Angela wrote:
> Very great points here ... I am in the same boat shopping for an
> shopping cart solution
>
> Here are some of my experiences
>
> 1. X-cart : I've set up a site years back, very functional, archaic when
> it comes to fiddling with the default design and custom coding w/ smarty
> templates takes some time. Overall, probably the best
>
> But ... I am looking for alternatives as well ...
>
> 2. Magento - intalled easy, PHP5 required (not that big a deal), but
> caution here .... very very slow loading initial page (check out their
> forums). What concerns me, this is not ready, but great potential.
>
> 3. I'm exploring CRELoaded now, having issues with installation of their
> free version :( (register globals need to be on)
>
> 4. OsCommerce - debatable ... concerned about sup****t and updates. Not
> much activity it seems (I could be wrong) in this area
>
> 5. Hosted solutions - trying to stay away from. There are a few that
> really stick out nice, but concerned about not having control.
>
> 6. Want want want SEO functionality (Magento it seems comes out on top)
>
> Bottom line, I'll probably have to revisit xcart. Their previous sup****t
> was fine, but took time
>
> Would be great to hear your outcomes
OsC is a valid solution, but to make it really work you would have to
add a great number of contributions
CRELoaded offers a large number of contributions already integrated to
OSC. But it's buggy as hell and to get a decent version you have to pony
up bucks for their non-free version and sup****t.
osCMAX which you didn't mention is another alternative. All free it
offers most of the stuff in CRELoaded but debugged and then a great deal
more. It uses a different template engine, but it's not hard to learn
and use.
My company started with osCMax as the base of our product and then added
a number of contributions MAX didn't have as well as a number of our own
contributions that we have not released to the community (I am the
original author of the OSC Recover Carts contribution - which is bundled
in both CRE and MAX.).
I have found that, as products go, the OSC family will meet 95% of a
stores needs with contributions. MAX offers the best overall debugged
pre-integration on the market.
[Please not that unlike Mr. Gunn, I don't promote my company or product
here. Also, I am active on the oscMAX forums and even show up on the OSC
forums on occasion; both under the handle met00 and I do actively answer
questions and offer up code - for free.]
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