Guest Alex Parker Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 I'm new to Cube Cart, and in fact shopping carts in general. As a web developer I do a lot of work with various CMS's and custom PHP/SQL applications. Recently I've been approached to add an upgrade to a client's website. It's all a bit of a mess at the moment, they've been waiting for 6 months and spent $15,000 on an online shopping site that has been developed more or less from scratch. At this point in time the system doesn't do everything they need it to do, and understandably the client is very frustrated and angry about the situation they are in. I've analyzed their system and their needs, and it seems to me that the easier solution is to switch to a shopping cart program. Even at the advanced stage of their project, I believe starting everything from scratch using a well developed system such as CubeCart would result in a faster, better and cheaper solution. The time it would take me to develop their existing system to a point of completion would to my mind take much longer than actually doing it all again with a system that offers all these features out of the box. Cube Cart appeals to me the most out of all the other systems for various reasons, however I do have some questions: 1. Can cube cart interface with the SecurePay payment gateway? If not, how hard is it for an experienced programmer to develop a module that will do this? 2. Can cube cart interface with an existing order and inventory system? The client's distributor has such a system in place already, and we would want cubecart's inventory & order list to match theirs at all times. If this functionality doesn't already exist, would it be difficult for an experienced programmer to develop? I am thinking it would be necessary to have some kind of seperate script that queries the distributor's system after each order is placed in order to update their system with new orders and update the CubeCart database with inventory details. These are my only main concerns. If these two items would require a significant amount of time, then it may be the best option to simply proceed with the development of their present system. However if it would take maybe four weeks of full time development to resolve these two issues then I would strongly make the case for Cube Cart. How much support is available for developers who need to write specific functionality such as this? I have already made a case for Cube Cart on the basis of not "reinventing the wheel", now I need to actually show that it would be faster and better to use Cube Cart instead of their current system. I know in my heart that is is the better long term option, but I have to convince two very skeptical people who have been shafted around for a long time already and who just want a working solution. Cube Cart seems to be that solution. Thanks in advance for any help and advice on these matters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jazzydan58 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 In short cubecart will be able to do what you want, for the modifications you need someone will be able to do it for you, try over at www.cubecartforums.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alex Parker Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 In short cubecart will be able to do what you want, for the modifications you need someone will be able to do it for you, try over at www.cubecartforums.org Cheers for the reply, I'll check out over there. Has anyone else done something like I need before? I don't mind developing it myself but if the rates are reasonable I might employ someone more experienced with Cube Cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jazzydan58 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 I presume secure pay is secpay? if you go to the homepage of cubecart (www.cubecart.com) and scroll down you will see all the supported gateways. The difficult thing maybe the existing order system you have but there is probably someway of exporting orders from cubecart and importing them into your order system (using CSV?) or if you get someone who is good at mods then they can probably link them somehow especially if they already have experiance of your systems. If you dont have experiance with cubecart IMHO you are much better of paying a professional modder as in my experiance changing even the smallest thing in cubecart can stop something else working and you end up going round in circles! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alex Parker Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 I presume secure pay is secpay? if you go to the homepage of cubecart (www.cubecart.com) and scroll down you will see all the supported gateways. The difficult thing maybe the existing order system you have but there is probably someway of exporting orders from cubecart and importing them into your order system (using CSV?) or if you get someone who is good at mods then they can probably link them somehow especially if they already have experiance of your systems. If you dont have experiance with cubecart IMHO you are much better of paying a professional modder as in my experiance changing even the smallest thing in cubecart can stop something else working and you end up going round in circles! Thanks for the response and advice. SecPay and secure pay are two different things. Regardless, is it hard to program a new gateway module? I presume theres a standard format for modules and its just a matter of knowing the right server to send the information to, and how to handle the response from the server? Am I assuming too much to say that Cube Cart has an API for this sort of thing? Secondly you are probably right about hiring a developer, or even a consultant (I could do most of the grunt work myself if it works out cheaper) I haven't had the chance to look through this whole site yet, what's the quickest way to get in touch with the right person for the job so I can get a quote? Cheers Please ignore the last question in my previous post - I got confused between this forum and cubecartforums (since they both look exactly the same) - sorry! Someone over there mentioned that custom add-ons will break support terms. I have a question about that. If any add ons were simply plug ins that did not alter the existing codebase, would Devillion still support the core application? I mean, Microsoft still supports windows even if you install a non-Microsoft application such as Firefox. I guess if this is your business model, that's the end of it, but how much discretion do Devillion use in figuring whether a particular add-on is grounds for denying support, where do they draw the line? Say if I installed Joomla alongside CubeCart, and made a Joomla module that interacted with the CubeCart database, would that be seen as a reason to deny support, even if the mod didn't touch the official code? Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jazzydan58 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 To be honest theres not much wrong with cubecart and I doubt you would really need support from cubecart directly, there are bugs and you can either wait for cubecart to fix these (check bugs.cubecart.com) or you can pay someone to fix them if they are important to you and you can't wait. Obviously once you have modded the original cubecart code to death (i am just setting up a new V4 store and I have 14 mods and counting) then its likely that these mods could interfere with each other and make cubecart break. This would hopefully be down to the modder to fix not cubecart/brooky as the mod broke the store. If you choose your modders carefully (someone with a good rep and plenty of experiance) then you wont have too many problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alex Parker Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 To be honest theres not much wrong with cubecart and I doubt you would really need support from cubecart directly, there are bugs and you can either wait for cubecart to fix these (check bugs.cubecart.com) or you can pay someone to fix them if they are important to you and you can't wait. Obviously once you have modded the original cubecart code to death (i am just setting up a new V4 store and I have 14 mods and counting) then its likely that these mods could interfere with each other and make cubecart break. This would hopefully be down to the modder to fix not cubecart/brooky as the mod broke the store. If you choose your modders carefully (someone with a good rep and plenty of experiance) then you wont have too many problems. Yes that sounds fair, I wouldn't expect CC to fix something I (or a third party) broke. My concern was just that if I only have a couple of basic mods that haven't broken CC, that if there is a core problem inside CC it would still get support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jazzydan58 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 If you did a clean install and the core problem was present then they will fix it .....it just takes some time, I think they have been a bit overwhelmed in recent months getting V4 fixed and bug free. like I said its normally easier to pay a modder to fix it in the real world of business and money. If a store being down for 24hours loses you £1000 because you cant take orders but if you pay a modder it can be fixed the same day for £50 its a no brainer really! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Alex Parker Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 If you did a clean install and the core problem was present then they will fix it .....it just takes some time, I think they have been a bit overwhelmed in recent months getting V4 fixed and bug free. like I said its normally easier to pay a modder to fix it in the real world of business and money. If a store being down for 24hours loses you £1000 because you cant take orders but if you pay a modder it can be fixed the same day for £50 its a no brainer really! Ok, point taken. I will be able to handle most fixes (if any) myself anyway, I just like to know the official policy on this that is all. It seems the general community opinion is that if you want something done or fixed, pay someone to do it. I am not questioning whether that's the right way to do it or not before anyone feels threatened or insulted, I am simply working out the lay of the land so to speak. Thanks for answering my questions, you've all been very helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.