Trading Eye - beware

[familychoice]

I've never liked the look of osCommerce, and it has even less appeal after reading that link.

The two options I like best so far are the Wordpress/eShop combo for small sites with a few items for sale, and Expression Engine/CartThrob for big jobs with a decent budget. I don't particularly like the idea of giving EE more of my hard earned money but there's no denying it's a solid old chunk of code, very flexible, and if claims on their site are to be believed secure too.

Just had a look at Cubecart as well and they've had a major update since I last checked. Looks like they've fixed a lot of issues with the old admin and have pimped up their default front end templates. Maybe worth a go for £150, for small stores. Their company forum isn't bad, though they don't bother to answer many replies themselves, and there's an active independent forum. There are some good third-party mod providers too.

I can't believe I'm bigging up Cubecart, this TradingEye thing has really messed up my sense of perspective...

[KerenA]

We're quite keen to try out Magento, though it's quite hungry on resources so needs decent hosting.  Anyone tried it here?

[samhs]

Yep - I've recently delivered a Magento-powered shop with several store fronts, tiered pricing etc. It's a total mind-f*** to get your head around to begin with, but starts to make sense after a while and is nice and flexible. Also, lots of extensions available - more useful if you're familiar with PHP (to be able to hack around) - I've had to fix a few of them myself.

After the learning curve, so far I've got no major complaints about it - it is big though, inappropriate for a 10 product site for sure.

[familychoice]

We're quite keen to try out Magento, though it's quite hungry on resources so needs decent hosting.  Anyone tried it here?

I tried it a few years ago and had problems right from the start due to the ridiculous amount of files involved. Each time I tried to upload it a file would be skipped, or the server would time out, or something wouldn't transfer properly and eventually it took about 6 attempts and several hours to get it loaded. Then when you're logged into the admin you wonder what all the bloat is about.

I then started to set up a custom template but once again the sheer number of files that needed changing, for me, meant the job would take too long and not be cost effective.

They may have improved things since, but the paid versions are very expensive. The free version doesn't fill me with confidence as they state it "is recommended for expert developers and highly technical enthusiasts and hobbyists in non-mission critical environments. As this edition is unsupported it is intended to be used by those happy to spend time and resource solving issues independently"

Which sounds to much like Trading Eye for my kidneys.

[samhs]

They say that to make people pay. Paid for is same as free, just with support (and some additional extensions that you can get free versions of).

[familychoice]

They say that to make people pay. Paid for is same as free, just with support (and some additional extensions that you can get free versions of).

I didn't realise it was the same core software. I'm almost tempted, but just checked out the online admin demo and see it hasn't changed much. The horror of all those template files is still too fresh in my memory, even after all these years.

[samhs]

Yeah - it takes a lot to get your head around it - not for the faint hearted for sure. Once you've overcome the initial bewilderment, it's pretty solid and stable, and *relatively* easy to template while being feature rich. Not for everyone though

[m00min]

My favourite Magento bug was that it wouldn't deal with ex VAT prices to three decimal places, this then caused rounding errors when VAT was added. I don't know whether it's been fixed in later versions, thankfully I don't deal with it any more.

[familychoice]

Yeah - it takes a lot to get your head around it - not for the faint hearted for sure. Once you've overcome the initial bewilderment, it's pretty solid and stable, and *relatively* easy to template while being feature rich. Not for everyone though

I don't mind getting involved in a new system, in fact I take a bit of pleasure in getting to know the ins and outs of a new bit of software and finding out how to make it work the way I want. The issue for me is how easy/quick it's going to be to update - what with all the security issues flying around at the moment, so the bloated template system does worry me.

How have you found it? Is it easy to apply updates or do you find yourself having to modify loads of template files and plug-ins each time you do it?

My favourite Magento bug was that it wouldn't deal with ex VAT prices to three decimal places, this then caused rounding errors when VAT was added. I don't know whether it's been fixed in later versions, thankfully I don't deal with it any more.

I remember all that, reading your Twitter posts on Magenta certainly hasn't had me rushing to download a new copy

[samhs]

I've found it to be fine for updates - a point release became available a couple of days before the site was due to launch - I have to admit to being nervous about upgrading it - but it was fine, no worries at all.

[familychoice]

I've found it to be fine for updates - a point release became available a couple of days before the site was due to launch - I have to admit to being nervous about upgrading it - but it was fine, no worries at all.

Hmmm, maybe it's worth a look again. I've recently turned down 3 ecom jobs which were destined for TradingEye, due to its security issues and nothing else I've used would have been appropriate. I need to test a few new options so I can be confident that they'll be good enough for clients so I'll give Magento a trial (assuming they've fixed the bug Moomin mentioned) along with the Wordpress and EE options.

[Whatever]

We built our site in Magento and are moving to osCommerce as Magento is a right royal PITA. The core functions don't always seem to be ones you'd expect and it misses a few ones you would expect.  It's very slow, we run it on a vps on its own with 20,000 products but updating them takes forever and the product import normally crashes 3-4 times before it works.

Jeepstone also mentioned to me that he had issues when upgrading Magento and it was breaking templates. Think he had a mare with it.

Mods aren't easy to come by, certainly not compared with osCommerce, we've had to have nearly everything coded bespoke.

[samhs]

Oh - I must agree about the product import. Until I applied that more recent point release, the import didn't work at all. Afterwards - it's fine. Maybe I got lucky

[Jem]

The newer versions of wp e-commerce are good. Uses posts now instead of custom tables, proper theme template files in the theme folder and has plenty of options. Few little bugs but nothing insurmountable.

[familychoice]

The newer versions of wp e-commerce are good. Uses posts now instead of custom tables, proper theme template files in the theme folder and has plenty of options. Few little bugs but nothing insurmountable.

Sounds good.

Trading Eye are still being a pain in the butt, and their inability to answer any question put to them doesn't help. Example:

Question: Is the official #tradingeye patch working yet, or is it still insecure and producing character issues?

Answer: The official patch is up to date but an update is due out shortly.

AAAAAAAAAAARGH.

[familychoice]

What do you think is best/most secure: eShop or wp e-commerce?

[smileeej]

Actinic: Tried it a couple of times and the PC based system destroyed my OS on two occasions requiring a complete system rebuild. Didn't try it again, though that was a few years ago now so they may have improved.

If you think Dpivison has bad support then don't try Actinic. The system is still stuck in the 90's but with more bugs than a field of cow poo. Their only answer to any problem is upgrade unless you are on the latest version in which case you need to wait for the next one to come out, another few hundred quid in there pockets!!

Cheers

Jerry

[familychoice]

Thanks for the update, sounds like things haven't improved much.

I'm coming to the conclusion that you don't get what you pay for and might as well go with open source, with the odd commercial plug in used to provide a bit of extra functionality.

[Jem]

What do you think is best/most secure: eShop or wp e-commerce?

Not used eShop to compare, but there have been a few issues with wp e-commerce and they were patched quickly.

[familychoice]

What do you think is best/most secure: eShop or wp e-commerce?

Not used eShop to compare, but there have been a few issues with wp e-commerce and they were patched quickly.

thanks, will give it a spin when I'm back online

[Jem]

Poke me if you have any quesstions - I know it quite well now

[familychoice]

Thanks

[Jem]

Unless your question is how to spell questions, because apparently I fail at that. o.O

[linesandlines]

Is it very mean spirited to laugh at what Trading Eye have been reduced to promoting?

http://bit.ly/o2c4Xa

Don't forget to get in touch if you like the look of it. 12 grand for a keyboard = full of bargain

[Dom]

Lol, look who joined the forums:

http://www.dotdragnet.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=4054

[familychoice]

Lol, look who joined the forums:

http://www.dotdragnet.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=4054

Great, love to hear what they have to say for themselves regarding their recent totally crap service and support. Fortunately they can't edit out any negative comments on this forum.