Since this is a place to publish reviews of vendor software, here goes...

For anyone looking for better, cheaper, faster e-commerce software (vs. Miva) with lots of features and can be private labeled as your own solution, checkout shoppingQ e-commerce (www.shoppingq.com).

We spent a lot of time looking around for an alternative to Miva and came accross this software from a company in Arizona (never heard of these guys before but I guess they have been doing e-commerce for several years). As a result of our search and lots of testing, we decided to purchased a volume license. So far we could not be happier with this software and the vendor support. One of our suggestions is already slated to be incorporated into the next release of their software.

Here is what we found out so far:

1) Runs on cobalt servers and redhat servers (7.1). Vendor says redhat 6.2 version is in the works. Written in C++ (so very fast but not very portable), includes local and "remote" 128-bit SSL support (can use end user SSL cert, server shared SSL cert, or remote shared server SSL cert), uses internal 128-bit encryption of customer data (like CC), and uses an embedded b-tree ISAM database (lightweight and fast since not SQL based).

2) Uses templates (30 included) to generate store pages. Templates can be changed and they support style sheets.

3) Web-interface for store admin and order processing. Entire store is self contained on end-user web site so secure and easy to install. Embedded help is available and part of the store admin. We had a little trouble at first using this software with customer requested frontpage extensions, but vendor quickly showed us a simple symbolic link workaround and all is working fine now.

4) Supports member only stores, a million products, remembers customers when they come back to order, flexible shipping calc system, calcs sales tax at zip, state, and country levels, custom payment options, custom shipping methods, custom checkout fields, online sales reports (could use a few more), web based backup and restore.

5) Product database can be inported and exported to and from a PC or Mac in tab delimited files. Orders can be downloaded using the same process.

6) Not nearly as expensive as Miva. We purchased a license for 50 stores at $50 flat price a piece with no additional purchase committments (yea!). We control how many products are allowed in our customer stores which allows us to charge more to customer depending on the number of products they need. No recurring charges. Free support.

7) Uses encrypted cookies for additional security during shopping and store admin. I did not know that encrypting cookies was possible.

8) My favorite feature: the vendors name is hidden from our customers so we can brand this shopping cart as our own and charge whatever we need to our customers for setup and use. We plan on setting up our own resale program and offer this software (as our own) to our hosting resellers to use for their own customers.

9) Supports 5 gateway processors including world pay, sec pay, authorize net, and a couple others. Vendor said more are on the way. We use authorize net so the rest of them means little to us - it may to the rest of you.

10) Installation was easy. Vendor gave us a single install tar file and two commands later the store was installed and ready for customer use. We just use the same install file for each store. Instructions were straight forward and easy to follow. No changes were needed to server config files and no reboot needed. Seems to work fine with other software already loaded on our servers (other than the frontpage issue mentioned above).

I will post more info later after we have had a chance to spend more time playing with all the features. Hope you find this review helpful.

That sounds very good, but how's the safety on this shopping cart? Where is the admin/user passwords saved and how is it protected from users on the same server?

very nice shopping cart design!

<<That sounds very good, but how's the safety on this shopping cart? Where is the admin/user passwords saved and how is it protected from users on the same server?>>

From what the vendor tells me (I was able to verify some of this myself):

Access to the store admin and data files are controlled by session state files that are encrypted using internal 128 bit cypher.

Encrypted session state information uses encrypted datafiles and encrypted cookies to cross check session state information (by encrypted IP address, encrypted session ID...) as well as encrypted user names, encrypted passwords, encrypted access levels and encrypted restrictions in the datafiles. All encrypted admin sessions have a short automatic timeout value. The customer CC data is also crypted the same way into datafiles which means unless the person can gain access to the store admin, they cannt access or read the orders and/or sensitive store data.

The vendor said that all secure directories also have a level of server htaccess protection on top of this internal encryption which provides maximum additional security.

Sounds like there is plenty of protection.

Hi

Can cart deal with different currencies such as Euro's and pounds etc?

Can shipping charges be set up for different countries and considier weight of item? Does prices calculated only work with UPS etc or can be set up with different companies?

Am I correct software can store returning customers credit cards securely?

Does anyone have and information on what companies have have already used and indorsed cart software on the internet? Since this is not really covered on their web site?

>> Can cart deal with different currencies such as Euro's and pounds etc?

Yes shoppingQ supports different currencies and weight (pounds, Kg, etc...). One cool new thing we just figured out is that the entire admin system, templates, error messages, etc.. are all stored in text files so they can be modified as we need (to insert our logo or whatever) or even be translated to any language.

>>Can shipping charges be set up for different countries and considier weight of item?

The shipping system is a matrix type thing with both US and NONUSA tables - not sure if it has tables for each country...

>>Does prices calculated only work with UPS etc or can be set up with different companies?

The shipping tables are all setup and controlled by the user. Not tied to UPS or Federal Express.

>> Am I correct software can store returning customers credit cards securely?

Yes, as long as everything is encrypted. The vendor says they use 128-bit encryption of credit card data which is the same level of encryption used by SSL to transmit secure data. We looked at the datafiles and could not find unencrpyted credit card data so it looks like what the vendor is saying is true.

>> Does anyone have and information on what companies have have already used and indorsed cart software on the internet? Since this is not really covered on their web site?

Not sure what you mean. Many companies are using all types of e-commerce packages out there and e-comerce over the web is very common place.

Yes, it looked like a nice system.

Is a message sent to an email address of choice with the order details for printing automatically or do you have to download new order data?

I couldn't find an ability to make shipping tables of our own, it might be there just didn't find it anywhere in the admin demo. Another words a purchase of say 0 - $15.00 - 4.95 shipping, etc.

It won't support Verisign secure transaction gateway though, so will probably have to rule them out for the time being for one of our sites. Otherwise I might have considered it for a large site of ours.

Originally posted by snaphost2000
>> Can cart deal with different currencies such as Euro's and pounds etc?

Yes shoppingQ supports different currencies and weight (pounds, Kg, etc...). One cool new thing we just figured out is that the entire admin system, templates, error messages, etc.. are all stored in text files so they can be modified as we need (to insert our logo or whatever) or even be translated to any language.

>>Can shipping charges be set up for different countries and considier weight of item?

The shipping system is a matrix type thing with both US and NONUSA tables - not sure if it has tables for each country...

>>Does prices calculated only work with UPS etc or can be set up with different companies?

The shipping tables are all setup and controlled by the user. Not tied to UPS or Federal Express.

>> Am I correct software can store returning customers credit cards securely?

Yes, as long as everything is encrypted. The vendor says they use 128-bit encryption of credit card data which is the same level of encryption used by SSL to transmit secure data. We looked at the datafiles and could not find unencrpyted credit card data so it looks like what the vendor is saying is true.

>> Does anyone have and information on what companies have have already used and indorsed cart software on the internet? Since this is not really covered on their web site?

Not sure what you mean. Many companies are using all types of e-commerce packages out there and e-comerce over the web is very common place.

<<Is a message sent to an email address of choice with the order details for printing automatically or do you have to download new order data?

Yes, order confirmation emails are sent to the customer as well as up to 3 store managers. This email can be configured to contain (or not contain) the customer's actual CC data. The default is not to contain the CC data. Everything else about the order is included.

<<I couldn't find an ability to make shipping tables of our own, it might be there just didn't find it anywhere in the admin demo. Another words a purchase of say 0 - $15.00 - 4.95 shipping, etc. >>

Not sure what you mean. The shipping system allows each shipping method to have its own complete matrix of calculations. Each matrix has a lot of calculation control power (tables and fields) and the diferrent fields within a matrix all work together (in combination). There is a lot of power in their setup but unless I know what more about what you are asking, I dont know for sure if it can support what you are asking for. Please explain and I will see what I can figure out.

>>It won't support Verisign secure transaction gateway though, so will probably have to rule them out for the time being for one of our sites. Otherwise I might have considered it for a large site of ours.

Did you ask the vendor if they are planning on supporting that gateway? I would bet they just might add that support if you were going to purchase a volume license. That is what they told me - if we need something and they can do it, they will try to incorporate it for you. They seem pretty willing to accomodate suggestions and improvements as long as it makes sense to add that feature. Cant hurt to ask.

How does this software compare to Akopia Interchange?

http://www.akopia.com/

<< How does this software compare to Akopia Interchange? >>

I have no idea.

I would suggest checking out the free trial that shoppingQ offers on their web site to test it for your self. Their web site address is www.shoppingq.com.