After starting this tread there have been a lot of view’s on a lite version.
My intention was not about a price discussion. I’m sure the cs-cart people find the price they think is smart in their point of view. That’s not my business. If I should comment of the latest increase of the price – I’m not sure it was so smart – even considering that the cart is definitely worth it. Remember it also includes 30 days support – and that cost also. (I’m sure that if we all have been better to bay support the price has not gone up.) But again it is not my business and I’m sure they know what their doing.
My intention was more about:
1. Getting a faster version of cs-cart - I think the cart start to be very slow comparing to others. Again my example of and easy a fast cart [url]http://www.halmenmusik.se/[/url] I think stripping out half of the database and admin functions will help on that. As well as the smarty functions. You are the expert and developer and I’m sure you now what to do to get there.
2. Less work setting it up – all the functions today only confuse you setting it up. A stripped version will be easier to overview. The focus in the latest version has been on new add-on and function. Nothing wrong about that – some need them - but you forgot to follow up with an updated user manual as I see as obligatory to do. (Then it has been some questions about the language in the forum that has not been followed up. Some of us have to translate the shop and the functions for exporting this from cart to cart could be better.)
3. Layout/Design – getting a more shopping friendly design should be easier. As I say before the skin designs are good but they are building on an old site stile model. A good selling shop are simple and quick for the users with focus on the products. And to get there you have to modify a lot of templates. A one leftsite colon template with good design would do it – and that without having to edit templates.
4. Skins – it is where I would focus and invest if it was my business. Skin sells – a lot of nice looking skins in one or two sides will defiantly be a success.
Then I even by the lite version for $195
About the lite version is to have the possibility to be upgraded to the main version or it is possible to by add-ons that’s a business and developer question. You can also have a plain lite version and the main – simple as that.
But I think the minimum requirements for a shop today – even if it is a lite version is:
Related products
Featured products
News on E-mail
Send to a friend
And probably:
Wholesale trade
Manufacturers
Regarding Hosting – that is of course something you can benefit from as a extra service – but it has to be a service up to the buyers to choose if they want it or not.
It is my view on this matter.
Think I start a new tread about “What is a good shop”
[url]http://vb.cs-cart.com/showthread.php?t=1563[/url]
Terje
Erm, wish for cs-cart lite…global options on?
All the cheap people who want a cheap cart use cheap hotels and they always have global options on.
And then, why just lite version? Why not free version? A trimed down cs-cart could be what 1 million confused oscommerce people are looking for. cs-cart is a good lookin’ cart and doesnt need much else to entice people to make the change. Once they got the free version and find out about product options and switching pictures (if it works properly now), theyll fork out money.
this cart is definatly worth it, even at 195, although, I think the skins are fine and the cart is very easy as is for someone who donst know much and can put in thier products and go and they have a great store. free is never free and free stuff usually sucks, ive tried cheap hosting, ive tried free and cheap shops, ive even tried high prices shops, they stink too.
honestly, the cart is fine just the way it is. you can easily turn off what you dont need. and if you find you do want them, just a click and they are back. and unless you want to go really fancy, its not that hard to change the look.
CS-Cart is definitely worth the money, as is. And while I look forward to CS-Mall and, even, a CS-Lite, I hope the codebase is consistent. It seems to me that one of the biggest problems with free carts (we have used osCommerce and CRE Loaded) and even X-Cart is the substantial fragmentation in the installed base. It makes upgrading harder for everyone and often becomes the reason for people to not upgrade.
I would like to see some effort with XHTML/CSS. We are using a third-party CSS skin with X-Cart and while the speed improvement might not be huge, it was definitely noticeable. I also think this will contribute to software which is both easier to customize and to maintain.
Bob
Facinating topic and great input.
I’d like to add to the discussion if I may.
CS-C Lite. Probably a good concept, but financially not practical. If you give people a choice between a high and low price, most folks will take the low price. The downside is that while the number of units sold may increase, the revenue generation won’t increase proportionately. However, they will still have to support the product even though there’s less money. My suggestion, drop the lite version and concentrate on making what you have better. People who need the lite version are always going to need the lite version. They won’t convert to the full version becasue if that’s what they needed, that’s what they would have bought. You will never fund the development of a first rate product from the profits of bargain basement sales.
Furthermore, it’s a certainty that the lite version won’t do something that some customers just can’t live without. Then they’re going to start bugging CS-C to include what they need in the lite version, because they still won’t step up to the full version. Next logical step will be to offer value added mod’s. Guess what, they already have that, it’s called X-Cart. I don’t know much about the people at X-C, but I’d bet the farm they stepped right into this trap, and ended up having to change their business model to what it is now in order to remain profitable. While I’m glad to be doing business with the folks here, I’d bet the folks at X-C started out much the same as where CS-C is now. (Good people, with good intentions.)
As far as the (new) price is concerned, it’s about time! Anyone who thinks CS-C isn’t worth $200 just hasn’t done their homework. This much capability in a product this young, for ONLY two hundred bucks, is a bargain. I’m sure the extra revenue from their in-house sales will go right back into the product, and if I may be so bold, there’s probably enough in it to make it attractive to resellers and website developers. I have a hosting company and I would welcome the opportunity to offer CS-C as a premium service/product. I’ve been talking to Vlad about this since day one. Hopefully they’re close to being able to implement a reseller program. Now that’s a way to increase sales and profits.
What I’d like to see for the future:
I’d like to see them do what I suggested early on; do what Zen cart did and come up with a way to preserve customization through upgrades and patches. It really, really, really sucks to lose all the custom work done to a site everytime an upgrade comes out. Since CS-C wasn’t created to be a single solution for a single customer, it’s safe to assume that every single store is going to be unique. I appreciate that CS-C has so much capability, but it’s also reasonable to assume that most customers are going to tweak the code to fit their particular requirements. I think they should embrace this fact and do something to protect the customization through upgrades. Customers will be less willing to upgrade if it will entail re-doing every hack everytime a patch comes out, assuming the hack will still work. Zen has the right idea and I think the professionals at CS-C could equal or even better what they’re doing.
Speed the cart up. There’s only so much that can be done about this, but do what you can.
SEO: Something else that has its limitations. Do what you can to improve SEO. However, everyone needs to be realistic. If your business plan requires your website to come up on the first page of the search engines, you need a reality check. There isn’t a shopping cart in the world that can make it happen. Search engine ranking is so complex, so fluid, and so different for each of the search engines, that SEO has spawned its own industry. If you want top rankings, it’ll take allot more than an optomized cart and static HTML pages.
MySQL db. For the folks that might not want a particular feature or function, give them the opportunity to not install it, including the db tables. I don’t know if this is even possible, but it is a way to trim down the size of the db.
Templates & Skins. Here in the USA we have a saying; Give it a K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid. I think what’s currently offered is plenty for now. Anyone wanting more, MonsterTemplates, etc, should be left to the aftermarket/value added service. What I would like to see in the templates is a better way to add or edit content. The current method is a real pain in the butt. For exmple, changing the logo from the CS-C to my own. These tasks could be so much easier if there was a straightforward way to do it through the admin. Adding my own logo should be as simple as as browsing to wherever I have it on my local computer, and uploading it to the site. These kinds of tasks could be so much easier and I would rather the developers worked on this rather than CS-C lite.
Well, that’s enough for now. Gotta go out and fix my road before the snow comes.
Cheers,
MikeK
Ill agree about the CS lite. really who is gonna pay 50 bucks for a php cart when there is osc, zen, and a bunch of other ones free.
and u still have to hire support to answer all the same questions but get 1/4 the money. Reallistically, this will effect CS cart customers. as I may not get the support I need because of overworked support staffers support a guy who paid 50 bucks when I paid 200.
IMO, cs needs to focus on one product and make it the best possible. It’s not beating the competition yet. at least not a serious ass kicking…and when that happens the flood of users and money will come, and may allow cs to expand to other areas.
but for now, with only 500 users on this forum…developing many more products isnt a wise move.
Just my $.02
I am in complete agreement with MikeK and ET.
It is likely that CS would get more support tickets from people using CS-Lite, especially if it is their first online store. On top of that, I usually see discussions (even with forst-time buyers) focusing on a checklist that inc;udes not only their needs but what other packages offer.
As a store operator, I would be more inclined to want to make sure the codebase is the same across all my sites which will make site maintenance easier for me. Of course, I am also someone who needs CS-Mall since we absolutely need the ability to ship from multiple locations. We are hoping that CS-Mall will allow us to do this effectively. At least with the more complex product, CS gets their money upfront.
This is a good discussion in that it helps CS-cart know what customer’s needs are.
Bob
I do agree with most of what you are saying MikeK
My intentions about getting a lite version was based on that the cart is too heavy and slow. My simple thinking was that if you stripped down many functions and the database would help on that. If it is possible to get it faster in other ways – super, but it need to speed up.
[quote name=‘MikeK’]
Speed the cart up. There’s only so much that can be done about this, but do what you can.
What I would like to see in the templates is a better way to add or edit content. The current method is a real pain in the butt. For exmple, changing the logo from the CS-C to my own. These tasks could be so much easier if there was a straightforward way to do it through the admin. Adding my own logo should be as simple as as browsing to wherever I have it on my local computer, and uploading it to the site. These kinds of tasks could be so much easier and I would rather the developers worked on this rather than CS-C lite.[/QUOTE]
Can not agree with you more – to edit or add content should be more easy. If the cart can be more user-friendly without having to look into a forest of templates to edit we might not need a Cs-lite. In the admin you should basically have the possibility to control the design basics. For me who also have to translate the shop – I still not understand why it has not been made a easy way to get the text down in f.e. a csv file. If there is an easy way around this – someone has to tell me.
Terje
[quote name=‘MikeK’]You will never fund the development of a first rate product from the profits of bargain basement sales.[/quote]That’s probably a true statement. Whether offering lite version is a viable tactic would really be up to CS-C to decide. It’s quite possible it could undermine the sales of the full package … if it had too many features to negate the need to upgrade. I would not want CS-C to go the way of X-C by becoming module-based.
And I agree it’s possible people would bug CS-C to add stuff or offer modules for the Lite version. I think that’s easily handled though … use it as an introductory package, with set limits as to its features, and just say no. I also don’t think additional help personnel is necessary if the features are limited, good documentation is provided, and access to the forum for minor installation issues is available. My current cart offers almost no support at all, though they have a thorough FAQ that covers most issues. It’s sufficiently basic as to limit the issues one might have.
I agree that the priority should be to make the full package work at an optimum level, speed being a major priority, as well as preserving customization. I would hate to see a Lite package distract from that. I also agree it’s well worth the money if you have need for a fully featured shop, or even if you just need featured products and related products … if some of the product and order management issues are worked out and page loads are faster. But if you just need to take simple orders w/o all the frills it’s cost prohibitive, or more software overhead that it’s worth bothering with. I see a number of site types that don’t need a fully featured platform, and there really isn’t a very good solution for many of them available.
[quote]If your business plan requires your website to come up on the first page of the search engines, you need a reality check. There isn’t a shopping cart in the world that can make it happen. Search engine ranking is so complex, so fluid, and so different for each of the search engines, that SEO has spawned its own industry. If you want top rankings, it’ll take allot more than an optomized cart and static HTML pages.[/quote]This is absolutely true, however the cart software should not stand in the way of getting good rankings, and without control of a number of elements you don’t currently have control over, that’s not going to happen. You can’t count on rankings as your only exposure, but it can sure be a lucrative means of marketing if you can manage it. I don’t think static HTML pages will gain you any advantage as far as the search engines are concerned, but they have other advantages such as speed, and for those of us w/ a number of dial-up customers, that’s a real issue that the current setup presents. They can be more user friendly, on a lot of different levels for certain users.
I’d still love to see a bare-bones version, but that may be wishful thinking. Sure I can use one of the free OS carts, and will if this isn’t offered. The problem w/ most OS carts is they too are too heavy to be of much use for these applications. The problem with hosted solutions is that their montly costs are pretty significant for some of these applications, at least initially. I just wanted to make the point that it would allow for cheap startup and smoother transitions for certain situations. It would also allow for a number of other applications such as single item orders tied to PPC campaigns, and merchandise for club-type sites that don’t need a full-blown cart. But I won’t bother going into detail and yes, other solutions are available. I would pay $50 for a basic PHP cart to maintain consistency of interface between simple sites and more complex sites I manage … I didn’t dare ask for free. If I need more than the very basics, I’m happy to pay for the full cart.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Where is the smiley for ( vomit) 
[quote name=‘zardos’]Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Where is the smiley for ( vomit) [/QUOTE]
Huh? I thought the converation has been constructive … no?
I am not being personal “arlen” sorry if it seems that way, but people never seem happy with what they have, and $195.00 for the work that cs-cart have put into this cart is very good, why bother with a cut down version at all.
We need a smiley for (vomit) :rolleyes:
I know what you mean, and I’m perfectly satisfied with the quality of the product for the price … never said otherwise. No point in my writing further on why I could see personal use for an additional option if the 2863 words I’ve written so far haven’t made my case. Just reponding to Zeke’s request for input, and trying to be constructive, not complaining.