Why I'm Quitting Zen Cart

[kobra]

more progress and roadmap info would go a long way to alleviate concerns and frustrations and avoid threads like this.

Has been an issue for a long time along with pertinent documentation
The dev team just seems closed to any ideas that would move them forward in this area

[kcb410]

Hello All,

I've been using Zen Cart since the fall of 2008 and I have found it to be a reliable, stable and headache free content management system!! It took me a couple of weeks to wrap my head around the file structure and admin set up but once I understood that and mastered the use of spreadsheets for product uploading I was good to go. It has some short comings but there isn't a CMS out there that doesn't. I'm not a coder so maybe I'm missing that side of the equation....but I'm hard-pressed to understand why I would switch to another eCommerce platform.

I also use Joomla and Wordpress for our business and other clients and the upgrade process is obviously a different experience. I'm guessing for most small business owners the lack of one button upgrade for Zen Cart and the extensions is a major stumbling block...If they or one of there staff members doesn't have the skill set to tackle the upgrades it would require them to hire an outside dev to handle the process which makes some people uncomfortable...I assume.

I don't fully understand Zen Carts Open Source business model but I would hope most people who use Zen Cart would make small monthly contributions and use the services promoted by Zen Cart ensuring it's viability. Software as a service is commonplace for most small business owners....

Just my two cents worth....

[Laki]

Hi,

I’ll let Zen contributors and developers to talk about features. Let me to leave my thought about modern design of a website.
First of all, the modern design is not a matter of the e-commerce platform but good ideas which comes from you or your designer and which can be transformed to php code. It means that the same design can be applied to the different e-commerce platforms.
If you want to stand out of the crowd with the modern design, you should either buy good-looking template or engage a web designer and developer to create that one. It means that good design costs.
In conclusion, when I talk about the e-commerce platform I would put an emphasize to the e-commerce engine and security as the core things. As for design, a website can be dressed in whatever you want according to the budget that you set aside for that purpose.

Best,

[carlwhat]

...I talk about the e-commerce platform I would put an emphasize to the e-commerce engine and security as the core things.

i would say this is a base starting point for deciding on any e-commerce solution. the question remains how does one make these determinations especially if you do not dig deep into the code? you have to base things on the success of the solution and what others say about the solution.

...you should either buy good-looking template or engage a web designer and developer to create that one. It means that good design costs.

i would not be lulled into thinking that you can buy a good looking template and be off to the races. i have purchased templates in the past that were 1.5.4 compatible and yet when i went digging into the code, the "designer" was still using code from numerous older versions of zen. meaning i would have to back-port those zen-cart updates. and then how secure is that template now?

one only needs to look at the success of a solution like shopify to see what on-line retailers demand and are willing to pay for a solution.

[Laki]

My point was that a specific e-commerce platform doesn't constraint you in terms of design replying that Zen Cart doesn't look modern. You can put your design on the e-commerce engine or in other words: any draft made in Photoshop can be translated to php code.
As for me, I'm very satisfied with Zen e-commerce engine and will continue with it.

[pricediscrimination]

Update Part 1:

Since starting this thread on October 22th, 2015, I haven't had time to explore other options.

Since then, I've reflected on that post and have more to add to the original struggles and reasons for leaving Zen Cart. I share this apprehensively because as emphasized back then, this is not a flame or troll post. Just venting some frustration and have greatly appreciated the positive reaction and insights so far. Just a few:

• It's crazy that clicking a main category does not show the products contained in the subcategories. The point of a category system is to organize, but shouldn't create more clicks than nessecary if the user doesn't want to narrow it down more. If you sell shoes, some are dress and others are trainers, but why can't we just see all the freakin' shoes when clicking Shoes? The point of clicking Shoes was so not to see Shirts in the mix!
• To truly get a product listed correctly (SEO, attributes, etc) there are just waaaaaay too many steps and clicks needed. All of this can just be handled in one place. Everything related to an individual product should be editable right there in product.php. Crazy that you have to go there, then adding to multiple categories needs to go to another place, then adding custom meta data needs another place, and forget about adding attributes! That's an entirely different place too. Adding a single product takes 3-5 times longer because of this.
• No tagging system. There is just no easy way to link similar products and make them easy to browse. ZC was started before tagging was really popular I guess, but it's really something that is completely nessecary for an eCommerce site. Categories are not enough, especially with the ridiculous problem from point #1 above!
• Seen it typed to many times here that Google doesn't really care if you have clean keyword filled URLs or not. That is total BS. If that's true, then why is it that a staggering majority of URLs in the search results are SEO friendly? Of course they want to see related terms in the URL. Not to mention that it build trust with anyone going to click the link. Instead of plugins that need updated and break when ZC updates, and have limited configuration, it should be part of the core, no? Even this forum has some keywords stuffed in the URLs - no wonder it's so googlable.
• Admin is not mobile friendly. Doesn't anyone check who's online and update their site on the road?
• How many people actually use Item Weight? Seriously how many of you actually go get your item, put it on a scale, then update Item Weight for your shoppers to see? It's great as an example or filler, but would be nice if you were able to add other things that are more useful for quick editing in product.php.
• The image management system is insane and takes too much work! Just uploading images to a post shouldn't be that many steps.
• Templates templates templates (themes themes themes) so hard to find good templates out there with well written code that look even remotely like they were made in the 2000s.
• Even customizing the breadcrumbs is hard. And getting search terms in the titles. As well as inserting content between rows of products, like banners, etc.

There are more that I can't think of at the moment. Most of the frustrations are of things that just take way too much time to do, in comparison to a wordpress or other CMS type of site. Let's not forget almost everyone here is using ZC to run a business. Running a business is already hard enough without having to deal with running a shopping cart system that takes to much effort to operate.




Update Part 2:

So here's the surprise. Despite frustration with the above. I have decided to keep using ZC for now. The reason why is because of the people in this forum. After starting this thread, there was one forum user in particular that when to my original Simple and Easy 2 Question Create Account Page thread and started hammering away at a solution. That person is mc12345678. He/She didn't have to help. They could have just replied with an unhelpful "why do you need that" reply, but that's not what happened. mc12345678 provided guidance for solving the problem.

Also, the replies in this thread. I don't think many other communities would have responded as well to the first post, but the users here chimed in with replies that were useful and positive. Thank you all for that.

So I'll continue to use Zen Cart and will help others in this forum as much as I can, as many here have given me answers over the years. Thank you for that, too.

I don't know if this is the right decision for the long term, especially if the software takes so much time to configure and makes things like SEO so difficult, but I am going to hang in there and stick with it.

Please keep the replies coming, I hope this thread will be helpful to others who are thinking of coming or going. At the very least if you use ZC, you can rest assured that you have a support system with this forum.


Cheers

[frank18]

....So here's the surprise. Despite frustration with the above. I have decided to keep using ZC for now. The reason why is because of the people in this forum.....

Cheers

Thanks and cheers to you!

ZC 1.5.5 is just around the corner nearing release date. I have a beta version running and lots and lots of things discussed in this thread have been implemented. You won't be disappointed though....

[carlwhat]

as someone who makes zen-cart work for a few clients, other issues that i truly find annoying and do not remember reading here include:

- code repetition. how much of the code is the same for pages like products_new, products_all, featured_products, specials, category listings? there just seems like there are way too many places where the codes is the same, and a better class structure could resolve these issues.
- in the same arena, having the same functions and classes in the admin side as well as the customer side. i hate that a function gets redefined depending on where you are in the store. the admin side should use all of the customer functions/classes and then extend for additional needs.
- finally, it would be great if the base package had an admin orders/edit orders function. i find the add-ons in this area bloated and a necessary evil. every time i'm forced to dig into that code, i am never happy.... and in the same vein, ensure that order totals get re-calculated after an order edit.

zen-cart's beauty is the ability to customize it. it would be nice if the structure made that easier.

[DrByte]

as someone who makes zen-cart work for a few clients, other issues that i truly find annoying and do not remember reading here include:

Thanks for the feedback!

- code repetition. how much of the code is the same for pages like products_new, products_all, featured_products, specials, category listings? there just seems like there are way too many places where the codes is the same, and a better class structure could resolve these issues.
- in the same arena, having the same functions and classes in the admin side as well as the customer side. i hate that a function gets redefined depending on where you are in the store. the admin side should use all of the customer functions/classes and then extend for additional needs.

Both of those issues have been addressed significantly in the in-progress v160 code, which can be previewed on github. While the v160 code is not ready for release yet, you'll see that there's been a lot of consolidation and centralizing of those kinds of things.

- finally, it would be great if the base package had an admin orders/edit orders function. i find the add-ons in this area bloated and a necessary evil. every time i'm forced to dig into that code, i am never happy....

I feel that pain. I'd like to find the time to overhaul that section ...

[lat9]

Update Part 1:
...

• It's crazy that clicking a main category does not show the products contained in the subcategories. The point of a category system is to organize, but shouldn't create more clicks than nessecary if the user doesn't want to narrow it down more. If you sell shoes, some are dress and others are trainers, but why can't we just see all the freakin' shoes when clicking Shoes? The point of clicking Shoes was so not to see Shirts in the mix!

I'd never thought about this until you mentioned it ... essentially using the categories as a product filter ... it makes a lot of sense!