CS-Cart vs ViArt Cart

I really wasn’t looking for a new shopping cart, but instead was trying to find a good helpdesk when I ran in to the shopping cart at viart.com. Not only was the cart pretty fast, but it has a built in forum, a more robust “ads” that can let customers or others even run an ad on your site if you wish. The Google export allowed you to set up the “Google Base” or Froogle product type for each item. Even the price is reasonable. Of course, the big thing I liked was the built in “helpdesk”. I know that snorocket has been working with CS for at least 3-4 months, but nothing has come to fruit yet. While I know CS is a good cart, seems like this ViArt may not be bad either. Has anyone had any experience with this ViArt?

The skin designer they have is blind or mad or smokes something strange every morning. Ugly as hell and layout well unorganised.

[quote name=‘clips’]I know that snorocket has been working with CS for at least 3-4 months, but nothing has come to fruit yet.[/QUOTE]We are in the final bug testing stages right now with the Helpdesk Addon, it’s more advanced and intuitive then anything you would find in heldpesk packages that cost 8x’s the price like kayako. It’s also 100% integrated into CS, the amount of features and usability we put into this helpdesk is far beyond other scripts as well. I will do my best to get screenshots up soon, we are targeting a beta release for testing by the end of the week, I will also try to start working on the feature list - Sno

Only problem is Clips is still on 1.3.5 SP4 & refuses to upgrade until someone pryes his bloody fingers from the control panel! :wink:

[quote name=‘clips’] While I know CS is a good cart, seems like this ViArt may not be bad either. Has anyone had any experience with this ViArt?[/QUOTE]



Not sure what version you’re looking at but the last time I looked at it, according to my notes, you couldnt view products in a product list, you had to view them by category. We’re talking back end here, not customer end.

I’ve also got a note that says its a bit confusing… but I didnt say way !

Also there was no shipping estimate, which cs has FINALLY got :slight_smile:



Now if we could just get rid of that UGLY confirmation pop up box in the top right corner of the screen, cs would be a very serious contender for superb cart !.

Absolute unprofessional design: colors, fonts, shapes, sizes of …

[quote name=‘Struck’]Only problem is Clips is still on 1.3.5 SP4 & refuses to upgrade until someone pryes his bloody fingers from the control panel! ;)[/QUOTE]

Yeah, no kidding! As much crying and moaning I’ve heard about v2 on the forums, why the heck would I want to upgrade! Not to mention, I really can NOT take the time to “upgrade” or fix a site ever other week because CS wants to put out a few fixes that break everything. Honestly, it has been nice to go a few months and not have to screw with the headaches of a “still in beta” or “not ready to go live” program. Besides, if I really want someone to “beta” test on me I’ll just upgrade to Windows 7 and hold on for the ride. Kind of like the recent nightmare of IE8 until I finally decided to throw IE out altogether and just use Firefox.

[quote name=‘snorocket’]We are in the final bug testing stages right now with the Helpdesk Addon, it’s more advanced and intuitive then anything you would find in heldpesk packages that cost 8x’s the price like kayako. It’s also 100% integrated into CS, the amount of features and usability we put into this helpdesk is far beyond other scripts as well. I will do my best to get screenshots up soon, we are targeting a beta release for testing by the end of the week, I will also try to start working on the feature list - Sno[/QUOTE]

I’m sure the mod will be great…until CS comes out with version 2.0.whatever? Then it will crash and have to be fixed and fixed and fixed. I’ve already heard this from you and many others on the forum. CS just doesn’t have version 2 “right” yet. Maybe this one will be it? I really do not know and neither do most of you.



Please understand that I am not against “upgrades” I just do not have enough patience to wait for them to keep “fixing” things that do not work right. So I like to wait until it is somewhat “stable” then I jump on. I really do not mind if every few months (maybe 4 or 5) a fix comes along, but come on, they have had at least 12 fixes in 12 months! Sorry, but that is not very good odds so far. I’m sorry, but I just do not feel they have resolved the issues with v2 yet.

Hello Clips,



I don’t know, this last release of 2.0.12 is looking pretty good overall, in fact alot of followers which have been holding off (such as yourself) seem to think that this release made the 2.0 version stable enough to take the plunge & upgrade from 1.3.4.



Also, a good indicator is to view the forums the same day a release hits the streets to see what it stirred up, there was really not many negative comments at all the day 2.0.12 was released, the forums were actually rather boring in fact. :wink:

[QUOTE] I really do not mind if every few months (maybe 4 or 5) a fix comes along[/QUOTE]



Sorry, however, I don’t believe that for one second! I have run shoppping cart systems of which the developers were understaffed & I can assure you that it is not a good situation at all to wait for long periods of time to obtain a bug fix that directly effects your business! People complain about the frequent updates released by CS-Cart, however, I would be willing to bet a fair amount of change that people would be complaining far more if these updates were being held off for months at a time! :wink:

Clips,



I am not patient at all and I jumped in at 2.08 and then upgraded to 2.12 overall way better than 1.3.5 sp4.



Unless you run a complex cart using many add ons go for it - if you use all the add ons maybe hold off for 2.13 or 2.14.



Sno,



Keep up the good work!

Hi,

This thread title really is not for Help Desk, but I though I would respond since most comments here are related.

I use a program on my other cart called zaza chat. zazachat.com. I just use it for basic on line help and see who is on the site. I pay about 120.00 per year for pro. Nothing is kept on my server all remote. Support is by email or phone. I find this solution to be good, even if temporary, waiting for Sno’s mod or cs-carts. It has a help desk, ticket feature, call back, and in beta is a mobile chat feature. You can chat from you cell phone. It’s very highly configurable.

I just put the code in a block on my cs-cart test site. It took about 30 seconds. Seems to work. Just have basic, no configuration. I also have in another block, the help desk method I normally use underneath. I just put up to show you.

Something like this, and there are others, could be used temporarily if you need something right away. I like it because it sends me an email and I don’t have to have the program running on my desktop.

My test site is http://treasurechestofgifts.com. I will probably remove the one with the help desk in a couple of days since I won’t be using the ticket function or call back functions.

Bob

If you are worried about cs-cart not working, take a look at viart’s forums… that is one of the several carts I tested out before finally deciding on cs-cart. It has a lot of issues. One problem I saw was that they added every feature that was requested and the cart had way too much going on. They didn’t make sure previous features were working properly. The user forums there are a lot slower too so it was hard to get simple answers from the community. I liked the idea of the built-in help desk too, but the cart is really what matters. I think CS-Cart is a higher quality cart and everything about it is more professional.



You’re always going to find people complaining about something and the cart is always going to have some bugs. I have been running 2.0.7 since September and haven’t had any major issues. The only bug that affected me was that I couldn’t run 2 promotions simultaneously which is more of an annoyance than anything. Have you installed the CS-Cart trial and tested it out? If you install and compare the two carts the choice is pretty obvious, in my opinion.

[quote name=‘clips’]I’m sure the mod will be great…until CS comes out with version 2.0.whatever? Then it will crash and have to be fixed and fixed and fixed. I’ve already heard this from you and many others on the forum. CS just doesn’t have version 2 “right” yet. Maybe this one will be it? I really do not know and neither do most of you.



Please understand that I am not against “upgrades” I just do not have enough patience to wait for them to keep “fixing” things that do not work right. So I like to wait until it is somewhat “stable” then I jump on. I really do not mind if every few months (maybe 4 or 5) a fix comes along, but come on, they have had at least 12 fixes in 12 months! Sorry, but that is not very good odds so far. I’m sorry, but I just do not feel they have resolved the issues with v2 yet.[/QUOTE]



(+)



I am on 2.07 in order to upgrade I have to rebuild all my site, skin and every single mod I got installed… A month of work, risk to break some seo links and loose rankings, down time for customer and all this to get a cart far away from stable or final…



I feel sorry for Sno, all his work to rebuild mods like KB to work with every new release…



I get a feeling that developers change parameters often so only their help desk would make profit on making addons…