Hi everyone
As the title says I’m considering switching my site to a new platform from it’s current interspire base. I wonder if anyone has any experience of moving a full live cart or is it wiser to rebuild from scratch in the background, its not a massive cart (around 2000 products) but its still a fair chunk of work and it would need to look pretty much as it does now, site is here
I also have some concerns about SEO in that I have some well ranked pages and I’m not sure how I would keep the url’s intact without complicated redirects.
Lastly it’s important that my products can present in a list format to allow multiple selection and a single opertaion ‘add to cart’ as in this example, can this be done in CS?
I guess another important question is also, does this forum get indexed by google (interspire does), clearly no one wants there customers to find them floundering around with code on an open forum.
thanks in advance 
Very nice, professional site design, looks to be a great fit into your market!
[QUOTE]As the title says I’m considering switching my site to a new platform from it’s current interspire base. I wonder if anyone has any experience of moving a full live cart or is it wiser to rebuild from scratch in the background, its not a massive cart (around 2000 products) but its still a fair chunk of work and it would need to look pretty much as it does now[/QUOTE]
No doubt, a fair amount of work is needed to switch an existing, operational store to a new platform… Most any site look can be closely duplicated, justs depends upon the talents you have at your disposal. CS-Cart is very flexible as you will notice while visiting other CS sites posted on the forums or within the customer live sites listed here: [url]CS-Cart Websites | See marketplaces and shops using CS-Cart
As far as migrating categories, products, customers etc., this nifty service may be worthwhile to you: [url]http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/[/url]
[QUOTE]Lastly it’s important that my products can present in a list format to allow multiple selection and a single opertaion ‘add to cart’ as in this example, can this be done in CS?[/QUOTE]
I am not positive regarding the answer to this as I do not have a need to add multiple items to the cart from a single page, however, I do not believe this is available yet outta the box. There have been several requests for this capability, so perhaps this feature is scheduled for an upcoming release, perhaps others will add comments regarding this.
[QUOTE]I guess another important question is also, does this forum get indexed by google (interspire does), clearly no one wants there customers to find them floundering around with code on an open forum.[/QUOTE]
Yes, most public forums do get indexed by google. If this is a concern for you, then you will just want to consider not adding your site url to your signature or within future forum posts. 
BTW, perhaps you can let us know why you are contemplating the move away from interspire? We like to hear about these things!
[quote name=‘Struck’]Very nice, professional site design, looks to be a great fit into your market!
[/QUOTE]
thanks a lot and also for the tips.
[quote name=‘Struck’]
BTW, perhaps you can let us know why you are contemplating the move away from interspire? We like to hear about these things![/QUOTE]
Although the cart is actually a pretty good and fairly easy to work with, there’s lots more I want to do with my store and I’m just not sure I want to put any more time into developing it with Interspire, they don’t seem very interested in it and are focusing all there resources elsewhere, support is very poor and bugfixing and development virtually non existant.
At one time it had a very bouyant forum for advice and fixes etc. but its now like a ghost town, even the 3rd party developers have lost interest so its unlikely any mods will be updated.
The major factor for me is the support, if you get a showstopper (even though you have paid for a support pack) your basically on your own, no-one answers the phone and some guys with live stores that have gone down have been left up to 2 weeks using the silly ticketing system with no store. Its a shocking way to run a business imo.
Anyway I’m looking for a plan B and a product that will keep moving forward and heard CS was pretty good so am just sniffing around
CS-Cart is the way to go, lots of mods and addons, some free and some paid plus alot of community members here to help, no comparison to interspire - Sno
[quote name=‘scruffydoo’]Hi everyone
As the title says I’m considering switching my site to a new platform from it’s current interspire base.[/QUOTE]
We have just done the same with our cart. I have had a quick look at your site and it seems like you do not use product variations (from the quick look that I had). This certainly helps in the migration and you should be able to get all of the information you require from interspire export and re-format it to the cs cart import format. everything would be copied off in one hit.
[quote name=‘scruffydoo’]I wonder if anyone has any experience of moving a full live cart or is it wiser to rebuild from scratch in the background, its not a massive cart (around 2000 products) but its still a fair chunk of work and it would need to look pretty much as it does now, site is here[/QUOTE]
We copied over 1300 products with half of them containing product options, so it can be done. My advice on the templates would be to use the hooks straight off and make as little changes to actual core code as you can (we didn’t but it is not fun to upgrade this way and are now in the process of doing the templates all via hooks). If you change something - document it. If you are going down the path of migrating. I would also suggest a test server with a test run, before doing the full migration. Make sure everything operates how you want it to on the test server, and then do the migration.
[quote name=‘scruffydoo’]I also have some concerns about SEO in that I have some well ranked pages and I’m not sure how I would keep the url’s intact without complicated redirects.[/QUOTE]
I believe the complicated redirects would be the way to go here
[quote name=‘scruffydoo’]Lastly it’s important that my products can present in a list format to allow multiple selection and a single opertaion ‘add to cart’ as in this example, can this be done in CS? [/QUOTE]
I am not totally sure on this one, I don’t believe you can, however it would be wise to play around in the test cart and see if you can make it happen the way you want it to. [URL=“How to create a B2B website? Get a personal demo.”]https://www.cs-cart.com/demo-item.html[/URL]
edit: looks like there is some discussion on it here: [URL=“http://forum.cs-cart.com/showthread.php?t=17605”]http://forum.cs-cart.com/showthread.php?t=17605[/URL]
[quote name=‘scruffydoo’]I guess another important question is also, does this forum get indexed by google (interspire does), clearly no one wants there customers to find them floundering around with code on an open forum.[/QUOTE]
The forum here has been more than helpful on many occasions, I rarely have to post anything, as pretty much anything experienced has already covered off by someone.
[quote name=‘Struck’]Very nice, professional site design, looks to be a great fit into your market!
[/QUOTE]
Thanks a lot and also for the tips
[quote name=‘Struck’]
BTW, perhaps you can let us know why you are contemplating the move away from interspire? We like to hear about these things![/QUOTE]
The cart has some good features and is pretty easy to work with, I’ve loads of things I’d like to do with my store but I don’t want to put too much more effort into it while its on the interspire platform.
Interspire seem to be focusing elsewhere other than shopping cart, support is non existant, the forums like a ghost town and even the 3rd party mod guys won’t support it any more, the big worry is that if you get a showstopper then your completely on your own (there’s guys on the forum with live stores who have been down for weeks at a time waiting for support to get round to there ticket :shock:) its just a very poorly run sector of there business and I don’t see much future in it so I’d like to put my efforts into a product that’s likely to be moving forward … like me hopefully
@digitald
thanks a lot for the information, very useful. I’m now wondering if building a completely new store in the background using CS might be the way to go rather than a migration but am still keeping all options open.
[QUOTE]Interspire seem to be focusing elsewhere other than shopping cart, support is non existant, the forums like a ghost town and even the 3rd party mod guys won’t support it any more, the big worry is that if you get a showstopper then your completely on your own (there’s guys on the forum with live stores who have been down for weeks at a time waiting for support to get round to there ticket ) its just a very poorly run sector of there business and I don’t see much future in it so I’d like to put my efforts into a product that’s likely to be moving forward … like me hopefully [/QUOTE]
Interesting information, good to hear considering that I don’t use interspire!
[QUOTE]I’m now wondering if building a completely new store in the background using CS might be the way to go rather than a migration but am still keeping all options open.[/QUOTE] That is always the most reliable, accurate way of moving an existing store to a new platform (as long as you are able & willing to spend the time in doing so)!