I have a client that uses Volusion but honestly I think she's getting screwed in the amount she pays them every month for the functionality they offer...they aren't as compatible as they say they are and if you email Volusion Support you will get 3 different answers from 3 different tech guys at any given time. It's annoying.
osCommerce is easy to learn (with effort) It can handle SSL secure transactions, too. ~~~~~ Not perfect software, but really great for free.
Personally, I suppose it is wrong to compare paid and freeware solutions. OSC, ZenCart, CRE etc... good and free but code sometimes is terrible, no support, customization of them may become a nightmare. Nevertheless, it is good point to start with. As a developer I prefer paid solutions. They cost some money but (in most cases) code is at least acceptable Also paid carts have certified integrations with different systems. From the paid solutions I vote for X-cart. Code is good and Smarty template system likes me. Among freeware I would prefer PHPShop.
I've used oscommerce extensively however I'm currently developing something different. Like someone pointed out osc has an unprofessional aspect to it. For one all the code is mixed up with html so adding updates and customizations is A LOT more work than it should be. If you're still searching, try to find something more modular in design. So if you are adding new functions all you have to do is upload a new "module". Somewhat like how Mambo or Joomla is built. Another thing about OSC is that I don't see many updates to the core application and I think some sort of secure admin system should be a part of the core module. One thing though, template design is key should you decide to use osc. Get something professional. There's nothing worse than the stock osc layout. It makes your store look cheap.
Out of box it looks cheap. But when skinned and juiced up with the right add-ons, it can look a lot better than any of the big players websites. I use an oscommerce store and know of others that do as well. It does require some tweaking but with the right adjustments it will do anything you want it to for a lot less than what others are charging. I dont know if there is a such thing a 100%secure site but we have not had any problems. Read an article about it here
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I think oscommerce is a shopping cart software developed by programmers for programmers. It's not user friendly at all. When you try to integrate with you store sometimes it may be impossible because storefront design and php codes are mixed up. I like Avactis shopping cart because it's user friendly and you can customize your storefront design without any programming skills. I also like pinnacle shopping cart because it also has a user friendly interface.
Everyone has different opinions, I guess. My client chose Volusion because she's completely computer illiterate and she thought it would be easy for her to navigate without taking on someone permanently to do minute changes for her. So I agree in that respect, but on my end...trying to tweak internal things and not given access to it is very annoying. Although support is very helpful, they can be someone evasive. For example, I integrated google checkout into her website and after running a few test orders, saw that no other information was provided on the invoice or on admin side ex: Silver Celtic Cross $15.99 was what appeared. Which would be fine, if my client didn't sell 15 different silver celtic crosses. I tried implementing the product code, but to no avail. I emailed volusion and they said it should show up and if not it was a google checkout issue & to contact google. I emailed google and they said that it was a simple thing that needed to be integrated into the site. Unfortunately because of the lack of access, I couldn't do it and asked volusion support. Then the truth came out: We don't currently offer this feature at this time, so the only thing I could do was rename all 800 products to include the product code. It would have been so much easier to say so in the first place instead of sending me all over the planet. My client didn't want the titles to include the code so we nixed google checkout all together. There are other little things that bug me, but overall it is good, I guess. Just a word to the wise -- those trying to run webstores catering to wholesalers and retail customers will run into a few more roadblocks. Volusion says it can do both, but it really is more for one or the other, not both. My 2 cents.
Completely agree with you. Personally, I guess that plug-in system is far better then "classical" way of modification of software kernel. On some stage kernel may turn into mess of patches and modifications. Modular system is described by MVC programming pattern. And there are quite a lot of solution which work in such a way. Among shopping carts software I would prefer LiteCommerce. It has the base plug-in system I ever saw also it is very stable and secured. Even if you write a bad code (in some cases)
Os commerce is definitely not the most secure alternative and it's pure spaghetti code. I have heard good things about Cube Cart and also freecsscart.com.
I came across this one but still in doubt on how to install, help would be appreciated: www[dot]shopping-cart[dot]com
I would recommend oscommerce. This is a open source shopping cart, a lot of modules and user friendly. Off course, you can consider creloaded.
Try EcommerceTemplates.... It is really most secured cart.. www.ecommercetemplates.com You can contact me for any query for this cart... Thanks,
I would certainly reccomend the standard version of the CRELoaded osCommerce shopping cart, has a large community,contribs are constantly being made for it.. & its actually very easy to edit & customize to fit in to your templates. You just have to know a little html & php.
I am going right now with virtuemart/joomla. I really liked prestashop, but it's still not a final release and I need a cms integration for my wife to use. I thought of trying to knit prestashop with wordpress or silverstripe, but decided against committing to something I would have to perpetually maintain myself every time one of the two needed updating. So far, the development site store though not live, seems to be pretty good. The duplicate url's created from virtuemart are the biggest complaint to me so far as well as the convoluted url's. But I am looking at sh404 next when I get the time, and if it doesn't do the trick, I will bite the bullet and do it in mod-rewrite I guess. But again, I would be committing to a long term maintenance with that too with future cart updates I am expecting.