Why I'm Quitting Zen Cart

[mydanilo]

I have to add my 2c as well.

Here are my major points why I still use Zen Cart for most of my stores:

- Lots of features
- Plugins for many downfalls are available free of charge with support on this forum
- easy to make changes to code
- Performance
- SEO friendly (with CEON URL installed near to perfect)

Major points/features why I keep looking elsewhere:

- No guest checkout, mod that is available still does not allow guest checkout if previously registered the same email.
- No short checkout out of the box. Offered solutions were hard to implement, merge with other mods and there were security concerns too with it.
- price auto update on option selection
- replace main image with option image (swap in image of selected option), then carry forward to shopping cart. Say you selected a yellow t-shirt, you will see it in the cart (and not the blue main image).

Stuff that is a bit of a drag but not a deal breaker:
- slow development to a more modern system overall
- responsive base template with header menu shopping cart that shows # of items in it. Ann has created some cool templates but they are not easy to change. The base responsive is too basic.
- Better image management out of the box. Pretty much every system I look at has a drag and drop feature plus an media manager built in.

One of the newer solutions that I have been playing with is Abantecart. Absolutely great modern feel and easy to get going with. It has just a few features missing that bum me out. A good sale maker is one of the features missing. It is a pretty new solution and I'm just not sure how it will fair on security issues and long term development. There are a lot of SaaS solutions available that are strong contenders too. 3dcart has a lot of good stuff going IMHO. Tried to get a sense of Magento 2 but it seems still very daunting task to get the hang of it plus lots of extension are pretty pricey.


I so wish Zen Cart could catch up at a faster pace.

[mc12345678]

I have to add my 2c as well.

Here are my major points why I still use Zen Cart for most of my stores:

- Lots of features
- Plugins for many downfalls are available free of charge with support on this forum
- easy to make changes to code
- Performance
- SEO friendly (with CEON URL installed near to perfect)

Major points/features why I keep looking elsewhere:

- No guest checkout, mod that is available still does not allow guest checkout if previously registered the same email.
- No short checkout out of the box. Offered solutions were hard to implement, merge with other mods and there were security concerns too with it.
- price auto update on option selection
- replace main image with option image (swap in image of selected option), then carry forward to shopping cart. Say you selected a yellow t-shirt, you will see it in the cart (and not the blue main image).

Stuff that is a bit of a drag but not a deal breaker:
- slow development to a more modern system overall
- responsive base template with header menu shopping cart that shows # of items in it. Ann has created some cool templates but they are not easy to change. The base responsive is too basic.
- Better image management out of the box. Pretty much every system I look at has a drag and drop feature plus an media manager built in.

One of the newer solutions that I have been playing with is Abantecart. Absolutely great modern feel and easy to get going with. It has just a few features missing that bum me out. A good sale maker is one of the features missing. It is a pretty new solution and I'm just not sure how it will fair on security issues and long term development. There are a lot of SaaS solutions available that are strong contenders too. 3dcart has a lot of good stuff going IMHO. Tried to get a sense of Magento 2 but it seems still very daunting task to get the hang of it plus lots of extension are pretty pricey.


I so wish Zen Cart could catch up at a faster pace.

Huh, each of the why elsewhere search appear to me that haven't looked at what IS available... guest checkout: COWOA as far as I have seen, done deal and as far as understood about "short checkout" covers that as well (though there are plans afoot to shorten it's process by a screen at least).
Price auto update? Entire plugin on having that (remember not everyone uses attributes, let alone pricing by attributes). See dynamic price updater.
Image swap? Really, a simple javascript command is reason to dump an entire package? There's also a plugin that was developed years ago that still works on recent versions that does the image swap and carries it over to the rest of the cart...

[mc12345678]

COWOA
Dynamic Price Updater
Attribute Image Replaces Main Image

[mydanilo]

COWOA will not allow checkout without account if you have previously registered. I have many frustrated customer calls that struggle remembering pwd or fail to reset the old one. Make it easy, let them buy no matter what!
Dynamic Price UpdaterYes, I have used it. Should be out of the box.
Attribute Image Replaces Main Image

Used it too but ran into issues with other zoom mods and or imagehandler. Also did not carry forward the selected attribute image to the cart last time I checked. If out of the box we would not have to merge and toy/program around with it.

So yes, if you are an experienced programmer you can make all these mods work for you. Merge them, upgrade them, carry them forward with every Zen Cart upgrade. I dread it every time to merge them all into new Z versions. Sometimes old mods don't get updated or they conflict with others suddenly in new versions. That is the struggle and frustration that I am talking about. Every upgrade requires a careful rebuilt of everything if you have plenty of mods to rely on. If some, and I know some will, would become core I would be way more at ease tackling upgrades.

I wish Zen Cart would become a system with an upgrade path that can be handled by an everyday shop owner with basic to no code knowledge. Just look what AbanteCart has as front end functionality out of the box. Image swap on option selection, option dependencies, image zoom, dynamic price updater, cart in header (hover over it and you see what is in it), guest checkout possible even if registered an account before. Only complaint on AbanteCart is the checkout flow, still too long and no one page or shorter checkout mod available just yet. No sale maker ether. Here is a link to the demo store with a product with options http://demo.abantecart.com/shoes/new...p-flop-sandals

I'm currently working on migrating a shop to 3dcart for a client/friend and I am blown away by it. I get so frustrated going back to see what we still don't have here. Sure, 3dcart is a Saas solution and you have the monthly fee. I think the strong bunch of SaaS offerings are pretty fast eroding the free open source carts.

If you can't program/merge code for the needed functionality yourself and you end up hiring a contractor to do it, your cost of getting Zen Cart running will be quiet high. Also if you have a number of mods installed, every ZC upgrade is going to cost you time or money. You might as well just go pay a monthly fee where the upgrades are taken care of.

[swguy]

If you can't program/merge code for the needed functionality yourself and you end up hiring a contractor to do it, your cost of getting Zen Cart running will be quiet high. Also if you have a number of mods installed, every ZC upgrade is going to cost you time or money. You might as well just go pay a monthly fee where the upgrades are taken care of.

There is one thing you're missing here: with Zen Cart, you can build exactly what you want. All hosted systems have limitations that you can't customize your way out of.

Does hosted e-commerce make sense for some businesses? Of course. But don't act like you're not giving something up, because you are.

[mesnitu]

Now that I'm starting to understand this stuff, no way I'm dropping zen.

[mydanilo]

There is one thing you're missing here: with Zen Cart, you can build exactly what you want. All hosted systems have limitations that you can't customize your way out of.

Does hosted e-commerce make sense for some businesses? Of course. But don't act like you're not giving something up, because you are.

You are right on. That's why I keep pushing and rooting for Zen Cart to get closer to more modern carts out there. Zen Cart has a lot going for it. If you are knowledgeable enough, you can create almost anything. It's just not that easy to maintain after it has lot's of customizations. Wouldn't it be nice if a ZC upgrade with many plugins would be as easy as it is with a Wordpress site? Who would even touch Option Cart or Prestashop or Woocommerce (with all the expensive plugins) if ZC was giving us just a bit more modern stuff out of the box and an easier upgrade path? The few points I mentioned are really what keeps me even looking elsewhere. ZC is great once you have all your plugins running and the shop does what you want. Just hate every new release to hope and beg that all my dear plugins get updated. Unfortunately my programming skills are not good enough to contribute more. I'd love if I could. What I can contribute is my input on what IMHO would make ZC a better system that could gain more non programmer followers. I run my own stores and advice others on what solutions would be a fit. I found myself recommending other solutions more and more often these days but still use ZC myself. Funny, no?

[EyefulTower]

i recalled this thread today, can't believe so much time has passed!

In a nutshell, I had a problem I couldn't fix with my Zencart, I asked my web hosts who are also programmers to take a look but as they were unfamiliar with the platform offered to rebuild my site on their preferred platform, Opencart.

I paid them thousands of pounds and a year later I have a site I really like the look of but there are still a bunch of snags, they are faltering in fixing them, i'm happy to have a mess about myself but I can't find the info and the Opencart forum is no help.

At around the same time I tried to rebuild another site we have on Opencart (nice to have everything the same and learn a new way of doing stuff) but have since reverted back to Zencart.

So, my opinion as I now stand, Zencart is not as pretty out of the box, but if you aren't a programming expert it is miles easier to get the necessary information to get a job done using Zencart than it is with Opencart.

Your mileage may well vary but my experience so far is that if you hit a snag with Opencart, you may well find yourself high and dry whereas with Zencart it's infinitely more likely that you'll find the info or someone will be forthcoming with assistance.

[swguy]

So, my opinion as I now stand, Zencart is not as pretty out of the box, but if you aren't a programming expert it is miles easier to get the necessary information to get a job done using Zencart than it is with Opencart.

I am a programming expert. It is miles easier to use Zen Cart than OpenCart. :)

[cvhainb]

The best platform is you have the best programmer to manage everything on your site :)) Many sales => best platform