Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

***mandy*** · 03-28-2007, 09:22 AM,

Quote:One of the most alarming factors for new e-tailers is the cost of some of the commercial e-store software. While you can pay a few extra dollars for shopping cart software when signing up for a hosting account, these plans don't always offer the functionality or design options that fit your needs. This is where Open Source software comes in to play.

Open Source Software
Many like-minded programmers create software that costs nothing and can be edited just as freely. The result of this collaboration of professional programmers is software that is often as feature rich as its commercial competitors. Best of all, of course, it's free.

Open Source software is nothing new, but it was once considered to be lacking in features and incredibly difficult to install without the help of a trained professional. However, now many Open Source e-commerce packages are as intuitive as commercial solutions. And, with such a vibrant and active Open Source community, there are many options available and lots of support should you need it. To help you decide what's a good fit for you, we've highlighted the features of five Open Source platforms we recommend...

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions...hp/3668061

accentnepal · 03-29-2007, 09:21 AM,

____SIGH____

They make it sound so easy.

I just spent about ten days wrestling with Zen Cart. It was nowhere near as difficult as it was the first time, two years ago, but as I passed by all those glowing words on the website about how easy it is..... I wanted to puke.

If you work with PHP and CSS on a regular basis, I expect it is easy as pie (one of those frozen, stick the thing in the oven pies).

If you have no idea what PHP is and you think CSS means Cute Stupid Serving-girls, well you are in for a long, steep slog.

I have layered a half dozen straight HTML pages over my cart, they say that the SEO friendly add-on does not work properly for the latest version and, regardless, it would be chaos to change my product URL's now. So the customer sees my HTML opening page first, then clicks categories to see other HTML pages. Item links go to the cart. The Zen navigation is all still there, too, so it is a bit of a maze, but all arrows point to where to buy. So I think I have found a partial answer to the SEO issue, although I doubt my product pages get any love.

I do wish the Zen developers would stop trying to impress other techies and make a simple cart that does not change every two months. I had to remove a bunch of required fields in the customer sign up, and there are about six pages to get through to purchase something - each added page causes customer drop outs, but the developers don't seem to understand that and want to show how clever they can program.

Building a better shopping cart seems to be a life work for these people, and they are not getting paid for it, but I sure wish they knew more about the businesses that use it.

*
*

**amy** · 03-29-2007, 08:05 PM,

Quote:They make it sound so easy.

I just spent about ten days wrestling with Zen Cart.

It is easy if you use my method (I force BBH to install it, design it, add mods, and everything that involves the letters P,H,P,C,S,S) Laughing7

Quote:each added page causes customer drop outs, but the developers don't seem to understand that

Checkout is supposed to be redone in version 1.5(?). The checkout process is really Zen's weak point. We added the order steps mod which shows buyers exactly where they are in the checkout process--it did cut down somewhat on abandoned carts.

chiquita · 03-29-2007, 08:50 PM,

[quote author=amy link=topic=8890.msg48246#msg48246 date=1175198703]

Quote:They make it sound so easy.

I just spent about ten days wrestling with Zen Cart.

It is easy if you use my method (I force BBH to install it, design it, add mods, and everything that involves the letters P,H,P,C,S,S) Laughing7

Quote:each added page causes customer drop outs, but the developers don't seem to understand that

Checkout is supposed to be redone in version 1.5(?). The checkout process is really Zen's weak point. We added the order steps mod which shows buyers exactly where they are in the checkout process--it did cut down somewhat on abandoned carts.

[/quote]

Amy I like your thinking.
BTW where is the mod for the steps in checkout? I would like to add it (or have BBH add it) to my cart.
Toothy2

CSS-confusing stumping sheet
:blinkie:

accentnepal · 03-29-2007, 10:18 PM,

As best as I can figure CSS is kind of like derivatives in the financial market.

You have a stock. It grows in value (hopefully) and produces dividends (also hopefully). Most people can understand that.

Then someone comes along and peels the dividends off and sells them to one person, the stock to another. Someone else comes along and sells the dividends paid on Tuesday to one person, the Friday dividends to another. And on and on.

The stock still produces exactly the same amount of money, but it now is distributed into a lot of places instead of one place. Minus a bunch of commissions, of course

That is what CSS does. It takes simple HTML and distributes it all over the place so that only the elite can understand. And then they charge us for it, just like the stock brokers.

I like the idea of the order steps mod, although I really hate to mess with the thing, it seems to be functioning now. I also want to get rid of those tell a friend and rate this item thingees - tell a friend I hear can be used for spam, and nobody rates the stuff, so it is embarrassing. I turned them off in Admin, but they are still there. I know, go into the code and extract them. Uhhhhh.