and cs-cart , they are both VERY server and database intensive so I wouldn't recommend on running on anything else other than a dedicated.

Thats not to say you can't run them on shared hosting but chances are somewhere down the road it will either

A) Run like a pig
B) Your host wil complain that it's using too much resources

But to be honest with any e-commerce site I would get a dedicated server anyway as if someone else that is on the server is doing the same (i.e using a intensive web app) then what they are doing will affect you.

[ian-d]

appreciate what your saying mate, i've seen most ecommerce solutions mentioned as slow on shared hosting, although definatly more so with x-cart and cs-cart, they run very slow!

my current shopping cart solution for the other business runs fast enough to do the job, but the intention is to run dedicated once both businesses are at full speed, which won't be long!

i just need to find something for now, to get things rolling. i have a design in progress and i'm tempted to just hand it over to a ecommerce web design company to setup within a shopping cart for me!

i have been playing around with cubecart the most as its well supported, but css/html/php integration takes time, and i'm running low on brain power!!!