After EROL... now what? X-cart?

[privateer]

As one of those 300-odd EROL customers, I'm now working out what to do. Short-term, EROL will work for a while. Medium term, I need to migrate so that I'm in control.

First - I did download and look through the other PC-based system - Actinic. But browsing through the online reviews isn't inspiring. Plus - of course - it's another proprietary system, and maybe now's the time to look at an open script-based cart?

X-Cart looks like the other front runner, and I've started looking for an X-Cart developer to help migrate my data. (Have also considered Magento, but I gather that's resource hungry and needs beefy and expensive servers.)

Looks like there's a typical £5000+ figure for a full migration. Can't justify that right now.

Is it reasonable to get a developer to set up an X-cart site, modify the relevant template(s) to broadly match my existing store and then upload a few sample products? The idea being that I'd then test it, we'd tweak the layout/etc as necessary and then - assuming it is simple enough for me to do - I'd do all of the grafting on the other product pages?

Is this likely to help me cut the costs?

All help/ideas/etc gratefully received.

 

[kulture]

X-cart can be resource hungry too. The problem with both x cart and magento, is that they are vastly different to erol. Once set up with a good design it is straight forward to add products. The problems is keeping the software up to date and security patches properly applied. It does require some degree of expertise.

 

[privateer]

Thanks - didn't know X-Cart was hungry, too. Will make sure to check details on that.

I can do HTML and CSS, but I'd not want to mess with anything deeper - PHP/etc. So, if need be, I'd be happy with having an ongoing relationship with the developer to cover the necessary technical issues/patches as and when they pop up. Good thing to add to the list of Qs to ask

(Have also just had a wander around BluePark. The Web interface isn't too intimidating, but I'm assuming the back end is proprietary, and there's the same sort of risk as with EROL.)

 

[mrhitchin]

As one of those 300-odd EROL customers, I'm now working out what to do. Short-term, EROL will work for a while. Medium term, I need to migrate so that I'm in control.

First - I did download and look through the other PC-based system - Actinic. But browsing through the online reviews isn't inspiring. Plus - of course - it's another proprietary system, and maybe now's the time to look at an open script-based cart?

X-Cart looks like the other front runner, and I've started looking for an X-Cart developer to help migrate my data. (Have also considered Magento, but I gather that's resource hungry and needs beefy and expensive servers.)

Looks like there's a typical £5000+ figure for a full migration. Can't justify that right now.

Is it reasonable to get a developer to set up an X-cart site, modify the relevant template(s) to broadly match my existing store and then upload a few sample products? The idea being that I'd then test it, we'd tweak the layout/etc as necessary and then - assuming it is simple enough for me to do - I'd do all of the grafting on the other product pages?

Is this likely to help me cut the costs?

All help/ideas/etc gratefully received.

Hi,
Ive been looking at all platforms because of this. I narrowed it down to 3. Actinic, Magento and Interspire.
Actinic looks good, Magento im liking but dont like the fact its yearly subscription and Interspire, that is coming out on top for me as it has a lot of good features, plus the fact it should not cost a fortune to migrate.
Interspire is web based.
You mention 'Control'. That has been my main concern. I stupidly put all my eggs in one basket..... Erol platform, Erol hosting and ErolPay.
I have now gone to '1 And 1' for hosting and domain control, will be moving payment provider to probably 'RBS', platform... more than likely Interspire.
You may want to look at my previous post about Erol as it has a link to Zone1 who has kindly created a forum for Erol users as Erol has locked theirs!!
Hope this helps
Mark

 

[kulture]

Magento is free. Not a yearly subscription

 

[mrhitchin]

Magento is free. Not a yearly subscription

Depends on what version!

 

[kulture]

True, functionally, there is not a lot of difference between them though, and the vast majority of magento sites use the free version.

 

[bettybloom]

Hi there,

I am a fellow ex-Erol user and after heavily investing in an earlier version I was disappointed that I had to pay for upgrades.

I was initially scared of Magento but went ahead anyway and installed it on Heart Internet shared Linux hosting. After a few tweaks and initial de-bugging I now have it happily running at a good speed and I am very impressed.
Not sure if Heart Internet are happy with me installing it though.

I am using the free community edition and apart from a couple of commercial extensions it has cost me nothing apart from a few days work.
It does take a while to get used to the maze of a file system and find your way around the huge admin area but its been worth the effort.

I'll never go back, but for smaller stores I am considering a Wordpress ecommerce template.

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

I have it on good authority that ekmpowershop are taking on plenty of EROL customers. You could also try Actinic and possibly OpenMindCommerce if Phil is able to take EROL customers.

 

[privateer]

Thanks for all of the input. I'll definitely take another look at Magento.

Actinic, I've now dismissed. Being local PC software (like EROL) there is the problem of waiting for bugs to be fixed. I'm expecting that a well-supported and widely used script-based cart should be better maintained.

My site is fairly 'flat' and has approx 100 products, each product has a page of its own and each of those has a lot more information than most Webshops. So it's how I layout information and photos on the product pages that I need to make sure is feasible in the various packages.

Plus I have a lot of non-sales technical info pages. I could simply host these outside of the shop, elsewhere on the domain.

Will now into Interspire and OpenMind Commerce - thanks for the suggestions.

Maybe moving to a CMS with RomanCart would do the job? Not sure how the post-sale aspects work on that yet (orders, invoices, despatch notifications, etc).

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

We are due to complete a payment module for Interspire in the coming weeks so it is good to know it is being looked at as an alternative for EROL as well.

 

[Deleted member 61074]

Whilst actinic catalog/business is a one off cost (£400-800) you do need to upgrade it every year or so at a similar cost.

 

[edmondscommerce]

also have a look at open cart

for smaller lower budget sites its a good option

as Kulture said though, the free version of Magento is very good (and free). The Enterprise version (have yet to actually see a professional version) is pretty much the same, the main difference being you have a direct support relationship with Magento themselves and there are a few other "Enterprise" features that are really geared towards large organisations.

For the SME level the community edition of Magento is absolutely fine, great in fact.

 

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Whilst actinic catalog/business is a one off cost (£400-800) you do need to upgrade it every year or so at a similar cost.

Actinic tends to have a new major release every 12-18 months, although there is nothing to force you to upgrade and if you are happy with your current version you can keep running at no extra cost. For those on a budget upgrading every second version is a good option.

The current upgrade prices are:
Catalog - £279 + VAT
Business - £375 + VAT

So upgrading Actinic Catalog every second version would cost just £279 over 2-3 years, so around £100 per year or less than £10 + VAT per month if comparing to hosted carts with monthly charges.