Question
I'm narrowing down my choices for an off eBay - St.Elsewhere Store site.
X-Cart Gold is among the final candidates.
IOffer and eCrater type sites will not meet my needs.
osC options are being given consideration including Zen, Cube, CRE Loaded etc.
While X-Cart has a higher initial cost, the lack of need for much design or administrative skills, the availability of free and paid support and the success of other sellers using this program suggests that, in my case, it may be the best value. (As in I might actually get it up and working, sell products and not spend endless days/nights trying to learn much more than I want to know)
Any experience you would care to share?
Any specific limitations (and all programs have some limitations) that you feel should be know when considering this program?
TIA Ray
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Bump looking for anyone with X-Cart experience.
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Ray,
We are using X-Cart (and have for a couple of years) on our goodworks1.com store, but I know so little about it (beyond how to enter stuff for sale one piece at a time) that I hesitate to make any blanket statements. We did have Sharon do the initial setup and do the 'pretty' stuff at the top, but otherwise we've done most of the rest of it.
I've personally just been adding the items I sell directly, one at a time, but the sheet music was uploaded all at once via spreadsheet. If you can use ebay's forms, you can easily do the direct input. The good thing is that the method and rules for doing so don't change all the time. (This is probably also the bad thing, in the long run! )
This is an older version of the cart (and I don't think it's Gold, but I could be wrong.) In this particular store we're not looking for a completely professional 'look' (due to the types of stuff we are selling - used items and handicrafts) but I'm pretty happy with the functionality of the site.
Occasionally we've had to do work-arounds and I've changed some of the settings. (For instance, I set up my own shipping rate formulas to work for the way I wanted to charge for lightweight first-class items and for media mail, so I've chosen not to use the modules to pull calculations from somewhere like the USPS or UPS sites.)
One time I did a promo with a CODE that no one could access -- but that was operator error -- I entered the info incorrectly.
If it makes you feel any more comfortable, we will be opening another store soon (a relative term of course ) and it will also be run via X-Cart, but the newer version. I'll show it to you if you like, when it's closer to ready...
The new store will involve much more computer-savvy as we'll be doing regular uploads via spreadsheet - and I'm very pleased that my DSister (goodworks4music) is quite skilled at that sort of thing. She will handle that part of setting up a well-designed spreadsheet (that will also be usable for bookkeeping and sales reports?) and then will attempt to train me to cover in an emergency.
I think there is no perfect solution for a shopping cart for a small store, but this one (X-Cart) appears to be a reasonable and workable one.
Hope that helps...
Elaine
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I'm surprised no one's replied, Ray. There are several x-Cart users here.
Sharon's a great person to work with. She was very patient with this dunce.
As it turned out, I ended up going with osC for purely economic reasons. X-Cart wanted a dear sum to develop a checkout redirect, for me a must-have. Right now I'm working with Suzie-Q, php extraordinaire. When we're done I'll have the redirect and a blog, along with the catalog and all the usual stuff.
Good luck whatever you decide. It's an accomplishment just deciphering all the options available.
(Glad to see Elaine responded ... slow typist that I am. )
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A bump in search of a user.
Please include a URL.
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You can get to Elaine's current website by clicking on her here name above her post and selection "go to her home page". I'm assuming you can do that with just about anyone's profile around here...
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Does X-cart have the option of letting a customer purchase without creating an account?
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X-cart -- at least our old version -- allows shoppers to create an account (save their info), but it is not required on our website. We only sell physical items, so we do require shipping information and contact info (such as phone & email addy).
In order to check, I just went to our website and ordered an item... hopefully gw1 will refund my $$$ and cancel my order!
is that the info you were looking for? You can check out our website and get through to the payment type and cancel your order if you want...
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Yes, that's what I needed to know. Thank you for checking for me! I like your website, it loads very fast for me and is laid out nicely.
I think gw1 will give you a refund.
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Originally Posted by amm031
Yes, that's what I needed to know. Thank you for checking for me! I like your website, it loads very fast for me and is laid out nicely.
Thanks for the feedback. It is always nice to know how fast it is on other computer configurations/connections. After awhile one tends to think everyone's response time is like your own... a dangerous assumption on a good day.
I think gw1 will give you a refund.
Already done. I think that must be why we keep her in charge of "order fullfillment"...