DusX wrote:I am still deciding... the project that I need an open source system is moving slowly ahead.. so not a huge rush.
Would love to here some peoples opinions!!!
For another project I am seriously considering X-cart (x-cart.com)
Anyone have experience with this?
Some of the carts recommended in this thread are not open source but may still be very good carts.
Cubecart is not open source. They state so on the front page of their website. They charge only about $60 for a license that removes the powered by stuff. I looked at the demo and it seemed fine although I felt the website presented things poorly. I like to see a company that creates quality presentation even on their website.... because I think this is a reflection on the quality of their software.
Clover Shop is one of the pricier e-commerce solutions if you go with their more powerful versions. I have never used it although it does seem to have a number of very positive reviews. I also liked their presentation and demos very much.
OSCommerce was buggy the last time I tried to use it for a client. However that was about 2 years ago and it seems to have made progress since then by leaps and bounds. The price is free and thats a strong point. However, it was my experience that the shop was very hard to customize, although that might have changed too.
X-Cart is a very good cart. I have used it and it has very good support in the Forums. However, it does cost a few dollars... around $185 the last time I checked. Customization is possible by working with .tpl (template) files. This is one of only two carts I can heartily recommend without reservervation.
The final cart I can recommend is Click Cart Pro found at
http://www.clickcartpro.com. It is also my favorite shopping cart out there. I know there are a whole bunch of you with red flags going up because you already know that Click Cart Pro is not PHP based but rather Perl! I too like PHP better than Perl solutions, but in all honesty, CCP is probably the most powerful and easily customized shopping cart on the internet today. In fact I do not know of a more powerful solution for e-commerce unless you have something custom coded.
Benefits of Click Cart Pro is that it can be used in conjunction with MySQL or it can used with a flat file system. Obviously, MySQL is the better way to go. It is also fully compatible with PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server. So the database options are there!
It is one of the few carts with fully built-in support for what I consider to be the best and most secure way of processing credit cards on the Internet, that of the Advanced Integration Method provided by Authorize.net. You can read about it at
http://www.authorizenet.com/support/guides.php. Many carts can work with AIM but are hard to configure. CCP allows you to simply enter your account numbers in a couple of places, add your secure url under which checkout will be processed and your done! Very cool!
Click Cart Pro costs about $180 and seems to be a bargain at this price. The shopping cart has several available hacks in the community forums at the softwares website.
Further, it also fully supports UPS and Postal Service shipping modules, and now also has a new module available separately that allows the store products to be submitted via right from the admin area to
http://Froogle.com.
One of the sites that is using CCP that showcases how it can be easily modified can be found at
http://www.gameskins.com.
There are stores on the web using CCP with over 100,000 items.
I have built 3 sites around CCP and am in the process of building a fourth. I cannot give it a higher recommendation. So if your willing to give Perl just a smidgen of a chance here, you will find a very high quality piece of e-commerce software.
