[sabian1982]

There are obviously quite a number of different shopping cart solutions out there, each with their own unique features. Once the designer (if you've used one) has finished their job and got you're online shop up and running, its usually down to you, the owner, to maintain the site and keep things updated and running smoothly.

My big question is (and this is to both owners as well as web devs and SEO's out there who have worked on 3rd party shopping cart software), what shopping cart software do you use and what issues or short falls do you feel you have with you're online shop? Are there any features lacking or missing that you wish you're specific cart had that would make running your online shop easier and better?

Bring on the market research

[openmind]

I've got a list of must haves and nice to haves as long as my arm and I'm working through them all for OMC.

The tricky part is what may seem like a great feature for one person could be fairly useless for another so it's finding the happy balance which makes the difference

[KingPin]

The problem that I find with "off the shelf" carts is that they are not always what I want.

For years I have played about with different carts, everything from free ones to paid ones but I always hit a brick wall.

The carts always had either too much, which was not useful for the sites I done at the time or the carts had too little.

I think it's hard to strike a balance of that perfect shopping cart because every e-commerce business has different needs or business models.

It got to the point where the carts were getting butchered and a "free" cart was costing more than a paid, standard one.

Now I get all my carts custom built around the business requirements.

It may cost that little bit more but you get everything you want. Nothing more nothing less.

And because it's custom code, if the business has a need for another module to be added, it can be added by any good coder without the issues you might find with a paid cart.

KP

[RawRob]

I use Zen Cart on a couple of shops. Open source, php, available at: www.zen-cart.com

It has shortfalls, but I think everything I have wanted to do has been available as a mod (usually also free, written by different people). The main shortfalls for me are connected with when you have variations of a products (eg cacao powder in both 500g and 1kg bags), the ways of handling this are not ideal.

The only major issue for me is that when a new version comes out, it is quite a hassle to upgrade.

The development team are very active and the next release looks to have even more useful features.

My shop is in my sig, and the other I have used zen cart for is www.oceanwavevibrations.com

Rob

[RedEvo]

I've mentioned this before but I believe the combo of a solid CMS (not an ecommerce system, a CMS) with a third party remote cart is hard to beat. You get great functionality and search engine friendliness with a great user experience - IMHO.

d

[KeyMark Services]

The limitations really do rely on your own coding ability as a store owner.

If you are buying an off the shelf solution to manage in house, then the first step you must take is to make a sound business model for your store and (here is the tricky bit), try and forward plan for 3 - 5 years...

By identifying your needs using this method, you will then be able to match your needs with the software out there.

Many people break out in a cold sweat when I mention this...if you have little or no coding, mod development or IT skills in house, then you must evaluate the costings of outsourcing your requirements.

As many of you will no doubt know, if you try to build and develop in house and 'break it', you end up wasting time and money putting it right by eventually outsourcing.

Coding a store is not difficult (I can have a fully function cart with only 5 lines of code for example), you only have to see how many are out there to know it ain't heavy...but developing the cart, implementing the design, marketing the resulting store and maintaining, now thats another ball game.

Using bespoke (and to be honest many of these 'custom' builds are *******isations of open source software either popped into asp or coldfusion in an attempt to disguise them) or an off the shelf solution must be right for your model. So plan, plan, plan...

And before anyone shouts up...what does he know? I am a fully qualified (to BSc standard) web applications developer whom has worked in IT since 1993...and boy, have I seen some cracker jack changes.

As always JMTC.

[openmind]

Excellent points but...

Originally Posted by moonlighterUK

Using bespoke (and to be honest many of these 'custom' builds are *******isations of open source software either popped into asp or coldfusion in an attempt to disguise them)

I agree that this often can be the case but some commercial systems are actually built from the ground up using 7 years plus experience of what works

[KeyMark Services]

Originally Posted by openmind

Excellent points but...

I agree that this often can be the case but some commercial systems are actually built from the ground up using 7 years plus experience of what works

Concrete point Phil

It does not take too much insight to spot the...well you know, corner cutters. And alas, it may well by you or I whom have to put the mess right at the clients cost.

OT: I am a massive fan of cfm and when time allows will delve much, much deeper into this so slightly off topic, if you know any good resources please feel free to PM me.

regards
Daren