Forum Moderators: buckworks
2) I have looked at it in some detail, but I can't really tell whether or not it is easy for a non-programmer to really setup.
3) I need a pretty detailed cart, with a nice set of features. Database integration, with backup utility, etc..
Print Invoices, Packing Labels (Hope).
4) Is there any Cart out there that interfaces with something like WorldShip(UPS) or DHL, where shipping labels can be printed, and rates calculated.
Any advice, tips, or whatever would be appreciated.
I looked into X-Cart a month or so ago. I almost bought it but I couldn't quite get past some issues that were raised by folks on this board and on the osCommerce board.
I opted to tough it out with osCommerce instead. osCommerce is an open source cart - robust with a very active community of developers and contributions. You can have a basic cart up and running within an hour or so if you know PHP and MySQL.
The most recent release of osC is even better than the previous versions I've worked with. While I'm not sure if there is a WorldPay module for it, I'm sure you could find someone in their commercial forum who'd write one for you for a few bucks.
Check it out. The only cost you'll incur is your time to learn it.
I was in the hope that someone was actually using their latest version.
I see their website is back to normal. Demo is back on line, along with the manual, etc..
I'm going to grab it ASAP.
If I was just running a small store, I and running it by myself (Key Situation here!) OSCommerse would be my choice. I just need the extra reporting features (Because that is what I will be doing myself), and the ability to give the rest of the functions to someone else, that (I don't trust like I trust Me). Ability to monitor Return Credits, etc..
I thought I might find someone actually using the product.
Thanks a bunch!
MarkT
I was a little reluctant to entrust this client's site to OScommerce, while it's an awesome system - it just didn't seems as slick as x-cart. X-cart also has the advantage of paid support - so you're not on your own.
I like them both - but when substantial money was on the line I chose X-cart.
We did just launch an OScommerce site and have 3 more in development.
[edited by: TallTroll at 8:45 am (utc) on Aug. 21, 2003]
[edit reason] email drop [/edit]
I'll make a comment here for the sake of the thread.
I have contacted their sales group, which is technical by the way! Very unusual in this industry.
I had a 4 page email full of technical questions about "What If", "How Does it handle", etc..
I must say, I was extremely impressed with their English. It was more proper than my own. (They are out of Russia).
Not only did they answer my questions, but they explained their answers in detail. I think they are probably PHP guru's. Some of the database questions that I asked about relating to Fault Tolerance, variance in Backup routines, I was a little disappointed in. (Meaning that they probably don't have a "Real Database Guru". Not saying that they don't have every piece of knowledge that they need to do what they do, because I think they do.
What I am saying here is taking security and fault tolerance to the next level. Using Database technology to span servers, backup routines that ftp database data to other servers, then append data to hot spare database, etc..
So, I still have not installed the product because of lack of time devoted to this phase of the project, but I do have great hopes that it will be more functional than any other cart that I have checked out up to now.
The only cart that I have briefly looked at, that might fit into this category is CartIT. But I have not spent any time on it as of yet.
MarkT
Knowing that X-Cart could be modified to meet that criteria would be great.
Although, I feel like if I had some DB guru's figure the thing out, I could probablly work out a deal with them to create an Enterprise version, let me give them the code that I had developed, create a partnership with the DB guru's for that product only, and the feel like I would have great support for a great product. Everyone would make a few bucks, and I would have a great product, that would be continually developed.
Nothing bad on X-Cart here. I think they are great at doing what they do!
MarkT.
If you go ahead with deploying it, can you please post on this forum your experience? - the good, the bad, and the ugly all useful to know.
FWIW, I too exchanged some emails with x-cart support and they seemed like good answers. However, they didn't answer some followup questions I had, so I kind of lost faith.
Susan
I actually bought a licence of X-Cart about a year ago and had a pretty good thread going here about it till it got spammed and the Mods had to take the thread down :-(
It is a very slick system. And once you get it working supposedly it works really well. But there in lies the problem. Well not so much getting it to work as customizing it. You do want it to look like your site right, and not theirs. It is a nightmare to configure the skin propperly. I even had several people on the Yahoo X-Cart group (sorry you will have to run a search I don't have the link, there are two though on Yahoo Groups) that said that they knew PHP really well and it took them three weeks to get the skin confirgured.
IF you get tired of emailing them and having to wait a day for a responce - cause their in Russia with no sales rep here - you get to stay up till 4am and ICQ with them.
In the end I have a licence I never did use. I did however, find a really good PHP programmer and said, "hey look at this, I love the features. Can you build me something like that and have it run off a Dreamweaver template I have control over." Never been happier and I get to have control over the way my site looks on a moment by moment basis. Not to mention the programmers were able to mesh my online inventory with my POS system for real time updating back and forth. Good luck trying to get X-Cart to do that.
I had the same feeling about the smarty from PHP. I looked at a site or two, where they were complaining about it. It seemed that the complainers knew exactly what they were talking about, so I didn't discount them.
It does look like most of the features that I was looking for.
Thanks
[edited by: TallTroll at 1:18 pm (utc) on Oct. 13, 2003]
[edit reason] email drop [/edit]
Care to give the programmer info?
Maybe he wouldn't mind doing it again! <Grin>
Mark-T
Sure, I just sticky mailed you their information. If anyone else wants it let me know through sticky mail and I will sticky mail you back the info.
I found digishop (http://digishop.digisoft77.com) a while back and have been using them ever since. Best admin area I've come across. They were pretty knowledgable and customized a few things for me. I'm pretty happy with them.
It's extremely good for the price, discussing fault tolerance and other similar issues on shopping cart software that costs $185 is a little on the questionable side. It's not enterprise software, you don't get enterprise multiserver software for peanuts and for good reason.
With that said though, I've worked on plenty of x-cart sites many of which generate in excess of $100,000 to $1,000,000 in sales per year running on x-cart and dedicated servers.
So given the start up costs and say a grand or two of modification/design development you can set up some pretty serious ecommerce sites with it, out of the box functionality isn't bad at all it's certainly feature packed.
There are issues with communication but it also has some of the best forum members around, may of whom can be hired to make x-cart dance and sing.
Price to feature/customisablity it's actually very hard to beat, I've seen hundreds of systems over the years.
There's thousands of sites running on x-cart many of which you aren't even aware are running under x-cart architecture.
If your looking for fault tolerant, multi server distributed systems first place you visit is bespoke software and a bank account to match, why? Well if you draw so much traffic that you need shared servers then you shouldnt be looking at a script that costs $185 a decent database guru will cost you $100 per hour alone for that level.
That's my 2 cents anyway :)
Thanks for the input on X-Cart. It's still a card I haven't played but I'm am keeping my eye on.
Anyway, I was impressed by x-cart and we also sprung for the x-affiliate module. X-Cart is really great except I would have liked a more robust and feature rich Newsletter sub-system. The one that comes with X-Cart is pretty plain jane (just email addresses, one list) I think that's the only 'complaint' I have.
Otherwise, I love the expandability (you can add your own fields and preset-value options like colour and size), and I love the administration interface.
I think it was a good decision on our part. If only the newsletter thing was better...*sigh*... can't have everything I guess.
Our clients had asked us to develop some advanced features so we ended up taking it further (much much further) and ended up creating quite a range.
It's also a good measure of our experience of the x-cart system :)
Best part, it doesn't affect your x-cart installation or upgrade path at all.
[edited by: TallTroll at 10:03 am (utc) on Oct. 23, 2003]
