CubeCart to ZenCart - Experience with switching?

[LaserGecko]

Hi everyone,

I'm considering moving from CubeCart to ZenCart since it's certified to work with Authorize.net and GoogleCheckout. We ship mainly via USPS Priority Mail and FedEx.

If anyone could provide any thoughts or experiences with doing this, I would greatly appreciate it. How do they compare as far as ease of use?

I'm working on my ZenCart install right now.

Thanks,
Jason

[schoolboy]

The structure of the two systems' databases is very different, so it's not an easy task to bring existing data (such as product info, customer names, addresses and order history) across from cube to zen.

My advice would be this - so take it as a SUGGESTION, not a GOSPEL !

Get your zen store fully set up as you would like it to appear. Install with DEMO products

Install the EASY POPULATE mod.

Using easypopulate, export the zencart demo product database as a tab-delimited file to your hard drive. This will enable you to see the dbase table headers when you open the file in MS Excel. Keep the column headers, but delete all the demo product data underneath the headers.

In CubeCart, EXPORT the product data (probably best to do this using phpMyAdmin, and as a excel or csv file).

See if you can re-arrange the cubecart data to comply with the data arrangement in the zencart easy populate spreadsheet. Follow easy-populate instructions for uploading the tab-delimited txt file of products into your zenshop.

This will at least enable you to get your product data into your zen store.

Easy Populate cannot be used to port over your customer data. You may have to manually add all your customers or invite them to sign up a-new in your zen store.

Getting past orders from your cubecart into zencart is equally difficult, and may not be worth the challenge.

[LaserGecko]

Thanks very much. I've been looking into the Easy Populate mod. It might be easier to just copy and paste since I only have about 30 products. I will likely leave CubeCart installed for future reference and just "close" that store.

How are they as far as day to day operations?

At least the user forums are a LOT more active!

[schoolboy]

Perhaps the biggest challenge you will face after switching to zencart is having to UN-learn everything about CubeCart. Initially you may curse zencart under your breath as you try to implement a feature that you did a certain way in Cube, and not be familiar with the way it's done in Zen.

But once you've used zen for a while, you'll be glad you made the change, because of the logic of the software and it's enormous range of possibilities.

This forum is a vital lifeline to both newbies and gurus - and is probably one of the most well-supported forums on the www. I often wonder if some of our dev team members ever go to sleep. They seem to be helping people 24 hours a day.

You will soon realise that zencart is an amazing system - many say it performs better than most systems - even bespoke ones that large retailers spend millions on.

[LaserGecko]

This forum is a vital lifeline to both newbies and gurus - and is probably one of the most well-supported forums on the www.

I'm very forum-oriented. It's the best way to get honest feedback, answers, and they're usually blazingly fast. These forums are amazing. I'm quite impressed with the knowledge contained here.

Night and day difference compared to CubeCart's forums and technical staff. I know they're swamped and all, but it kinda seems like they would've had time since November to venture a wild guess at some basic functionality problems. :)