Best Shopping Cart

[Denver Dave]

Hi - I'm back looking at shopping carts again. In the past I've tried OsCommerce, but it was too much for me with code and data base changes as the beta version evolved and also at that time small filesize thumbnail images were not automatically created . I do content management php / mySql sites so I have some expertise here.

 

From your point of view, what are the trade-offs between OsCommerce, Zen-cart and Cube Cart 3 and other php / mySql carts? When should we choose OsCommerce?

 

Thanks.

[wizardsandwars]

We're not permitted to discuss the differences here.

[brooky]

Discuss it here then:

 

http://www.cubecart.com/site/forums/index.php?showtopic=9465

 

:)

 

EDIT: (Braveheart Style) Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!!!

[cube]

We're not permitted to discuss the differences here.

 

Why not?

[♥peterpil19]

One thing I am allowed to say (if I'm not, this post will be deleted by a moderator:)) is this:

 

Did you see how fast your topic received answers? Other shopping cart support foums are dead by comparison.Think about it!

 

--Peter

[cube]

But surely a healthy debate on the merits of various ecommerce systems and the advantages of OSC over them can only add value?

 

I can see a case for moderating blatant advertising, but not of reasonable discussion.

 

The activity on the forum only really applies to Open Source communities - if I were to pay for a cart, I would expect at least e-mail based support direct from the development team.

[♥peterpil19]

It makes sense from an osCommere policy perspective.

 

Say for example, some of the other carts developed features that made them extremely desirable and more so than oscommerce.

 

Then discussing the differences may cause the unintended result of driving potential oscommerce users (who are perusing the forum before they try using oscommerce) as well as current users to the other products.

 

I know osCommerce is free, but think about it this way. If there was a forum on the microsoft site, do you think their moderators would allow discussion about the benefits of using e.g. openoffice as compared to microsoft office. Of course not! if one person ends up using e.g. opensource office instead of microsoft office because of what they saw on that forum, it is costing microst several hundred dollars because it is a licence that they should have sold, but didn't.

 

Also, the last thing we want on this forum, is for outsiders who use other shopping carts to see comparistons (read in their minds--criticisms) start posting and bagging oscommerce and this is almost certainly an inevitable result.

 

Normally I'd agree with you about healthy discussion on forums, but this is one policy that I agree with. :)

 

Kind Regards,

 

 

 

Peter

[Flyer5]

It makes sense from an osCommere policy perspective.

 

Say for example, some of the other carts developed features that made them extremely desirable and more so than oscommerce.

 

Then discussing the differences may cause the unintended result of driving potential oscommerce users (who are perusing the forum before they try using oscommerce) as well as current users to the other products.

 

I know osCommerce is free, but think about it this way. If there was a forum on the microsoft site, do you think their moderators would allow discussion about the benefits of using e.g. openoffice as compared to microsoft office. Of course not! if one person ends up using e.g. opensource office instead of microsoft office because of what they saw on that forum, it is costing microst several hundred dollars because it is a licence that they should have sold, but didn't.

 

Also, the last thing we want on this forum, is for outsiders who use other shopping carts to see comparistons (read in their minds--criticisms) start posting and bagging oscommerce and this is almost certainly an inevitable result.

 

Normally I'd agree with you about healthy discussion on forums, but this is one policy that I agree with. :)

 

Kind Regards,

 

 

 

Peter

 

 

here here

 

If i wanna discuss zen cart ill go and find a zen cart forum. etc...

[shirster]

just to share my experience -

 

i knew NOTHING about php but i started with osc anyway coz my friend recommended it. then after working on it for a while i got frustrated coz it was just too difficult for me. so frustrated that i totally dropped the project and couldn't bring myself to even look at it.

 

but then the deadline was coming along (i was doing this for another friend), so i searched around to see if there were other options available. i found zen-cart, and to be honest it looked promising (they say it's way easier to customize and stuff). i went as far as installing it on my server, ready to test it out.

 

then, i thought to myself, is it really reliable? does it have as many support and contributions as osc does? since it's a shopping cart we're talking about, we dun wanna risk the safety issues do we?

 

so the conclusion came to me. i mean, it's difficult for me to judge which is the best, but osc has got the largest community and loadsssssssssss of contributions available. it's likely that i can find an answer to my question when i have one.

 

besides, there's gotta be a reason why osc is the largest. so i've been sticking to it ever since and am still working my s off burying myself in the php filesssssssss trying to figure out how it works. ;)

 

ps. according to my very limited experience in osc, it's not that difficult to have a store up and running if you don't need to modify the whole theme like i do. if you don't mind the original theme, you can almost say that it works right out of the box.

 

pss. just my 2 cents.