Hi,
UK2.net is currently offering our clients pinnaclecart via our ecommerce product, but we are getting quite a few complaints and a lot of support requests, it seems that the system might be a bit too complicated for the novice webmaster...

We are looking into new systems, and would like your feedback.

Thanks for your time!

EDIT: can see that avactis had a typo in the url, its www.avactis.com - sorry

In all honesty whatever cart you use you will get complaints. Give them too much and they find it complex, give them too little and they scream for the lack of features!

Cubecart and Avactis are probably the most user friendly for the novice and they cater for most ecommerce needs without additional modules. The rest of them will have some break point for the novices I reckon.

Pinnaclecart, CS-cart, Inportal are I'd say aimed more at serious developers rather than novices and that's why they are more complex and do more stuff.

Maybe you could offer a few different solutions aimed at different abilities/needs?

Maybe you could offer a few different solutions aimed at different abilities/needs?

yes, we thought about that as well actually. That would complicate the product offering, and perhaps lower conversions though...

:)
D

i vote pinnaclecart at this time

I have to agree with Blue Dreamer. There are so many good and bad carts out there. Whose to say that a cart that is good for me will be loved by all and vice versa.

I use the UK2.net E-Commerce package currently on bomb cosmetics Please don't consider moving to anything else. I have no web development experience whatsoever and managed to get a site up and running that has had several compliments (and now features on the front page of UK2's e-commerce page). A few of my friends use it and they love it too.

All of these shopping carts have a steep learning curve. I asked a lot of questions to begin with but after a week or two I had it pretty much sussed out. And most of the problems I had in initally were to do with the set up of the cart at UK2's end. Once these were sorted everything worked fine.

I use the UK2.net E-Commerce package currently on bomb cosmetics Please don't consider moving to anything else. I have no web development experience whatsoever and managed to get a site up and running that has had several compliments (and now features on the front page of UK2's e-commerce page). A few of my friends use it and they love it too.

All of these shopping carts have a steep learning curve. I asked a lot of questions to begin with but after a week or two I had it pretty much sussed out. And most of the problems I had in initally were to do with the set up of the cart at UK2's end. Once these were sorted everything worked fine.

Dont worry - IF we decided to move away from Pinnacle, we would only change it for future clients. No current clients would be migrated over (unless they wanted to)

So you can keep your shop exactly as is :)

D

Hi all,

We currently use UK2's ecommerce offering which obviously is Pinnacle Cart.

Whilst our trade site is doing a roaring trade through UK2, I have no complaints with the software but it does lack a few things to make it a killer ap.

There should be a user guide for editing files in 'file manager' I have been on a pinnacle cart forum for Pinncale users and in fairness most people keep it close to their chests in terms of customization so no REAL help for newbies like myself.

Secondly a very important feature for the software would be a 'real time stock counter'

Customers could physically see how many units are in stock and when purchasing item(s) the stock would go down this would be incredibly useful for us and perhaps other users.

We have been shopping around for a cart solution as we have another site we may well decide to do and the feature list of CS Cart looks good.

However finding a good host to put CS Cart onto seems to be an issue as according to CS Cart forums it can be quite heavy in terms of usage so shared hostings looks like a no, plus apparently it looks like linux is the best platform for the cart.

Also customisation looks to be quite difficult to hence why we are reluctant at this time to go for it.

There should be a user guide for editing files in 'file manager' I have been on a pinnacle cart forum for Pinncale users and in fairness most people keep it close to their chests in terms of customization so no REAL help for newbies like myself.

Is this not in the documentation? One issue with high end carts is that there are so many features and ways of doing things it impossible to document every last detail.

Secondly a very important feature for the software would be a 'real time stock counter'

Customers could physically see how many units are in stock and when purchasing item(s) the stock would go down this would be incredibly useful for us and perhaps other users.

Have you looked at www.jshop.co.uk - iy has a stock control mechanism built in, and using a bit of template code you can display the current level on site or substitute out of stock items with a custom message.

Hi,

Thanks for your response, Pinnacle cart does have a how to section when you sign up for the software through the back end admin.

However it does not show you how to change the code in its file manager to change the site and make other changes.

Had a look at Jshop as per your recommendation looks good in fairness, but keeping my options open.

I know there is no 'all singing and dancing' solution to cart software and that I will have to make a choice. I must admit I do love pinnacle cart it is easy to use, but creating a nice skin etc is very difficult to do.

*sigh* I will keep plugging away!

I must admit I do love pinnacle cart it is easy to use, but creating a nice skin etc is very difficult to do.

*sigh* I will keep plugging away!

I guess you are right, initially it can be a bit tough to do skins. When I made my wife's shop I ended up ripping everything out, basically taking all the pinnacle stuff away and hardcoding the whole thing (its not pretty code, but hey, I am not a developer, I just fool around :)).
Take a look at it here www.1929.co.uk and see here how a barcelona chair (http://cart.1929.co.uk/index.php?p=product&id=1&parent=1) is presented.

:)
D

I have seen the 1929 site before and congratulate you on an incredibly slick site.

In fairness that site is what got me into looking at redesigning ours so you are to blame!!!

I must say I am not a programmer at all, I have some experience of design i.e. a diploma in art from college (it was a copout either that or carpentry!) I know what works in terms of aesthetics and of course functionality ease of use of the site etc. I have a few ideas for a site, I basically want to sell stuff part-time from home (evening-weekends) and am looking at options at the moment.

Kudos to you for the site, on a personal note does it do much in sales?

I have seen the 1929 site before and congratulate you on an incredibly slick site.

In fairness that site is what got me into looking at redesigning ours so you are to blame!!!

I must say I am not a programmer at all, I have some experience of design i.e. a diploma in art from college (it was a copout either that or carpentry!) I know what works in terms of aesthetics and of course functionality ease of use of the site etc. I have a few ideas for a site, I basically want to sell stuff part-time from home (evening-weekends) and am looking at options at the moment.

Kudos to you for the site, on a personal note does it do much in sales?

Thanks for the kind words - I am no designer, and much less of a coder, so I am glad to hear you like the result...

The shop does very well, my wife has made more money than me for some time now...lets just put it that way :)

Kept man!!! Thats the way to go!!!

We left CubeCart when we found out it didn't support our clients that use AMEX. After reviewing a few carts (some not mentioned here) we went with PinnacleCart. It supports everything we were looking for and has worked well so far. We too were looking for inventory by attribute, which we're told is in the next update this month.

I recommend it to anyone from a novice to expert.

Voted

None of the above - Zen Cart