CS-Cart team helpfulness, support, and my questions

I want to have a self-hosted E-cart software. This is where it all started. Currently we are running OpenCart, but we are unsatisfied with it. That’s why I started looking around, and found CS-Cart.



So far, I have one huge problem: The support. I tried to open tickets, so I can get my questions answered about the problems we are having, but no answer or whatsoever.



I don’t really get how does that make any sense. If you need customers, you should answer their questions, help them. So they are convinced that if they run into trouble, the support team is there. There was a guy who helped me, but he is not related to CS-Cart. Which makes this whole story worse. He was answering my questions via e-mail, via IM.



Anyway, let’s move on.



So far the two problems that I have are related to the IMPORT, and the Mulit-language support.

Trivial things, right? … right?



Import: I want to import an XLS file. XLS is like an industry-standard, and Microsoft have released the specifications and information for importing or exporting into XLS. A lot of libs can be found, all of them are open-source, free, so on. That was the first disappoint with CS-Cart. There is no XLS import. CSV.



Sure thing, you need to save your database in CSV. Well, upload the data. BUT! There is no way to assign which field is which. Like I upload my whole database (cough, CSV file), and then select that THIS is my product ID, THAT one is the price, etc. So it would be much less work. But well, there is no option for this either.





The language support. I don’t know how many of you guys are running a shop in your country, and target both local and international customers. If you do, then you might want to have a different name for your product, in each language. Let’s say, a local comes up, and every product name is in English. In my country, that results in some instant page close.





Conclusion:

- I’m severely disappointed in the support, in the lack of communications after you begin your trial. You have to pay for this software, for the support later. Yet, no one tries to convince you, to help you. You are alone. (Except for having a helpful guy around, who just popped out of nowhere.)

- I don’t know if my expectations are too high, but even OpenCart can import XLS without any problem, at ease. I think selecting which column is which, is also … something to be expected.

- Multi-language: … Another point I don’t get, how people managed not to miss.





I know I can write modules, modify the PHP source files and so on. But then… why would I pay for CS-Cart? It makes no sense. You get OpenCart, and many other Cart softwares for free. You can modify them too, for free. You saved a lot of money, and you are the very same point.



Sorry about the rant, but it’s just frustrating.

Ps.: I'll try installing CS-Cart v3 RC3 now to see if any of the issues have been addressed since V2. I'll post an update once everything have been installed.

Sorry to hear you are frustrated.

I just purchased my CS-cart license after my trial period ended and I am very happy with the support I got during my trial.

Sorry to hear you don't have the same experience yet…



If you are moving from opencart, have you tried the Cart2Cart Migration tool ?

Might solve one of your issues ?



good luck.

Thanks for the link, it is a great tool for established database with lot of customers and so on. I'll have a look at it (customers and the other data). We have the products in XLS(which we can simply save in CSV then). I know, I know. Using XLS for this… but it's really easy to maintain or edit, using Excel's capabilities. (The import of products won't be neccessary with other method).



I tried the V3, but the only noticeable change on these features is the default theme. For me, since I would use only a portion of the features.



Ps.: I found out how does OpenCart does this. It's got a “LANGUAGE ID” in the database, at every product. If Language ID equals to Language-A for example, then you will get the Title for Language-A. This results in a twice-in-size database, but still better than nothing.

Maybe I'm not following you on the import properly or something, but I'm not fully seeing the difficulties.



You just have the column header be the field you want to import and save it as a CSV. I guess saving it as a CSV might take like an extra 2 seconds or so, but it seems simple.



One of the easiest things to do is to add a product with all the fields you are going to use and then export it. Then you know what column headers you need.



I guess I'm also not sure why it would matter if the import is a CSV or xls. Sure, I CSVs don't support formulas, but if you have formulas in a xls, how does that import?



As for the multi-language support, it seems pretty simple to me. I'm not sure about it automatically selecting the language based on a person's location though. You can select the default language. Webgraphiq has an addon that will automatically change the language at CS-Cart GeoIP Languages, Local Language addon Maybe that will help you.



As for the support, I'm not sure what to tell you there. A lot of it depends on your location. I'm in California, USA, so CS-Cart is like 11 hours different than me. Basically if I send them a message, it take a whole day to hear back. Then I reply and it take another whole day. It's kind of lame, but I guess that is just the way it is when you are dealing with someone from the other side of the planet.



I'm not sure if much of that helps, but hopefully the Webgraphiq link at least will.



Thanks,



Brandon

Language wise: I run a mulltilanguage shop and of course products can have their own name in each language so I'm not sure what you mean? A clean url is also possible out of the box. Please see this topic http://forum.cs-cart…-for-home-page/ and my last 2 replies on how I think it's best to run a multi-language shop, including a fix so the customer automatically sees the shop in his language.



Import wise: I guess Brandon covered this. It's actually super easy… the only thing you have to think off are the names of your header. No mapping necessary, which saves a lot of time and is less prone to errors then the mapping function if you ask me.



About support: they usually answers me within 24 hours. Many times faster. I send an email and the next morning (they are 2 hours ahead of me) I usually have an answer. You might want to check your spambox.

But honestly, just about everything you can think off will be answered here in the forum. I usually use google's search, not the forums which tends to find less.

The answers arrived today, a few days later, but since it's a trial, it's perfectly fine. I'm sorry about the rant, and thank you guys for the help. (Yepp, you both covered what I wanted to ask.)





@Brandon: The import feature would basically let the user to select which column is which. You could remove the sensitive information (which you don't want to expose), and then simply upload your store's database. Then select which field is the itemname, which is the description, and so on. Keeping all these information in the CS-Cart formatted CSV is a bit difficult.



The team contacted me about this, and told me to be more specific, so they can give me an estimated quote. I'll talk with my business partner about the problem and see if we take on the offer.





Anyway, the forum is already great, with many helpful people around it seems. Customer support is also fine. So if anyone decides to check out the thread or forums, I give a 5 to CS-Cart (out of 5), since it's one of the best E-cart software amongst the ones I checked out.

Good to hear! I always have this nagging feeling I didn’t check out opencart enough, so I’m glad you like cs-cart better :)

I really is a nice little piece of software.

If you are having problems, there are always guys on forum who can help, or who can offer 3rd party services for cs-cart.