I’ve evaluated the 20 or so most popular PHP/MySQL based carts. We are looking to select a new base cart system to use and modify for some of our clients running mid-size stores (1,000-5,000 skus, 20-50 orders a day typically). We have a very detailed set of criteria, but some of the more important ones are:
source easily modifiable (clean, easy to read code)
robust Gift Certificate, Registry/Wish List, and Coupon/Promo features
multiple user groups (retail, distributor, wholesaler, etc.) with price levels
Bullet-proof security PCI Compliant
Unlimited product options and attributes assignable by category or specific SKU
Ability to assign sku to multiple categories
Cross-selling
Modifiable order statuses with ability to turn auto e-mail notification on/off per status
Currency converter
KB article management (a plus but not required as we can integrate 3rd party KB software.
Stable
Good support
Our finalists came down to ViArt, CS-Cart, PrestaShop, Pinnacle. I could go on and on why Magento, Interspire, CRELoaded, CubeCart, X-Cart and others didn’t make the cut, but that’s not the purpose of this post. We have narrowed it down to ViArt and CS-Cart. PrestShop is to Euro-centric. It essentially is the new OSCommerce but it lacks US payment gateways and is highly fragmented requiring management of lots and lots of modules to get the features you want. For what we are looking for, we think $500 or less is about right so swallowing $900 for the Developer license for Pinnacle wasn’t out of the question but we don’t see any huge advantages it has over CS-Cart or ViArt.
ViArt is more feature rich than CS-Cart, or essentially for flexible/configurable and it has a Knowledgebase system built-in so we don’t have to integrate a third part product. However the Admin interface is ugly compared to CS-Cart and it looks like development has greatly slowed on it, although that is in part because it is already packed with almost everything you can think of. However they announced anticipated release of version 3.7 would be January, moved it back to February, then posted an apology for the delay April 8 and it still isn’t out as of May 15! The forums are less active than CS-Cart also and their previous version was released 10 months ago! Sounds to me like the developers are busy with other stuff these days. Still, an amazing cart for the money.
With CS-Cart, I’m a bit concerned about seeing two things 1) There is quite a few posts in the bug forum, and 2) there are lots of criticisms about the checkout process. It appears version 2.1 is suppose to improve the checkout process but when will it actually be released and how many new bugs will be introduced?
Feature wise I have a few concerns but nothing we can’t overcome with custom modifications. I may just be missing the feature or not knowing how to use it properly.
It appears you can create user groups but you can’t assign different prices for a product for each user group?
Is there a way to automatically give free shipping on orders over $xxx without having to enter a promo/coupon code?
There have been some complaints that CS-Cart can be slow, specifically during checkout and PayPal payment. This seems more of a function of the server and the servers Internet connection speed? We run a Rackspace dedicated server and currently use very complicated PERL scripts with MySQL for our Ecommerce sites and PERL is slow compared to PHP and yet our site is faster than quite a few others. I would suspect CS-Cart may have performance issues on shared hosts or hosts with congested network traffic?
Another feature on our current system we built we find useful is the ability to define the available order statuses. This is because they can differ from store to store. In addition, we have the flexibility to say which statuses the customer should receive notification about and which ones they shouldn’t as some statuses are just for internal processing use only and the customer doesn’t need to know. Furthermore, the status e-mail templates can be edited per status, as just sending an e-mail “Your order status has changed to XXXX” is not very helpful in many cases so we like to include additional boiler plate text specific to that status. This is one area where ViArt excels (in addition to multiple pricing levels). It appears with CS-Cart we would have to modify it to get this functionality?
But probably most important is what is CS-Cart’s track record on stability and support? Are new releases typically bug-laden and if so how quickly do they release patches to fix the bugs? How quickly do they respond to support requests? Is there a timezone issue as in they are in Ukraine or something?
Our reputation will be riding on whatever cart we choose. We need a solid, stable product with good support that has well written, clean source code we can easily modify.
We did start down this path with X-cart at one time and decided the code was just not designed very well to lend itself to easy modification, but I heard CS-Cart is made by the people that formerly made CS-Cart? We are looking at the code this weekend. Of course modification is never going to be “easy” but you know what I mean.
It appears you can create user groups but you can’t assign different prices for a product for each user group?[/QUOTE]
Look at the “Qty discounts” tab in products - you can use this to set new prices per class.
[QUOTE]Is there a way to automatically give free shipping on orders over $xxx without having to enter a promo/coupon code?[/QUOTE]
You can create a cart promotion that automatically applies the discount to any order over a certain amount.
[QUOTE]There have been some complaints that CS-Cart can be slow, specifically during checkout and PayPal payment. This seems more of a function of the server and the servers Internet connection speed? We run a Rackspace dedicated server and currently use very complicated PERL scripts with MySQL for our Ecommerce sites and PERL is slow compared to PHP and yet our site is faster than quite a few others. I would suspect CS-Cart may have performance issues on shared hosts or hosts with congested network traffic?[/QUOTE]
Plenty of people have good speeds running CS-Cart - it obviously benefits from having more resources. They are currently reworking the checkout and order placement code and I believe that the new code will be even better.
[QUOTE]Another feature on our current system we built we find useful is the ability to define the available order statuses. This is because they can differ from store to store. In addition, we have the flexibility to say which statuses the customer should receive notification about and which ones they shouldn’t as some statuses are just for internal processing use only and the customer doesn’t need to know. Furthermore, the status e-mail templates can be edited per status, as just sending an e-mail “Your order status has changed to XXXX” is not very helpful in many cases so we like to include additional boiler plate text specific to that status. This is one area where ViArt excels (in addition to multiple pricing levels). It appears with CS-Cart we would have to modify it to get this functionality?[/QUOTE]
You can have as many statuses as you wish (well, up to a total of 26). For each status, you can specify if the customer or orders department is notified by email. You can change the email subject and header (which is really just the top of the body). There are requests for further improvements in the communications area (basically, the ability to layout your own design for any email using something like the blocks implementation currently used for layout of your web pages).
[QUOTE]But probably most important is what is CS-Cart’s track record on stability and support? Are new releases typically bug-laden and if so how quickly do they release patches to fix the bugs? How quickly do they respond to support requests? Is there a timezone issue as in they are in Ukraine or something?
Our reputation will be riding on whatever cart we choose. We need a solid, stable product with good support that has well written, clean source code we can easily modify. [/QUOTE]
CS-Cart has had some issues with releases not ready for primetime. Certainly, there were a lot of issues with the initial 2.0 releases since the code had been completely refactored. They have typically been better with follow-on releases (although 2.0.8 and 2.0.13 had problems in the upgrade scripts). I think they have been chastened and they appear to be making substantial improvements in this area. The biggest issue has been the lack of adequate testing - they will be releasing an alpha of v2.1 which displays a commitment to provide code with fewer issues at release. Even then, we will have people who choose to upgrade their production site without testing and who will then complain fiercely about how inept the developers are.
Support has been generally good for many (probably most) of us. There is, of course, the time difference to contend with but they have recently extended their support hours by a few hours - not perfect, but, once again, it demonstrates a commitment to helping their customers.
[QUOTE]We did start down this path with X-cart at one time and decided the code was just not designed very well to lend itself to easy modification, but I heard CS-Cart is made by the people that formerly made CS-Cart? We are looking at the code this weekend. Of course modification is never going to be “easy” but you know what I mean.[/QUOTE]
I am not certain but I think the story is that they developed addons for X-Cart (which were apparently very high-quality products). The code is certainly better structured than X-Cart. We have several forum members who have never coded before who have produced excellent stores by jumping into the code - that suggests to me that it is pretty maintainable.
I’ve tested them all as well and CS-Cart is the Winner hands down, we have awesome addons, knowledge base, helpdesk, support points/period and the advanced image gallery and quote/invoicing addons will be here soon, the carts mentioned above, I’ve tested them all extensively and they don’t even come close to what CS has to offer.
I’ve tried many, many of carts. ZenCart, Interspire, Magento, CubeCart… Sure, nobody is perfect and each cart has own pros and cons. But CS-Cart win easy because of:
great and unecrypted code
great, big and helpful community (anyway you will get 30 days free support)
a plenty of free built-in addons (compare X-Cart or others…)
many of paid addons for affordable prices (most providers are registered here on the forum)
… and, and…
As next, I can’t say in anyway that CS-Cart is slow… that depends on many other factors as well and I hope you do know, what I mean.
We did start down this path with X-cart at one time and decided the code was just not designed very well to lend itself to easy modification, but I heard CS-Cart is made by the people that formerly made CS-Cart? [/QUOTE]
Yes, by some peoples who took part in X-Cart development.
They start new compay, use all experience and made much better software from the ground up.
I ve done, presta, Xcart, Pinnacle, OSC, CRE Loaded B2B pro (not good for me Sal sorry) magento std, open cart
Now listen…I have learned as Ive gone along…I am no coder, developer,PHP guru ,HTML?XHTML expert, blah blah blah but i am the director of a succsessfull business that wanted to learn these things for himself and have found immense satisfaction form learing how to operate these things with the help of probably the best community I have come across. I still have people in my IT dept that look after our old site s(ASP) but i now have better and cleaner sites running on my own local and newer domains waiting to go live. This is all down to CSCArt as I have tried this with all of the above before and couldnt get to grips with it, but eventually I found CS Cart which was one I could understand and not have to hit brick walls every time I wanted to add a mod or sort options/sub cats etc.
YEs yes yes…you folks could all point out far more in depth things than me but the overall point I am making is if you are like me who wants to get it done with the minimum of fuss but get results early and build on it the my opinion is clear…CS cart and have a look at Mrtafox while your at it>>
from a guy who didnt know how to connect to a database 12 months ago.(dont forget Im running a business)god knows how:)
I’ve extensively tested ViArt and it does not even compare to CS-Cart. It may be feature rich, but I encountered features that never were fully completed or documented. As you mentioned, the forum there is pretty slow so with no documentation the only way was to go to the support desk and wait. Here, you can post a question and often get an answer from the community.
For a KB and help desk, I integrated hesk into my cart and it was pretty simple. Or you could always get the helpdesk addon.
So anyway, if I were you, I’d cross ViArt off the list. I don’t have any experience with PrestaShop or Pinnacle.
