Hmmm! Not bad but..............

[Guest]

Top of the day to you all!

 

I have been on the scout for a new e-commerce program for the last couple of months as the volume of website orders is making day to day admin a mare so I figured I have a look at upgrading to a database driven program.

 

I have to say that the first open source e-commerce program I came across was Interchange and although it seems to be able to dance the Samba and the Rumba I really don't want to take on the responsibilities of a host master. So I kept looking and came across OSc and after having a bit of a wander around I have to say it's give me a bit of a buzz.

 

So I am seriously considering having a play with OSc with the aim of moving over my e-commerce sites to it eventually but I need to ensure that it can probably do everything I need it to. (Obviously being Open source anything is possible but I'm just trying to get a feel for where this program is al the moment..........no offence!)

 

Enough babble! .............to the questions.

 

A lot of the example sites I had a look at showed a Concertina effect on load. That is to say they started across the full length of the page and gradually collapsed in to produce the finished page (I have 512 Broadband for those of you who are thinking my connection speed). I dislike such movement immensely as I had problems with it on my own asp pages and just wanted people?s opinions whether it is a feature of building using PHP and a DB or more so through bad design and structure of the individual websites.

 

Next: On one of my sites I need to capture personalised details - sometimes in numerous guises. Is this something that can be feasibly created without needing to get a degree in php scripting? (Frustrating long nights I believe are necessary for any build - for me anyway - I'm just trying to get a measure of the difficulty)

 

Finally does it do the following - yes and No answers will suffice.

 

Does it have........

Any form of backend CRM?

Overide on facility to ask clients to log in - one of my personal hates although I understand the need for it on certain sites and under certain circumstances.

Flexible reporting features.

 

There are laods more but I think this lot will do for the moment. (Welsh quote: It's not a good idea to push the Coracle out too far just in case you have to swim back to the bank.)

 

Finally I would just like to add that I know there are loads of different Contributions which may cover some or all of the above but I figured it was simpler to get an answer here than trawl through all the different contributions. Did I mention earlier I am lazy ??

 

Anyway - thanks go out to any who pass this post and decide to add their comments.

 

Cheers

Brinley

Ps: For those of you who want to know what I am going to try and recreate using OSc can go to celtmyth.com and welshop.com

[Guest]

Did I mention earlier I am lazy ??

Then this aint for you.

[PVK]

Word!

[Guest]

That is to say they started across the full length of the page and gradually collapsed in to produce the finished page ... whether it is a feature of building using PHP and a DB or more so through bad design and structure of the individual websites.

 

Assuming I am clear on what you are referring to, moreso the effect of design. I wouldn't call it bad design, but rather lazy design. It's typically easy to fix with a few small bits of code.

 

Any form of backend CRM?

Overide on facility to ask clients to log in - one of my personal hates although I understand the need for it on certain sites and under certain circumstances.

Flexible reporting features.

 

- CRM? Customer Relationship Management? If so, what in particular?

- Login is required by default but contributions can remove this requirement if so desired.

- Reporting features would mostly come via contributions. The reports included within a stock osC are a bit sparse.

 

 

As stated above, the truth is, if you are lazy then osC is not for you. It is not truly an out-of-the-box solution if you want anything specific on the site. It requires a lot of modification and often at least a few months of work if you really want it to perform optimally.

 

Personally, I think it's great and I enjoy customizing it. If I was lazy though, it would give me nightmares.

[Guest]

Thanks for all the replies and I think I need to clear something up

 

Yes the truth (and the word) is that I'm lazy however it's more geared towards having to reinvent the wheel than actual hard slog to get something which has potential to actually work the way I'd like it.

 

For instance I have tweaked Mal's e-commerce to the Max to get it to where it is now for my websites and maybe I'm just a bit pensive about going down a new e-commerce route which may or may not be able to fulfill all my expectations. Hence my rather forthright post and associated questions.

 

I have to say that my biggest concern was the resizing effect on load which thanks to you Draven I might put to one side now. With regards to the CRM - you are right as I do mean Customer Relationship Mangement.

 

Basically I would like to be able to have a means to review customer orders AND be able to update them post sale. For example Mals ecom comes with an add on program called Morders which I have adapted somewhat to enable me to enter in things like date item was sent, tracking code of the delivery as well as method to email customer to say that their order has been despatched. (this is a built in feature in Morders.) The idea is that customer records include not only the actual e-commcer sale but also the post sale activities which in my mind makes for good customer relationships and record keeping.

 

As for the reporting thats not a bid deal as I could always run a query through the sql database but I just wanted to know what was available - "out of the box".

 

I do understand that OSc is shareware and that in itself is brillant but I do need to find out what it can and cannot do and how far it can be stretched.

 

Which brings me to another question -if I do customise the program to my requirements and a new version comes out - will I have to to upgrade and then recustomise all the pages again. (oops Mr Lazy just popped up again - or it could be Mr Practical :ph34r: )

 

Thanks once again for your feedback

 

Cheers

Brinley

[Guest]

In regards to the CRM ...

 

By default, osC tracks all post-sale emails and comments with the option to forward those comments to the customer or not.

 

There is a very easy to install contribution that provides 3 additional boxes in the order view for tracking #, ship date and delivery date.

 

In regards to your latest question ...

 

MS3 will not be compatible with MS2 from what I understand. I don't really know if there was any good reason why it was done this way, but it is what it is. I have been aware of that for some time and still chose to proceed with MS2. There are enough contributions available to do virtually anything (within reason) you could want to do. The issues that remain unresolved via contributions I resolve on my own. By the time MS3 is finalized, I won't have any reason to upgrade anyway. How you choose to look at it is up to you. :)