Which online store for our company?

[Edelweiss]

Hi all

As noted in another thread, we are currently using RomanCart and have not had any problems, until now. We would like to be able to redirect traffic back from the shop to our site but to a SPECIFIC page for each different product bought. So if they buy product group A they get sent back to page A on our site, etc. RomanCart can't do this.

We would need a secure system that can handle card payments, paypal, and cheque/invoice offline payments. Must obviously be reputable and preferably easy to use with GREAT support. (not asking for much then :))

Any suggestions?

[business-zone.biz]

Hi there,

I use VirtualMart with joomla. The advantage with this is that you can use the CMS part for promotions and the cart for your products.

Gareth

[NuBlue]

If it is only the customer redirect that is missing from Roman Cart then I would say it is easier to add this as a bespoke development to it then to move to a totally new cart. I'd have thought you could use sessions/cookies to store the information regarding what the customer bought and then redirect them accordingly.

[NuBlue]

Although, thinking about it... what if a customer orders products from numerous product groups? Which page would they go to then?

[Edelweiss]

I have just been corresponding with the RomanCart support team and their answer to me was to change our business model. Not helpful at all!

[NuBlue]

I have just been corresponding with the RomanCart support team and their answer to me was to change our business model. Not helpful at all!

Unfortunatley when using off the shelf systems, you do really need to be selling your products in a way that is compatible with the system. If you had something made from scratch then this could be made to be compatible with your business model!

As i mentioned, I think if you can find a good PHP developer then they could add the functionality you were looking for.

[websitedesign]

Magento is recommended if you would like to switch over the whole website to another CMS.

Otherwise just search the forums and hire a coder to implement it for you....

[Jolora]

i would second magento!

you should find plenty of support - especially if you opt for the paid version. not to mention its a great piece of software.

[Edelweiss]

I have just been having a look at Magento and it looks fantastic, but at $8900 per year as opposed to the £59.99 per year we pay for RomanCart, well, we are a very small business and don't have that kind of budget. The community edition does not support PCI Data Security Standard (PA-DSS), which could be a problem.

[biomed86]

Another vote for magento :) I do agree though, it's rather expensive! But I believe it's a good investment.

[Chunkford]

Interspire's nice... just started playing around with it

[MH1]

Not sure if prestashop will do what you require, but it's very easy to use overall, I find it easier than Joomla Virtuemart myself, most importantly the sales have been much better.

It might be worth having a look at it, all you need is hosting etc.

[msimplay]

A lot of people rave about Magento I have to at the risk of being unpopular disagree with everyone that recommends it.
As the enterprise edition for the money you could get Interspire (http://www.interspire.com/) which is without a doubt hands down a lot better than Magento Period.
You could even get Product cart (http://www.earlyimpact.com/) Which has more features than you can shake a stick at. Its really hard for me to justify spending that much money on Magento when it doesn't really do much better than standard off the shelf solutions. The only plus it has got is the community which seems to be people moving on from Oscommerce.

I'm sorry if I offend anyone but I personally don't think Magento is a contender compared to the others for the same price.
I would say Magento is a decent community ie free solution but as a person that looks after his own website and business I find it really hard to recommend Magento at the price it is.

[Edelweiss]

I don't disagree that it is worth it, I just don't have that kind of budget. So standing with my nose against the window, wishing I could afford it! But in the meantime, I still need a solution to my problem.

[msimplay]

I don't disagree that it is worth it, I just don't have that kind of budget. So standing with my nose against the window, wishing I could afford it! But in the meantime, I still need a solution to my problem.

What's your budget then ?

[Edelweiss]

We are currently using RomanCart at £59.99 per annum. Any more than this and I will have to justify to the boss why we need to spend the money. He is not going to approve very much more than this, though. I could probably get a few hundred pounds, but definitely not in the thousands!

[NuBlue]

tbh, you're not likely to get what you want from any appication with that budget and I doubt you can get the additional functionality added to what you already have either.

In my experience GREAT support does not exist for anything that costs £50 per year!

[Chunkford]

It amazes me when people are so blind to this sort of thing.
yet they are willing to waste their hard earned money else where.

Your gonna have to educate him, and put forward a proposal with the benifits to him e.g. better coding = better SEO = less money on adwords, better systems = better integration = less admin costs.

[Place of design]

It's allways amazing how many people can recommend a shopping cart system, without properly understanding the EXACT needs of the client. What exactly are you all basing your recommedations on?

For all the people that have recommended a cart so far please explain how:

- The purchasing customer is returned to a specific page depending what product they purchase
- How your selected choice deals the purchasing of more than 1 product, and what page the buyer is transfered to in this instance
- How the selected choice deals with emailing more than 1 supplier once the product is purchased

In other words - what FACTS are you hinging your choice of cart on - the fact that "You like it the best" or the fact that it is: "The best choice for the cleints needs"

[msimplay]

It's allways amazing how many people can recommend a shopping cart system, without properly understanding the EXACT needs of the client. What exactly are you all basing your recommedations on?

For all the people that have recommended a cart so far please explain how:

- The purchasing customer is returned to a specific page depending what product they purchase
- How your selected choice deals the purchasing of more than 1 product, and what page the buyer is transfered to in this instance
- How the selected choice deals with emailing more than 1 supplier once the product is purchased

In other words - what FACTS are you hinging your choice of cart on - the fact that "You like it the best" or the fact that it is: "The best choice for the cleints needs"

Just had a thought...

As a client I would say you start up not knowing anything so it would be better to advise the client what they should do not rather what they want.

I mean myself personally if I had the guidance then I wouldn't have went through multiple designs and changes.

The ultimate truth of what any online retailer or business wants is sales.
I remember last year when I first started I talked to lots of people on what to do but most wanted to ask what I wanted from my online store.

I would have rather been told what the best practice is because all I really want is a successful online business :).

If you get told what the best thing to do is then you can work out the rest.
My idea is to start off without restrictions and have the best plan ready.
Then decide on what you would have to do with normal factors such as budget.
I personally wouldn't care what cart I used as long as the cash tills were ringing all the time :p.

Some good advice someone once told me was doesn't matter what cart you use. It's up2 you to get the best out of it as all of them do the same thing sell products online.

Why I would agree to that is because I've known multi million pound business's use Oscommerce a free application where someone could use the most fancy cart out there and not have a successful business :)

Most important factors for me is No1 SEO/SEM and general marketing and promotion as in offline

[brownie]

As a client I would say you start up not knowing anything so it would be better to advise the client what they should do not rather what they want.

I beg to differ, a client will have the most important knowlege required to select an ecommerce solution, that is how their own business runs.

Every business is different hence different carts have their strengths and weeknesses. Basic stuff like, low volume high margin, high volume low margin, product or service attributes, average order size, stock holding, budget, how long has the business been trading, future business plan, etc. etc.

It is not possible to specify an ecommerce solution for a business without having properly looked at the clients business first. Place of Design is spot on, any recomendations are for ecommerce solutions that "You" like best which may not be suited to others.

Which multi-million pound business is using OSCommerce?

[Edelweiss]

Thanks for both those interesting and thought provoking posts. This interent stuff is often frustrating. I agree that having some best practice 'lists' would be a great place for a newbie to start. Any idea if there is such info available?

But I also have to agree that it is very important to look at what the person is asking for. I inherited the site as is. I didn't have a choice in that. There is also a perception created within management that this is what things cost - look it is there and working and it costs this much. For me to now say that we have to lay out thousands of pounds to end up with pretty much the same result (number of sales) is just not going to fly. I don't think it will increase our sales dramatically to have a better cart that works better. I just think that starting to work towards a better workflow and 'best practice' is a good idea.

In the meantime I am also trying to learn. Forums like this, where people give their time to correct and inform new people in the field are invaluable and I really appreciate any help. Even probing questions are good, because if I don't know the answer then I know I need to go and have a good long think about my goals and objectives. It all helps with the learning curve.

[brownie]

I don't think it will increase our sales dramatically to have a better cart that works better.

Unless you can present a business case to management showing the bottom line value of migrating to another cart you're going to have an impossible job I'm afraid.

Unless the migration is going to increase profits, why would management entertain moving off the current solution? If there will be no increase in profit for the business, management will just see this as a cost they can do without.

Playing devils advocate, but this is the number one reason getting investment in IT infrastructure projects is hard at the moment, no one has any spare money to throw around.

[matt.chatterley]

I beg to differ, a client will have the most important knowlege required to select an ecommerce solution, that is how their own business runs.

Every business is different hence different carts have their strengths and weeknesses. Basic stuff like, low volume high margin, high volume low margin, product or service attributes, average order size, stock holding, budget, how long has the business been trading, future business plan, etc. etc.

It is not possible to specify an ecommerce solution for a business without having properly looked at the clients business first. Place of Design is spot on, any recomendations are for ecommerce solutions that "You" like best which may not be suited to others.

Which multi-million pound business is using OSCommerce?

Absolutely true. Of course, if the client is in doubt, then a developer can at times be well placed to advise, based on their experience - however - this experience is likely to be from a very different angle than that of the client.

This is one of the reasons why we maintain so much content in the eCommerce Websites (http://www.mattchedit.com/Services/ECommerce/ECommerce.aspx) section of our website - and also why we publish articles such as our current series on starting an online shop (http://www.mattchedit.com/Articles/Articles.aspx?c=ecommerce&id=starting-online-shop-1-introduction).

It's also why we think bespoke solutions are generally the best for most businesses - although I suspect there is a bit of debate to be had on the definition of 'business' - it's a case of getting the right tools for the job, too - overcomplication can be deadly.

[msimplay]

I beg to differ, a client will have the most important knowlege required to select an ecommerce solution, that is how their own business runs.

Every business is different hence different carts have their strengths and weeknesses. Basic stuff like, low volume high margin, high volume low margin, product or service attributes, average order size, stock holding, budget, how long has the business been trading, future business plan, etc. etc.

It is not possible to specify an ecommerce solution for a business without having properly looked at the clients business first. Place of Design is spot on, any recomendations are for ecommerce solutions that "You" like best which may not be suited to others.

Which multi-million pound business is using OSCommerce?

Why do you beg to differ ?
Since I count myself as a client I'd rather be told what I should do because
the ultimate aim for me is sales not looking after the website per say.

Although I do agree with you when it comes to choosing carts that's a personal preference but to me the e-commerce solution is only the tool to sell.
The rest would be a personal preference.

If you could make me a site with prestashop for example that would give me the tools to sell online and market my products without me looking elsehwere I'd go with your solution in a snap because as I think I've repeated more than once I'm only interested in sales ;)

[Edelweiss]

Great stuff. Will read the articles, Matt. Thanks.

I agree that I have a snowball's proverbial hope of getting more money for the cart. I am looking at the longer term and also (I am the marketing manager) at customer experience overall. So I may not be able to get the solution I am looking for now, but maybe I can do an interim step with something not very expensive and then work on the longer term strategy and get the bespoke system of my dreams in the future.

Hence my question to this forum - which solutions (cheap) should I be looking at and is there anything that will allow me to customise the output from the cart so that I can route customers in a particular direction at the end of the transaction. It is very unlikely that one customer is going to purchase the various online courses at the same time - if this should happen I would then have a major headache!

Ah well, back to the drawing board.

[GTrotter666]

I have always used ZenCart for all my websites. We frequently need to customise things to work exactly as we want for the poducts we sell. The open source nature of ZenCart makes it perfect for this.

I think that this whole business is "horses for courses".

Thanks

Gary

[theweeguy]

I would recommend, for ecommerce, crm and cms, so that you don't have to have the user jump from one site to another a platform called. Goodbarry. I use it for a number of clients.

Very easy to migrate over and payment gateway integration a breeze.

The Wee Guy.

[Chunkford]

I would recommend, for ecommerce, crm and cms, so that you don't have to have the user jump from one site to another a platform called. Goodbarry. I use it for a number of clients.

Very easy to migrate over and payment gateway integration a breeze.

The Wee Guy.


Not really on the OP topic, but i have been looking at goodbarry. Seems like a good system for a users point of view.
Also came across this which looks promising http://www.infusionsoft.com/ too

[ninaleli]

£59.99 per year we pay for RomanCart, runs ok; well, we are a very small business and don't have big budget.

[msimplay]

£59.99 per year we pay for RomanCart, runs ok; well, we are a very small business and don't have big budget.

My business is also startup I paid £235.00 for Jshop but that has unlimited free software updates. I'm on cheap hosting with siteground which at the time cost about 5 dollars per month it's now $1.95.
My hosting offers easy upgrade for when I start to get more traffic and sales.

It work's pretty well for me on a budget

[Naughty Vend]

Whichever you choose make sure the code is available, the provider will state this or they will be proud to tell you the code is "Open Source" which in either case means anyone can look at the code and create custom plugs ins... The main downside of OS systems is that a hack can be more likley if targeted but in all actuality that rarely happens.

Many believe this is the purpose of the internet and as so many are doing it, creating code snippets and plug-ins the cost of these will be free or very low indeed certainly when compared to apps for things like Actinc, many of these larger products get "too big too fast" and the support network fails and/or the product is wired like a Christmas Tree with upgrades (...be sure you get upgrades too, either cheap or free...).

At the moment I use Actinic Business but am looking to move to X-Cart or one of the other professional systems, still evaluating but don't be scared to move just be sure you can easily.