incrediBILL - 8:04 pm on Sep 21, 2009 (gmt 0)

I guess I don't play in the same field... My web limit (carts, etc) is $50. Anything more than that I need a voice on the end of telephone, a street address, and verification. But that's just me...and perhaps a few others as well...

That doesn't preclude usability or you wouldn't have the sales to call on the phone in the first place.

Trust me, there were companies out there creating carts that did all the usability stuff jacob neilsen's studies recommended and the PHP give-it-to-me-free cheapskates of the world drove them out of business.

Backend admin panels that would make you drool.

But they are no longer sold, they could be, but the make-me-rich-for-free mentality drove them all into extinction.

Funny, if someone wanted to run a B&M store the rent, electricity, phones and all the rest of the monthly expenses would pale the expense of a good cart asking $1K one-time purchase free yet people expect it free.

Go out in the real world and ask some Realtor if you can set up a shop in his business park and if he'll only charge you $2/month for it because it's "shared space" with other tenants and watch the Realtor die laughing hysterically.

That's why a lot of good ecommerce hosts that specialized in hosting specific carts went away as well and when the hosts went away, the demand for their software went away.

A few good combo cart software and hosted solutions still cling to life but as this thread has proved, if they want a fair fee for a solid solution it's "too expensive".

The best I can suggest is find some Open Source that best suits your needs, improve upon it, and THEN submit those improvements it back to the Open Source project.

If everyone did that the collective improvements made to various Open Source projects would already be reaching the goals the OP wanted except here's the next rub, everyone that customizes their cart or improves upon it then wants to keep their improvements confidential to have an edge on the other online vendors.

You can't have it both ways, you either need to rally around a good paid cart and hosting and keep them going and evolving or participate in the evolution of a good Open Source cart and be a major contributor to that cause.

Otherwise, this problem will be a vicious cycle until the end of time.