Easily Customizable Shopping Cart?

[ixie02]

Sorry for posting another shopping cart question but can anyone recommend a shopping cart, preferably php, that the layout/look is easily customizable. Perhaps something template based. It must be full featured, secure, not riddled with bugs, and cost anywhere from nothing to approx. $1000. I don't want to spend forever weeding through code just to get the look my client wants such as I would have to do with OsCommerce or many other carts I've seen and of course my client doesn't want to spend the money for me to write a cart from scratch.
My client has their eyeball on this site, http://www.poshliving.com/, which has been highly customized using an asp.net cart from BV Software, $899. I rather stick with php.

[generic]

never used it yet, but after using os commerce, candy press, etc, This is definitely the next cart I am going to use. the demo has lots of skins too.

http://www.cs-cart.com/

(as I recall, I was referred to this product form someone here..I think brad uses this on one of his sites)

just did a bit of research. interesting reviews here - one says its same company as x-cart. http://www.hotscripts.com/review/55114.html

[ixie02]

Have you used this Brad? If so, is it easlily customizable?

[generic]

might want to pm brad, I dont think he visiting the boards as much... last post was 7/11.

actually, I dont see alot of old pal users here as much anymore either.

[ixie02]

Originally Posted by generic

might want to pm brad, I dont think he visiting the boards as much... last post was 7/11.
actually, I dont see alot of old pal users here as much anymore either.

Now that you mention it, I haven't noticed a lot of activity from some of the old timers either. Is Garreg still with us? Haven't heard from him in a coon's age.

What do you know - Found a link to http://www.warpedtoys.com in the CS Cart Forums!

Think I'll download the free trial version of CS Cart and take a look at the code. Thanks for the tip.

[nhdonny]

It is summer you know.

On the cart stuff. I just built one using the Joomla component http://virtuemart.net/ Virtuemart. Very easy and seems to work great.

Lots of others here use Candypress and I do to. Love it but it is win based.

[ixie02]

Originally Posted by nhdonny

It is summer you know.
On the cart stuff. I just built one using the Joomla component http://virtuemart.net/ Virtuemart. Very easy and seems to work great.
Lots of others here use Candypress and I do to. Love it but it is win based.

Candypress gets such good reviews here that it might pay them to come out with a php version.

[generic]

I wonder where candypress is going, their 3rd party system on their site is crap, you cant edit or remove old links..their forums have hundreds of unanswered questions, I am worried they are just taking in $$ until they decide what to do with it.

Really impressed with cs-cart (www.cs-cart.com) (sub group of x-cart.com) so far, no mods to add, its all there so far, time to buy a license and play with it further.

After doing 2 oscommerce sites last month, im staying away from that too. its ok, but not "complete"

[ixie02]

Originally Posted by generic

I wonder where candypress is going, their 3rd party system on their site is crap, you cant edit or remove old links..their forums have hundreds of unanswered questions, I am worried they are just taking in $$ until they decide what to do with it.
Really impressed with cs-cart (www.cs-cart.com) (sub group of x-cart.com) so far, no mods to add, its all there so far, time to buy a license and play with it further.
After doing 2 oscommerce sites last month, im staying away from that too. its ok, but not "complete"

I kind of like it too. I downloaded the demo but haven't had time to install it yet. Brad gave it a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. At $129 a 7 from Brad may be good enough for me. It does seem fairly easy to use. Keep me posted on what you think of it. OsCommerce is ok for a freebie but when you need to drastically change the look and layout it can be a real bear.

[treeves]

I just checked out the cs-cart.com web site, and see that it is now $195. That's a 50% increase in price. Is there some kind of special price that they offer? I'd buy it for $129, but $195 is a bit steep if there are no new enhancements.

[ironwolf]

It depends on how long you have been in ecommerce and how much BS you are willing to put up with.

I have been doing this for around 9 years. My time is taken by shipping orders and handling customers. I have ZERO tollerence for screwy software. I require ZERO probelms, 3rd party interface to Quickbooks, an easy hook to a high quality affiliate program package as well as support for my payment processor ECHO. So for shopping carts there is only one choice.

OSCommerce. The downloaded version, not the Vortech autoloaded version

Its FREE. I never breaks down. It looks professional

IMO

ironwolf

[ixie02]

Originally Posted by ironwolf

It depends on how long you have been in ecommerce and how much BS you are willing to put up with.
I have been doing this for around 9 years. My time is taken by shipping orders and handling customers. I have ZERO tollerence for screwy software. I require ZERO probelms, 3rd party interface to Quickbooks, an easy hook to a high quality affiliate program package as well as support for my payment processor ECHO. So for shopping carts there is only one choice.
OSCommerce. The downloaded version, not the Vortech autoloaded version
Its FREE. I never breaks down. It looks professional
IMO
ironwolf

Yeah, but what about the easily customizable part?

[ironwolf]

Depends upon what kind of customization and the workflow of your business

The nice thing about OSCommerce is that there are already several hundred add ons / mods that have already been created. Go to Oscommerce.com and look in the "contrib" section.

Note: Treat OSCommerce like any large scale software project.

01. Always have a test system on a separate domain.

02. Always KEEP TRACK of every mod you make on a spreadsheet. That way you can immediately see if any modules "step on" each other.

03. Keep a COMPLETE COPY of your previous known good system so that you can always back out of every change.

04. TEST TEST TEST every modification

ironwolf

Originally Posted by ironwolf

OSCommerce. The downloaded version, not the Vortech autoloaded version
Its FREE. I never breaks down. It looks professional
IMO
ironwolf

I'm going to have to recommend osCommerce also, I've used it in a past life It's better than the few commercial carts I've worked with(Miva, yuck), there's a bunch of modules for it, it's skinnable and themeable, and it's Open Source so you can jump in and get your hands dirty if you want to.
Our preinstalled copy may be a bit outdated/problematic/broken, but the forthcoming upgrade of h-sphere fixes some bugs and updates the version, so hopefully you guys can get more use out of it.
Since we don't officially support it, you can always ask for help here and I'll be happy to help when/where I can.