We have an online vintage clothing and accessories boutique in which we are trying to implement a shopping cart and so far we feel that CS Cart is probably the best way to go.
The only thing that is holding us back are comments from others online and in this forum that suggest the CS shopping cart is very slow and so these latency issues do concern us since you only have but a second or two in grabbing your potential customers attention. I know how frustrated I am personally in visiting a website online only to have each product page take more than a couple seconds to display when navigatiing through the various items for sale, so don't want to make a mistake.
In addition we want to have a permalink structure that would not have just a “number” so to speak but some SEO bult in with each product name/title. Is that something which is easily incorporated with CS Cart?
Also we'd like to use our own background for the website as we do now. How hard will this be to change? We want it to come across very classy and high end and so wondering as well how easy it is or isn't to modify the templates included? While I do have a good understanding of self-hosted platforms like WordPress I would not say I'm super PHP proficient in any way.
Does CS support also the payment gateway “First Data”?
Lastly I was a bit confused on how the support issue works. I believe with the professional version we would have 30 days of free support once we get started and is it only then after those 30 days that our support credits kick in? And how are they used, in what increments and who determines how much?
Look forward to receiving your feedback. Thanks again.
Am a bit in a hurry so sorry if my answers are short, but:
CS-cart being slow is a very old story. Speed has been improved big time and with smartoptimizer it's even faster: the customer side / site flies.
Admin can be a bit slow, but customers don't notice that of course.
Permalink structure: CS-cart has that out of the box and it works great.
Modifying templates: it's really not that hard. If you are a bit handy with pc's you will figure it out. Choose a template that already looks good and go from there, or you could pay a designer to custom make you something and have somebody who knows cs-cart (this is important so upgrades don't break the design) implement it.
First data global connect is the same as linkpoint, which cscart supports. Linkpoint was taken over by first data global., so it should work out of the box.
About support: I think you've got that right. Almost everything is right here on the forum though, or in the knowledge base. CS-cart is quite relaxed concerning points, they usually only charge when they really have to go into your server.
Good luck choosing!
Thanks Flow!
Just what I was hoping to hear. Made my day! 
I see there is the option where one can purchase the Professional version now or rather download a free trial Version of the same with the only stipulation being that before the 30 days is up we would need to buy it or remove it from the server.
I don’t have a problem with buying it now however it may take me a while to get everything laid out in the 30 days. I also assume with the 30 days of FREE support it begins the MINUTE you buy it and not just when you actually download the program officially to your server, correct? As far as the “support credits” do they have an expiration date? What does each support credit get you? This is a bit confusing.
Secondly I read that soon there is going to be another new MAJOR CS Cart version release, 3.0 or something to that effect. Is this to take place before the end of the 2011? I realize we could update our cart at that time but it’s just alot easier if we would have it already in place considering the fact it could break much of the custom design we implement prior, in the previous version.
Does CS Cart offer FREE installation?
I should say that even though we presently have a website in place, we do NOT currently have a shopping cart there. [url=“http://www.vintagevoguecouture.com/”]http://www.vintagevoguecouture.com/[/url]
We were using PayPal but didn’t like the fact that it took customers to an “external page” for the shopping cart and felt it looked a bit tacky, so we opted to remove it for the time being until such time we could get a new shopping cart up and running. We also plan to use 404 | Authorize.net for processing.
Right now its obvious we do NOT show much in the way of merchandise for sale on the website but we do have PLENTY that is “ready to go”. It just didn’t make much sense to add a bunch of apparel items, hand coding html until we actually had better solution for a CMS shopping cart system in place. As you can see our present site is entirely HTML only but our main apparel listing page and individual apparel listing pages have MUCH to be desired. We again want it reflect an upscale look.
As the store is taking on its NEW look can there be a page that comes up stating that our online store is temporarily being updated and someone won’t be able to view it until its done?
However I’m a bit confused how we would transfer the html pages without losing them once we install the CS Cart. For example we like much of what our home page says since we rank very well for it now. We’ll certainly be backing everything up but its a bit confusing how to transfer what we have in its present html state over to the CS-Cart from there. It’s not as simple as going from one Wordpress theme for example to another Wordpress theme. Oh if only that was the case here. LOL So I imagine this will be a bit of a learning curve.
We might very well be open to someone else help in the design & setup process or if using our 40 support credits would also give us anything towards this. Is there someone on this board (we are in the USA by the way) with experience in setting up a women’s apparel and accessories ecommerce site online? We do have a couple examples we’ve found online that clearly reflect the direction and look we are after.
We aren’t looking for low end generic look and do wish to use the same logo and many of the other images (outside of the apparel items) currently in place now as well as the banner in the footer.
But again trying to do this most affordably as the website isn’t bringing us anything at the moment for obvious reasons and this is a startup. Feel free to contact me should any of you have in interest.
Again looking forward to the feedback.
Whew, that is a heck of a post.
One other thing to remember about purchasing CS-Cart is that you have free upgrades for 1 year. I think the renewal is like $50 per year after that. So if you download the Pro version and do the 30 day trial, you'll end up with 1 year and 1 month of upgrades. Just a thought.
As for free support from CS-Cart, don't expect much. You can't really expect CS-Cart to volunteer hours of their time just because you say you are going to buy their cart.
Also, I'd recommend the support credits. The 30 days of support is just 30 days. There is a ton of info here on the forums and a lot of us willing to give our advice. If you start a ticket with CS-Cart and the 30 days starts, but don't need them for the rest of the time because of these forums, than you just wasted all your support time.
But if you get credits and CS-Cart helps you with something that costs 10 credits, you still have the other credits left. As far as I know, there is no expiration for the credits.
I think CS-Cart said that 2.2.4 was going to come out this month, but I'd imagine that 3.0 will come out at the same time as the mulitstore version, which they said would be in January some time.
As for the html pages, do you just mean their SEO names? You could easily duplicate those names in CS-Cart. CS-Cart allows you to change the SEO names of pages, products and categories to whatever you want. Alternatively, you could do 301 redirects to redirect your old pages to your new ones.
Personally, I'd get something set up like dev.vintagevoguecouture.com and close the store. Then I'd get the design done and put in my products. I'd also do all my settings and shipping stuff and everything. Then I'd do my 301 redirects in my .htaccess. At that point, you'd have a complete store at dev.vintagevoguecouture.com. Once everything is complete, I'd move it over to www.vintagevoguecouture.com after backing up your existing site. At that point, you'd have your store all set up and all your links would be fine and everything would be working.
Not sure if that covered your entire post, but hopefully it helps anyways.
Thanks,
Brandon
Brandon is totally right. That's probably the way to do it, if you want to make the switch to cs-cart soon.
However, I do think cs-cart 3 is coming soon (say february) and it might be a good idea to start then. I have no idea how much different it will be, I guess we're all praying it will be an easy upgrade.
I don't wanna steal business from cs-cart but if all you want is a simple shop, with not too difficult shipping / tax settings and all the features cs-cart offers etc. you might wanna try a wordpress plugin like the one at http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com. This is a fantastic little plugin with which you can setup a pro looking shop in your existing website in no time. I know it's meant for digital delivery but you can just as well use it for a shop that ships.
It's been out there for a long time so it's very mature.
I just installed it on 2 websites and it's really a very nifty little plugin. There is a free version so you can try it.
You can for example make a portfolio or post a picture, and add a Buy Now button under it. Or easier if you have a lot of products: use one of the build in layouts.
Of course you could also start with this plugin now, start selling a bit (christmas is coming!), and in the meantime take the time to build your cs-cart shop and get used to everything.
About support / buying: Buy it from a reseller that installs it for you, this will save you the first headaches.
Or you could also try cs-cart for 30 days at siteground at a testdomain. When you're happy with you shop, get proper hosting (if you don't have that already), and let them move your shop to the correct domain. Most hosts do this for free.
Cheers - Flo
[quote name=‘cl926088’ timestamp=‘1321264095’ post=‘125937’]
i thnik it’s some expensive for me to buy it
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Not bad for a spammers site. Not sure what cart that is, but it loads very quickly. Good job!
Alas, more on topic. I’ve just launched my first CS-Cart store. See this thread about it. I started this project in mid-August and, several weeks later, the entire site content has been transferred, largely, successfully.
I find CS-Cart very quick, combined with the new compression features in version 2 (not sure which specific release) and a server-side optimisation tool like Webo or SmartOptimizer, the store is very quick - definitely faster than any of its predecessors which have used, amongst other things, Interspire and Magento.
As for using a WP cart, in my opinion, if you’re serious about selling online, don’t bother. There’s more WP shopping cart plugins than minutes per day, they come and go like the weather (here in sunny Scotland, that is 
). If you want something with the ability to upgrade and move on to another cart with relative ease, I would avoid most WP cart plugins like the plague. Just my opinion based on experience, but it’s ultimately your choice and your budget.
Good luck!
Thanks for all the replies so far.
I guess I’d prefer not to wait until Jan or Feb to get started with this so we’ll be taking the plunge beforehand. As long as I can upgrade at that time with no additional fees involved to the new 3.0 version.
StellarBytes in reply to what I felt was a direct comment to me, I’m confused by this statement.[quote]Not bad for a spammers site. Not sure what cart that is, but it loads very quickly. Good job![/quote] 
Please allow me to clarify, I am not using a shopping cart at the moment and I am not what you refer to as a spammers site. I listed the website url simply as a reference point so someone here could take a look at what type of setup we have in place now just with the structure of our website, nothing more nothing less. I felt that was important given all the questions I had. It’s not like I’m taking any orders at the moment so the comment was really unwarranted.
On the other hand if this was not directed at me again my sincere apologies. Secondly the present website is not a Wordpress site. I only mentioned that because I was talking about upgrades to the latest version and how its not as easy for someone to probably break structure with a WordPress site on an upgrade versus an upgrade to a shopping cart.
[quote name=‘VintageVogueCouture’ timestamp=‘1321285854’ post=‘125959’]
StellarBytes in reply to what I felt was a direct comment to me, I’m confused by this statement. [/quote]
Sorry for the confusion caused, but it shows something very positive about CS-Cart. This forum seems to be well moderated against spam. A spammer commented a few minutes before I replied, that post was obviously deleted before you had a look at my reply.
It was quite a good looking cart which the spammer had linked to, time to dig through browser history and find the site again - no idea what cart it was, it was quick, had good functionality, but not as good as CS-Cart in my opinion.
A bit more on topic and back to the original point - I’ll bet there’s hundreds more WordPress blogs get hacked on a daily basis than CS-Cart. Not only because of the number of live sites, but because, without strict security measures, WordPress can and will fall over very quickly without maintenance (including updates) being applied.
The fact there’s still many users on this forum using old versions of CS-Cart with no problems, stands as a testament to the coding structure of the cart.
Install a default WordPress install and leave it, within a year, it’ll be riddled with spam comments, messages, etc, or ultimately hacked to shreds.
@flow [quote]I guess we're all praying it will be an easy upgrade[/quote]
Wear knee pads, you'll be there a while.
Given that it's a major number revision (from 2 - 3) you should expect zero compatibility and maybe one version that will be upgradeable. Think if you were on 1.35 today, you can only go to 2.0.8 then you can go through about 20 upgrades to get to current. Not very enticing for existing merchants.
Wow doesn’t sound very encouraging…LOL
I really would like to get going with it now but hearing how wonderful the upcoming version 3 is going to be I’d hate for an upgrade to muck it all up. 
Maybe it’s not as big a deal if it’s just one version away from the 3.0 but who knows how many more upgrades will take place before its unveiling? (end of January or 1st part of Feb) As well the price might even go up considerably with Version 3.0 once released if the overhaul is that extensive.
Only wish we had more of a feel as to when all this was going to go down.
It wouldn’t be pretty to go to all the trouble of getting the current version of CS Cart setup and then have to pay someone to fix the mess once I do the upgrade. It could end up being as if we paid for the program twice + any customizations all over again, especially if one already had allot of mods in place the 1st time around.
Words of wisdom anyone?
What to do…what to do…this certainly is a DILEMMA!
[quote name=‘VintageVogueCouture’ timestamp=‘1321324875’ post=‘125992’]Words of wisdom anyone?
What to do…what to do…this certainly is a DILEMMA!
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I guess the most important thing here is timescale and loss/gain of projected income between now and then, and then some. Given the v3 release date of January/February, I wouldn’t expect many, if any, stores to be using it in a live production environment.
Regardless how much CS-Cart test the new version, the majority of ‘testing’ happens in the real world, the real working environment. If we don’t tell them about issues with the cart, how will they know they are there?
You need to assess your risk and feasability, if, as you say, you end up effectively paying for the software and development of your site twice, will the sales you expect to receive if you launch your site in the next few weeks ensure you at least break even come time to upgrade to v3 and possibly pay increased costs and further maintenance costs for upgrading?
Only you know your business and although we all hope to sell millions upon millions so we can retire to Barbados before our next birthdays, the reality is, very very few will.
Sorry if this post puts a bit of a downer on things, but without hopes and fears, there is no reality.
2.0 was to be the end of all shopping carts… It took till 2.0.10 to become stable enough for production use (my opinion). It's a great cart and it has evolved pretty well and the quality assurance has improved dramatically. However, like any piece of complex software, it is very hard to test under realistic scenarios Stellar conveys the same sentiment.
If 3.0 came out tomorrow, the earliest I would “upgrade” an existing production store would probably be in the 3.0.4 time-frame based on historical experience.
But note, not everyone uses the product in the same way. Some could find no bugs at all and others could be plagued. It's just the nature of the beast.
If I were new going at this, I would probably install 2.2.3, load my products, etc. and get very familiar with how it all works and the concepts that are used (blocks, hooks, upgrades, emails, order statuses, etc.). Then I'd create a copy of my store and copy the database and when I found myself bored with nothing else to do, I might try upgrading (when an upgrade is available). I'd then spend about a month testing and proving to myself that it will be reliable for me to use in production, then I'd upgrade the production site.
There would be nothing wrong with simply staying on 2.2.3 until you absolutely just had to have some new feature that will be out in 3.0.x. But in all likelihood, you would be able to get someone to back-port it for you at much lower risk to your business.
But that's just me. Everyone has their own approach, comfort level and methods. There is always more than one way to skin a cat and there are many breeds of cats.
[quote name='tbirnseth' timestamp='1321334351' post='126001']
2.0 was to be the end of all shopping carts… It took till 2.0.10 to become stable enough for production use (my opinion). It's a great cart and it has evolved pretty well and the quality assurance has improved dramatically. However, like any piece of complex software, it is very hard to test under realistic scenarios Stellar conveys the same sentiment.
If 3.0 came out tomorrow, the earliest I would “upgrade” an existing production store would probably be in the 3.0.4 time-frame based on historical experience.
But note, not everyone uses the product in the same way. Some could find no bugs at all and others could be plagued. It's just the nature of the beast.
If I were new going at this, I would probably install 2.2.3, load my products, etc. and get very familiar with how it all works and the concepts that are used (blocks, hooks, upgrades, emails, order statuses, etc.). Then I'd create a copy of my store and copy the database and when I found myself bored with nothing else to do, I might try upgrading (when an upgrade is available). I'd then spend about a month testing and proving to myself that it will be reliable for me to use in production, then I'd upgrade the production site.
There would be nothing wrong with simply staying on 2.2.3 until you absolutely just had to have some new feature that will be out in 3.0.x. But in all likelihood, you would be able to get someone to back-port it for you at much lower risk to your business.
But that's just me. Everyone has their own approach, comfort level and methods. There is always more than one way to skin a cat and there are many breeds of cats.
[/quote]
I follow the same exact approach so IMHO this is very sound advise.
That does make allot of sense to be honest. In conversing with Kate at the HelpDesk she informed me that in all likelihood Version 3.0 with the new storefront template would not be out until February 2012. So that would be 2-1/2 to 3 months yet.
I'm sure there are still many things I'd want changed in the storefront anyhow. And so regardless a good part of it would be “revised” on our end even WITH the new storefront. No doubt with the new storefront we'd just have more kinks to work out right at the onset.
So I guess there are plusses and minuses to everything.
I did ask about the possible price increase with 3.0 version but the person who I've been going back and forth with about CS Cart didn't have any information about the possible price increase yet, but I imagine there will if the changes are really that significant, so just on that basis alone it's probably best to start out with 2.2.3.
NEVER EVER update a production site to any .0 (dot zero) version of software. I've been in the software industry for over 30 years. I have yet to find ANY product that can come out and be “production ready” regardless of how much QA is applied nor even how much beta testing has been done.
Software simply takes time to mature.
[quote name=‘VintageVogueCouture’ timestamp=‘1321371395’ post=‘126024’]
@tbirnseth Good advice. One I will remember!
2.2.3 it is then!
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I think you made the right choice. And sorry about my other post, I assumed you had a wordpress site because of your comments in the OP.
Welcome to the forum. Let the games begin!
[quote name=‘Flow’ timestamp=‘1321379645’ post=‘126032’]
I think you made the right choice. And sorry about my other post, I assumed you had a wordpress site because of your comments in the OP.
Welcome to the forum. Let the games begin!
[/quote]
…and begin it shall!
Yes I know I probably confused everyone mentioning WordPress.Really do appreciate everyones input on this.