Shopping cart software for hosting at FQ

[NoahM]

So I have done the searches and read previous posts on this topic, but they seem a little old and I am curious if there is any additional information in the FQ community on good shopping cart/e-commerce solutions to use here at FQ.

I am looking for something that will look professional with a site that not only has goods for sale but a significant amount of informational pages as well, so good navigation integration is a must as well as all of the other general shopping cart features you see in the software offered today.

Based on the other posts x-cart seems to be used here with success and it seems like a solid package. Any other suggestions for software the would work here at FQ would be greatly appreciated.

If it doesn't run at FQ I am not interested. :smile:

[hobbes]

Noah - osCommerce works fine on FQ. We have it deployed for a client using authorize.net as the payment processor. ZenCart, derived from osC with additional bundled options, should also work.

[tappel]

I use X-Cart and have a love/hate relationship with it. The out-of-the box templates are pretty cheesy looking and the default language and text is poorly written (English is a second language for the authors) and requires lots of editing. However, it is highly customizable and there are several X-Cart experts (found via the X-Cart forums) that can spiff it up nicely for you.

I'm considering a second online store in the near future and I'm leaning towards OSCommerce for that one, FWIW.

Tom

[Matt]

My understanding is that development of the official osCommerce distro stalled a few years ago at something like MS2.2. One of the biggest problems with osCommerce (and a large differentiator of osC distros) is that code is heavily intertwined with design. This causes problems when you're not happy with the default design that comes with osC.

X-Cart looks very similar to osCommerce in terms of interface, but it appears that X-Cart solved the code/ design issue through the use of Smarty templates. If you're familiar with Smarty templates, this might be a plus. There are other open source solutions that effectively separate code from design, e.g. MS2-MAX and ZenCart, and the template system is pretty straightforward so that you do not need to familiarize yourself with the Smarty template system.

If you're looking for the most reliable and flexible "out of box" solution, I'd recommend ZenCart. It's the only osC distro I'm familiar with that works with Global registers turned off. It also has a fairly straightforward method for modifying content without needing to use a separate HTML editor. My big complaint is that the WYSIGWYG editor has security issues doing copy/ paste from within Mozilla-based browsers. Although there is a documented and straightforward process for creating new pages, it does involve some hand coding and directory editing.

An osC-based solution is going to give you a sophisticated solution, but if you only need the basics (display product, display content, click to buy), then you might consider a simpler package, maybe even custom.

-Matt

[NoahM]

Thanks all for the replies/recommendations. These recommendation seem to be in line with what I saw in old posts here.

The one problem with OSCommerce and products branched from it is that there is no way to assign product pricing based on user group as in a wholesale price for wholesalers and the regular price for anyone not logged in. I have read the forums at ZenCart and this has been asked about. It may be coming in a future release, but is not currently available.

X-cart does have this capability, but I am looking into some other questions that I cannot get to since the forums are locked to anyone that does not own the software. LAME! Does anyone have X-cart up and running with UPS integration? If so do you print directly to the UPS thermal printer? How is the overall integration with UPS?

Thanks again.....

[hobbes]

wrt osC:

If the wholesaler discount is the same across all products, then you could use the Members Discount contrib, which I have tested and am using in the above mentioned deployment.

Probably what you want though is the Separate Pricing per Customer (Group) contrib:
http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,716
Note that I have not tested it out.

[NoahM]

If the wholesaler discount is the same across all products, then you could use the Members Discount contrib, which I have tested and am using in the above mentioned deployment.

The documentation I read on this made it sound like the discount would only be seen at checkout, is this the case with your implementation or can someone login to see the correct discount as they browse the store. If the latter this may work for what we need now, but as we get rolling I can see the need for having different price levels.

Probably what you want though is the Separate Pricing per Customer (Group) contrib: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,716

Can this (and other OSCommerce) contributions be used with ZenCart? There seem to be a few votes for ZenCart, but I am not sure of all of the benefits/drawbacks of using Zen instead of OSC. The ability to use OSC contributions being a case in point.

Anyone have experience with both OSC and Zen that has an opinion on implementation, quality of code, security, support, etc.? I did see the post from Matt regarding the separation of templates/design and functionality.

[Matt]

Anyone have experience with both OSC and Zen that has an opinion on implementation, quality of code, security, support, etc.? I did see the post from Matt regarding the separation of templates/design and functionality.
In case you missed it, there is the advantage that Zen does not require Global registers. This will ensure the cart works in the future and is also a security benefit. In my opinion, Zen has done the most comprehensive revisions to osC. While osC mods might not be compatible with Zen, it seems that Zen has most of the major mods available for their distro. Also, the two aren't so different that porting a mod would be a major project. An advantage of other osC derivatives over Zen, however, is that they support URL rewriting. This may be a biggie if SEO is a concern. Support is pretty good for Zen (via forums, but osC also has a large support base). Chances are you will need more support with some of the other distros.

The one problem with OSCommerce and products branched from it is that there is no way to assign product pricing based on user group as in a wholesale price for wholesalers and the regular price for anyone not logged in. I have read the forums at ZenCart and this has been asked about. It may be coming in a future release, butis not currently available.
This depends on how you are assigning prices. If your wholesalers get a percentage discount, this is already supported in osC-derivatives (although it might be necessary to make a modification to display discounted price once logged in). If you want to specify wholesale pricing on a per-item basis, this isn't supported natively, but it could be done (depends on whether you want to pay for someone to do it or look for a cart that natively has this capability).

-Matt

[NoahM]

My search has led me to look seriously at Miva Merchant as the shopping cart for this project. While many hosts offer this as part of a package with hosting I would really prefer to stay at FQ which leads me to my question.

Does anyone currently have Miva Merchant 5 installed and working here at FQ? If so, was it difficult to install and get up and running, ie. did the install instructions work well for FQ?

[Joseph]

Unnecessary posts removed. Spammer banned. Please carry-on. :safegrin:

[hobbes]

Just to throw one more into the mix: CRELoaded (http://www.creloaded.com) (demo (http://opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2084)). Be interested if anyone has experience with it and how it might compare with ZenCart.

[ddunlap]

Yet another one running on FQ - we are using ClickCart Pro on a couple of projects and have been happy with the results (thanks to CKitchin for installing, customizing, brainstorming, etc :clapper: ). http://www.clickcartpro.com/ It costs money but has a lot of features.