What online shopping cart are you using and what do you like and dislike about it?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Runnells on October 22, 2008 at 11:35am

I've had experience with a couple of eCommerce platforms, and I'll share my knowledge (briefly) here.

The two obvious carts are osCommerce and ZenCart, which was derived from osCommerce a few years ago.

Neither one I would use again. osCommerce hasn't seen an update to it's core code in years, and despite a large group of third-party add-on developers, it sucks. I can guarantee that the vanilla install won't work for anyone, so you'll be forced to find an add-on that has the functionality you need, and add it in yourself. Occasionally this means going into the code and adding snippets in yourself. This isn't a problem until you get 4-5 different addons that all require changes to the code. It's easy to break functionality that way. The admin interface is kludgy, and not really intuitive.

ZenCart, while being derived from osCommerce, is an entirely different animal. It actually has a lot of the features that you'd want right out of the box. The basic template is XHTML and CSS, so it's easy to change. But, while the admin interface is different than the one in osCommerce, it's not much more intuitive.

Now, Magento Commerce is a godsend. It's open-source, but built with enterprise level features that you usually only find in enterprise priced shopping carts. The admin interface is really easy to use, and it definitely show's the company's attention to detail and commitment to the needs of their users. The template system is easy to use, and I can't really say enough good things about it.

Recently, one of my web designer friends asked what I was using, and I told her "Magento. There's absolutely no reason to use anything else."

Permalink Reply by Calin West on October 22, 2008 at 11:40am

I've never heard of Magento Commerce. Thank you for the info. This will be very helpful!

You are right - osCommerce and ZenCart are a nightmare.

Permalink Reply by Scott Murphy on October 22, 2008 at 11:57am

Magento is awesome. It is really nice to work with. You may also want to check out Ubercart (drupal) which is also easily customizable.

Permalink Reply by Jerry driscoll on October 22, 2008 at 2:29pm

I have been using Miva marchant 4.23 and have spent years getting this cart to bend to my will.

Their are so many details I have learned along the way and all of them where expensive.

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