X-Cart

Has anyone messed with X-Cart?

[aaronjf]

Hey everone. I am about to give X-Cart shopping cart system a go. For the money the features it offers is unreal. Has anyone had experiance with that company or cart? I know a couple of you have looked at the system, but has anyone used it, or know of anyone that has used it?

[TallTroll]

Sorry, aaronjif. It seems we are light on x-cart users here. Unless anyone missed this the first time round, and has something to add, YOU will have to be our test pilot, and become our resident X-cart Expert.

Think of it as a challange, not a setback :)

Seriously though, there is a p/word protected "Members Area" over on the X-cart site. I'm sure all the good stuff is hidden back there

[aaronjf]

Well, we bought it. It is cheep enough to take a chance on. I was just wandering if anyone had any feed back on it. Guess not. Looks like I am going to be the test pilot. Ahhhrrrrrgggg.

PS: There is nothing exciting in the members area. Just a message board to talk to the techs, a file DL area, ect.

Thanks for the words of encouragement.

[aaronjf]

Well.. Just reporting back...

They cart itself is very cool. The tech staff install quickly ( one - two days).

However, NO MANUAL. Basically you get a cool PHP Cart installed. After that you have to figure out how the heck to make it work....

[jatar_k]

I am looking into xcart for one of my clients so I have been watching this thread, I am interested in any other observations you might have. At first glance I am impressed with it so far.

[aaronjf]

J,

The cart design is great. They thought of every feature and need... Except.. .There is a manual for installing on a server, but no manual for where to start and what to do once it is installed.

Now I could be totally missing it. I have a request into them for "where is the darn manual." If I am overlooking the manual I will repost.. But I don't think so.....

Tech support is great.. Friendly.. non abusive or abrasive (unlike most tech supports). Downside is.. You can post a message in your private message board to the tech and wait till the next day for an answer.. Or you can stay up till 3am and chat on ICQ with them or call them for $1.80 minute (Give or take, long distance rate plan)

If they can come through with a manual.. I would recommend this to most people. It is cheap, bar far the most resonably priced cart I have seen, most features, and LOVE the NO RIP YOU OFF monthly fees. The only other thing I would say is I wish these guys would make a Dreamweaver X-Cart extention.

I will post more after I get a response from the techs about the missing manual.

[edited by: aaronjf at 11:19 pm (utc) on June 21, 2002]

[aaronjf]

OH, one more interesting note. My server is an old cobalt rack 4 running Linux. For $60 bucks those guys went in a reconfigured the server and MySQL. The folks at Sun could not do that.. and they charge $60 just to talk to you. Much less go in and fix a problem for you.

Just a note I thought ya'll might find interesting.

[mattb]

We looked at OsCommerce a few months ago. I think they are the biggest competitor to x-cart. Looked nice but lacked functionality / maturity that Miva Merchant has. I'd be interested in seeing a list of sites that are running x-cart. I couldn't find any on their site. I went through the demo and it looks fairly comprehensive. Not sure how easily the product pages can be indexed by search engines, though.

I'd be interested in seeing a list of sites that x-cart is running on.

Matt

[garett]

I've owned x-cart for about 3-4 weeks. I've just changed some of thebasic settings so far and done a little customization with colors. The features have been great so far. Product images are stored in the database as "blob" type objects. There isn't a manual as of yet, so you pretty much need to experiment to really customize things. But as far as the product itself, it is pretty "feature rich".

[Marcia]

matt, osCommerce isn't what you could call a competitior because xcart is not cheap and osCommerce is free - it's Open Source. So is Red Hat Interchange, which is supposed to be a little harder to configure than osCommerce.

It's a whole different market picture with open source software, with constant development going on for new features, and developers can customize at will.

[aaronjf]

No manual and their response was "ask us specific questions or use the FAQ." This is rather irratating. How do you design and distribute a product without a manual. I don't have 3 - 4 weeks of tinkering to get this thing going. What a let down. Those guys really dropped the ball an what seems to be an inexpensive and feature rich product.

[Marcia]

Does it come with help files, or was it supposed to? Were there any warrantees of usability?

[aaronjf]

My Opinion:

No there are no help files or manual. Only a FAQ. No warranty of usability that I can find.

All in all, my review of X-Cart is as follows. X-Cart is a very feature rich out of the box shopping cart system that is very customizable. The techs are very helpful and friendly.

The bad, X-Cart comes with no manual or real direction. You are left to wade through vague FAQs. Importing the files into a WYSIWIG app. with PHP support such as Dreamweaver MX is not an option. This then forces you to use their web based interface or a text editor.

Momma always said you get what you pay for. For $125 you get a great proverbial paperweight. I am giving X-Cart a vote of no confidence.

[Marcia]

aaron, they don't document because it's based on the Smarty PHP template engine. They didn't write the original source, they came up with an adaptation that they're selling commercially as a shopping cart interface.

Go to Google and do a search for Smarty, you'll find the origins right off, including documentation on the original source and probably some user groups. Not that it does much good, other than serving as a reality check. Things that seem easy to programmers aren't for the non-programmer, which is what the average webmaster is, who basically needs an intuitive interface.

It sounds like a good product that's not quite ready to be marketed yet.

[aaronjf]

Oh I would agree. The cart system is great.. It is the ammount of self help the puts me off. I should refraise it being a proverbial paper weight. It is such, in my oppinion, IF you are a typical webmaster and or if you are looking for something that can be quickly and easily integrated into an existing site.

[aaronjf]

X-Cart Manual:

I sent the boys and girls at X-Cart a message telling them of my irritation (pleasantly of course) with the fact that the only help file they have is a vaque FAQ section. They have replied that they are working on a manual. However, no ETA on its release.

[TallTroll]

There of course you have identified one of the great weaknesses of open source. Version control and compatibility issues can be a nightmare, and if the author didn't feel like writing a manual, in most cases there isn't one.

With open source stuff being free or dirt cheap, economic pressure cannot be brought to bear to correct these things either.

Then again, you aren't forcedc to part with a great wad of cash to discover you've got a hound; you can find out for free :)

[aaronjf]

Well, it was not free, but for $125 I am not crieing a river. Plus, I am considering writing a WYSIWIG PHP shopping cart extention for Dreamweaver. Like the paypal exteention, but much more in depth. Now I have some really great code to reffer to.

[TallTroll]

LOL, now THAT'S lateral thinking!

>> considering writing a WYSIWYG PHP shopping cart extention for Dreamweaver.

Remember to WTFM (Write The Freakin' Manual) ;)

[rhetor]

I bought x-cart last week. Frankly it's impossible to use. It does have lots of features but it's a cart written for programmers and even my programmers can't figure out how to get rid of their text and add ours. (I finally figured out how to get rid of their text on the homepage.)The tech support which you supposedly get for two months is basically non-existent. They want you to edit their over 100 templates but don't tell you enough to make that possible. I'm just curious to see if they'll refund my $145. I just want a shoppping cart, not a programming course.

[aaronjf]

Here here, if they refund your money. Sticky mail me, I might be inclided to ask for a refund too.

[formnfunktion]

I have been using x-cart for a few months... if you have some patience, it's a very functional system. I'm starting a Yahoo Group so those of us who would like to start a dev. community for xcart can support each other being that X-cart doesn't yet have a manual and has slow responding support. I hope this helps out. [groups.yahoo.com...]

[jatar_k]

Welcome to WmW formnfunktion

I will keep my eye on that.

[aaronjf]

formnfunktion,

Thank you for starting the group on Yahoo. I look forward to joining and chattting.

[formnfunktion]

Thanks for the welcome... here's an interesting thing I learned about Xcart for those of you using pre 3.0 (the current version) builds... upgrading to the latest version of X-cart from older versions isn't an easy process.. you have to re-edit all of your templates and textual information! Ahh the wonderful world of X-Cart. I hope this is addressed in future updates...

[rhetor]

I've given up on x-cart, at least for now. The developer promised they've hired a tech writer and that they are going to have a manual in the next two or three weeks.

I don't have the time nor patience to wait. It may be great, and it may only be $145, but if you calculate the hours it takes to figure it out, it's no bargain.

The developer also assured me that they'd refund my money. I'm about to test that assurance.

[aaronjf]

rhetor,

Please let us know what comes of your request for a refund.

[formnfunktion]

I've been informed that a group already exists with a few members.. [groups.yahoo.com...]

Join up!

[Fisherman]

Hello everyone.

There's an X-cart forum at [groups.yahoo.com...]

Gotta go back to work!

[Fisherman]

Oops! Looks like someone beat me to the punch. there are some helpful folks on the forum and I hope we can gather enough useful info to put a rough manual together so we can modify the cart easier. :)