Help, I need something similar to Volusion but with Nochex

[raymondchow]

Hopefully someone can help here.

I'm looking at moving from vstore but need an ecommerce host that has nochex, paypal and googlecheckout integrated.

I also need to be able to enter html code into the "short description" which is something Volusion offers but they don't have Nochex as a payment option.

Can anyone recommend anywhere, preferably in the UK and with GOOD customer service.

Thanks.

[Steve2507]

VPASP (www.vpasp.com (http://www.vpasp.com)) will do what you have requested. It is an Austrailian package but there are loads of developers in the UK for it. BYZ (www.bigyellowzone.com (http://www.bigyellowzone.com)) is one.

[zorroman]

thanks for your advise

[mke]

Most e-commerce solutions are capable of including modules for those payment systems and more. That includes osCommerce, which your current provider, vhosts, is based upon.

Volusion looks like a typical lock in to me. What are you finding attractive about them, beyond the free trial?

I have no idea about the customer service qualities of those two providers. Very obviously, I think ours is very very good, or I wouldn't be in business. We recommend Zen Cart, which has modules for those payment systems and a few more, which is an osCommerce fork from a few years ago, but we're happy to support osC, too.

But first, I'd like to know exactly what the problem is. You are considering three ostensibly cheap because of no up front costs but in fact two expensive at any good level of business merchant accounts. What line of business are you in? what level of transactions are you making?

[raymondchow]

thanks for the replies.

i run a music store and already use nochex, paypal and googlecheckout in my current set up.

what's just as important and maybe even more so is being able to enter html in the short description for each product as we want to incorporate a flash media player so customers can listen to each product without having to view a seperate page. something like this:
juno dot co dot uk/deep-house/today

what's attractive about volusion is that the templates are there and hosted and with a little tweaking we can have exactly what we need, but they don't support nochex.

[mke]

You can add a flash module into most of the of the Open Source carts, including osC, which will do all you want it to. Won't vstore allow you to plug it in, or won't they plug it in for you? Do you have other strong reasons for wanting to move?

Moving hosts is not necessarily a trivial matter. CMSs, including ecommerce packages, are database driven. Switching platforms can give you a great deal of trouble if you don't know exactly what you are doing, or a great deal of work if you plan to rebuild from the ground up. I would strongly counsel you refrain from doing so without a strong reason. Now the data is in your database, switching designs for it and adding modules for functionality is a relatively simple matter.

[raymondchow]

i agree MKE and switching now will be a real task, especially with 2000+ products but this html thing is essential if i want to compete with similar stores.

can you recommend any of these modules so i can point vstore in the right direction? if they can do this then it'll save me weeks/months of added work.

[mke]

I'll try and dig an appropriate link out for you over the weekend. In case I forget, get too busy with other things or whatever, PM me a reminder if you haven't got the link by PM by Sunday evening.

(anyone else reading, if you know it, please respond - I'm a lot more familiar with Zen Cart's add-ons than osC's)

[raymondchow]

cheers for that, have a good weekend.

[mke]

I find it much easier to find modules for Zen Cart than for osC. But that's probably because I have a lot more ZC than osC customers.

Looking through the modules list, which you can get to from here by category, osCommerce Contributions Page (http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions) I found one which sounds as though it's the kind of thing. It is in the Images category. As with any such software item, though, check the contributor's notes and, if there are any mentioned, working examples to ensure it is what you need.

Here's the one I found: Flash Module for Images (http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,915/page,8) but I saw mention of lots of other flash stuff, too. If that'snot what yuo need, have a trawl through. I know there is exactly what you described for ZC, and would be amazed if there isn't for osC.