Considering these 2 Resellers for purchasing CS Cart Professional

I am going to be purchasing CS Cart Professional no later than the end of this week.



The two I am looking at is Martfox and EZ Merchant Solutions.



This is my situation and questions posed to both:



I won’t be needing any hosting of my website. I currently have that setup here in the United States.



Martfox appears to install for FREE and can’t say this is not appealing considering I am sure there will be other expenses possibly down the line. EZ Merchant Solutions charges $50.



I need to make sure however this FREE installation is not just not for hosting it on their own servers.



The free installation may or may not be deciding factor.



What are my communication options with either? Email or by phone? Again I am in the USA and I believe EZ Merchant Solutions is in the USA. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will talk to me by phone however. :)



Support during this process is key. I will probably lean to the 30 days FREE support. How does this work for EZ Merchant Solutions? If I decide to go with Support Credits instead who provides the support? Is it the reseller or CS Cart directly?



We have a website currently in place. Its HTML.



We will be using a free template offered on the CS Cart site but through another company. Is this template ALSO installed free of charge as part of the installation? What exactly does the FREE installation cover and how will it affect the current website? I realize CS cart will be replacing the current website but many of the images I would wish to retain for products/etc. Just not sure how CS Cart will access them once the change is made. Do I have to delete the file and go through the pain of uploading them again?



Plan to use CRE-Secure to avoid much of the hassle with PCI compliance and would just feel better all around.



Are there any extra charges with purchasing in USA dollars even though the price listed in euros reflects 160 (approximately $213 USA). I did not know if I will incur a processing fee with my bank for the conversion on top of that $213.

On a side note EZ Merchant Solutions did not really note anything about the number of support credits or the 30 days FREE support at checkout so this concerned me a bit. Other than I could check the box for installation at the rate of $50.



Bottom line I guess is that I am looking at a reseller I can count on to get the job done and care about it EVEN if we're not hosting with them.



Also I need to know they will transfer the license to me and quickly setup an account for support with CS Cart directly and won't be sitting on this.



Both resellers have their good points. Just hoping to find the right fit.



Appreciate your replies in advance.

While I don't know exactly what Tony (Tbirnseth - EZ Merchant) include with purchasing the cart from him, I can say that Tony really knows his stuff and is excellent to work with.



Yes, Tony will talk to you on the phone and he is located in Portland, Oregon.



Tony also builds addons for CS-Cart and can code about any modification that you might need.



If you chose to go with Tony, I'm sure you'll be very happy with his service.



Hope that helps,



Brandon

That's good to know Brandon. I haven't forgotten about using your CS cart services either, by the way.



Hopefully someone else will chime in about Martfox or from Martfox.

I should also add that I'm looking the free template called “PACKAGE”. The only thing I don't like is having to keep the link to the 3rd party website in place at the bottom of the shoppin cart.



Thinking it might cheapen our brand by making it look as if its just a copycat template anyone can get for FREE that one could go out and duplicate anyhow.



Not sure if there is one that CS Cart alone designed that could easily replicate a very similar look with the colors, navigation and layout of such already present in that theme. Really comes across luxurious. I'm so disappointed this one is just from a 3rd party.



You can view the Package template halfway down on the page with the other templates obviously there as well.

[url=“https://www.cs-cart.com/skins.html”]https://www.cs-cart.com/skins.html[/url]

Not sure what to tell you about the skin thing. CS has a few made by them and others made by third party people. Those third party skins require you to have a link to their site, just kind of the way it is.



There are 4 options when it comes to your skin:



1.) Use the CS-Cart skins

2.) Use the third party CS-Cart skins

3.) Have a skin custom coded for you

4.) Purchase a skin from 12leaves, algozone or others



Not sure if that helps you with anything, but maybe it will.



Thanks,



Brandon

Does purchasing a theme from 12leaves, algozone or others still require a link at the bottom back to them if paying for it anyhow?

Are they less compatible and have more issues… those themes purchased from 12leaves, algozon, etc?

We (like every other reseller) can sell you a license at a discounted price over retail. What you save with a reseller is somewhat made up by a smaller number of support credits being provided by cs-cart. A reseller license comes with 20 cs-cart support credits. I think (but not really sure) that if you purchase at retail you get 40 credits… That's like 8 questions versus 4 questions…



Beyond installation, your primary support would come from cs-cart or the forum here. We do offer consulting services for customization or investigation of (normally self-imposed) problems with a site.



We will give you help on installation issues and make recommendations for how to solve them. But we do not (and I don't think cs-cart or others do either) give you training for administering your store nor include any customization in the support we provide. It simply becomes too time consuming to do for free.



All the things that Brandon says are true. We are US and we are in Portland Oregon. We specialize in B2B type customizations and addons. We work with HTML developers like Brandon when needed for template changes or HTML design implementations since it's not really my strength.



Hope this anwsers your questions.

So you do not install the template we choose? Just curious.



Also if we don't do the 20 support credits do we at least get the 30 days of free support and when would that start? Once installed?

Will install whatever template you want as long as it is part of the standard cs-cart distribution. We won't install 3rd party templates not distributed/supported by cs-cart.



The 20 credits is assigned your cs-cart helpdesk account when we report the sale of the license. They actually will issue you another license (not sure why they do this) and the credits will be related to that license.



We will help you where we can, but that support would be limited to issues related to installation, not how to administer your store or how to customize your store.

The template I would be using is noted here but it is a 3rd party template.



You can view the Package template halfway down on the page with the other templates obviously there as well.

[url=“https://www.cs-cart.com/skins.html"][font=“Arial”][size=“2”][color="#0f72da”]https://www.cs-cart.com/skins.html[/color][/size][/font][/url]



So this would be acceptable and would be installed on your end? Thanks for your help.

Is the 30 day Free Support versus the 20 credits also an option in going through you [size=4]tbirnseth? [/size]

As stated above, the support comes from cs-cart beyond any install issues you might have. We are simply selling you a license at a discounted price and cs-cart is providing you 20 credits.



I offered to help you through any install issues you might have as a courtesy.



I'm really not that formal to have this all bucketized as you seem to want, so maybe working with someone else who is a better fit for your needs would be in your best interest.

Hi [size=4]tbirnseth, [/size]



[size=4]Please know [/size]I certainly wasn't trying to beat you up on any point. Just needed some clarification on that. I just asked if buying the license through you also gave me the option to have either the 20 support Credits or the 30 Days Free Support.



I realize the 30 days free support or support credits would not be offered by you, but through CS Cart directly. But since you didn't mention anything about the license purchased through you including the option of choosing the 30 Day Free Support instead, I just wondered about that.



And since the template to be installed is one that is supported on this page by CS Cart (called Package) I assume it would be installed by the reseller. In your case the cost is noted as $50. [url=“https://www.cs-cart.com/skins.html”][font=Arial][size=2][color=#0f72da]https://www.cs-cart.com/skins.html[/color][/size][/font][/url]



This is really all I wanted to knows. Sorry if the question posed was a bit confusing. It certainly wasn't my intention.

I cannont comment on the specifics of cs-cart policies regarding support credits or a free support period for licenses purchased through a reseller. I'm sure they'd be happy to let you know their policies. Suggest you email them and ask them specifically for what you have in mind. All I know is that when I sell you a license, they take 20 credits from me and give it to you and issue you a new license after you agree to their licensing agreement. If you can get them to convert those 20 credits into some term of support, that's between you and cs-cart.



If the skin is distributed with cs-cart distribution then yes, we will be happy to select that as the customer skin for you during the installation process (assuming you purchased our installation service and we did the work for you). Any bugs in any cs-cart distributed software is to be diagnosed and resolved by cs-cart. Of course we will try to help you but we are not willing to spend countless hours diagnosing problems that we did not cause.



I hope that clarifies our policies a bit for you.

Understandable [size=4]tbirnseth. Thank you for the clarification. [/size]



[size=4]I’ll contact CS Cart about the support issue. But the 20 credits may be fine as well. [/size]



[size=4]You seem to have a good reputation and again we would definitely pay for installation separately as noted on your website if necessary. Glad to hear you chime in. :) [/size]

[size=4] [/size]

I’m usually accused of chiming too much! :-)

Hey that’s probably a good thing [size=4]tbirnseth! :) [/size]



[size=4]Thanks again for getting back to me on all of this. [/size]

out of the two my vote goes to EZ Merchant and tbirnseth, I have 3 sites on Martfox at the moment and all run pretty slow…I have since moved host and now my site is loading sub 2 seconds. :-) Happy bunny.



Regards