Shopping Cart Help + User Reviews << Post Here

6 replies
Hi,

I have a small business client building an online shop as an addon to their offline store and ebay. The volume is not big, so I am not looking for something like Magento (nor does the client has the budget for it).

So far I've been looking at several providers, both self and cloud hosted.

As far as the cloud, the option seems off, since I've read some really terrible reviews on Volusion and BigCommerce customer support (including lies in advertising). As far as Shopify I heard it is way too simple.

From the Open source, there are very mixed reviews on every cart out there.

· Prestashop - Some say Prestashop is good (not sure if those are real reviews), some say that you have to pay for almost every common option out there, and the out of the box software is very stripped down. Paying is not a problem, so if several thousand dollars have to be invested that is fine. Just want to make sure that the cart, as well as the add-ons actually work.
· OS Commerce - too old and there are upgraded version of it.
· ZEN Cart - currently doing the research, but it is an updated / customized version of OS Commerce
· Magento - off the list. From what I understand it's a very robust platform, but needs some very serious tweaking by coders for many $$$ hours. Also, this is more of an enterprise software, rather than a small shop cart.
· OpenCart - did not look into details. Will post once I know more.
· Freeway - also do not know the details.

Xcart seems to be 1 choice right now, however I have not seen any up to date templates for it anywhere. Everything on the market seems from way back 2001 style. Are there problems with designers or the cart is way out of date now? Also one of the problems shop owners report with it is inability to update the cart if its been customized (seems like a problem with every cart), so all the updates end up costing $$$ and time.

Was wondering if you can recommend some carts, from your own experience. It is very important you tried and actually worked with the carts, rather than read research / forums / blogs, as actual users know the real pitfalls of the software. If you used the software, and know the ups and downs, please post them.

Would appreciate your input, and I will be back with some info on more carts as I do more research.
#<< #cart #post #reviews #shopping #user
  • Profile picture of the author topnichewebsites
    I can talk from experience with X-Cart as I have used that software for more than 5 years.

    X-Cart, like other carts when you make your theme customized, unless you did the customized part yourself you normally have to recode for major version updates. If you are good at PHP then that’s not a problem. There are some vendors that sell template that range from 100-150 which are pretty good. You are correct many are old templates but still do the job. I won't say names here but if you want there links just send me an email. X-Cart does offer free templates to get you started but I really don’t like any of them. If you plan on doing checkout with paypal then you are ok, but if you plan on hosting the payment page X-Cart get really expensive to pass all the new rules in place for all the major card holders.
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    • Profile picture of the author SEOIvan
      Originally Posted by topnichewebsites View Post

      I can talk from experience with X-Cart as I have used that software for more than 5 years.

      X-Cart, like other carts when you make your theme customized, unless you did the customized part yourself you normally have to recode for major version updates. If you are good at PHP then that's not a problem. There are some vendors that sell template that range from 100-150 which are pretty good. You are correct many are old templates but still do the job. I won't say names here but if you want there links just send me an email. X-Cart does offer free templates to get you started but I really don't like any of them. If you plan on doing checkout with paypal then you are ok, but if you plan on hosting the payment page X-Cart get really expensive to pass all the new rules in place for all the major card holders.
      I'd greatly appreciate if you could send me some links. PMed you.

      I had a recommendation for CRE Loaded (loaded Commerce now), which is the OS Commerce but loaded with the best plugins (according to them).

      I am also working on a list of must have features of the shopping cart. Going to take a bit.

      As far as conversion testing aka Google Website Optimizer and other software, do you know which carts integrate?
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  • Profile picture of the author topnichewebsites
    Sent you a PM on the XC skins
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  • Profile picture of the author gottalovegoogle
    Honestly, I think shopify is the best in the world. Seriously I love that site. The first month is free so you can test it out and they also have a lot of custom parts.
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  • Worked with Prestashop and found it to work well with our clients on a local level out of others.
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  • Profile picture of the author Beverley Boorer
    downloadgaurd works great for small items. I use it on my website. You can see it in action if you go there and click on a categories link. It looks nice too and gives you the option of allowing a certain number of download attempts over a specific number of hours, both of which you set. This prevents any evil person from posting a link for your stuff anywhere for unauthorized people to get it for free.
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