Guest Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 Hi folks, I probably won't be as active in the forums as I have been, and I thought I should let people know why. First, I want to say that this post is IN NO WAY a criticism against CC, Devellion, or the community. I love CC and I still think it's one of the best shopping carts available for the price. However, there are several limitations which have forced me to consider other options. Limitations which have been brought up in the forums (here and CCF.org) and were never addressed. The first nail in the coffin was in trying to fully integrate an affiliate program so I could offer different commissions for different products. Being limited to only 1 commission level for the whole store meant that I could not offer products from other authors, since I would have to drop commissions from a standard 50% (for self-published goods) to around 25%. Since affiliates generally expect higher commissions for digital products, offering only 25% commissions would have killed my business, which is mainly based on digital products. As an extension to this, being able to give every customer an affiliate link to the store would help generate some grassroots marketing (aka viral marketing). Grassroots marketing can be extremely powerful when done right. Alas, without a fully integrated affiliate program, CC is limited from this opportunity. Next, after seeing how much success others had when offering OTOs (One Time Offers), upsells, and downsells during checkout, I posted a proposal on the CCF.org forum to see if a developer would be willing to consider such a project. No bites, and therefore, no new feature for CC. Once again, business growth was stunted. And lastly, several others have asked for a different download scenario in which several large files could be offered a customer, very much like a limited membership arrangement, in which the customer is given login codes to access a special download area containing the digital products they've purchased. Of course, this would be even better if a recurring billing arrangement could be added, in which a customer's access to their products expires when their rebilling subscription is cancelled. In the cases when I've needed this, I've had to set up a protected folder and give all customers the same access codes, which isn't as secure as it should be. I understand that these features may not be for everyone, and this is why CC developers have not given priority to these requests. That's fine, and again, I'm not criticizing anyone for this. I'm just explaining why you may not see me much in the forums in the future. My business has a different set of needs, which I've found are not adequately served with a standard shopping cart. Every so often, I find myself thinking that if I could just devote some time to the project, I could figure out how to add these features myself. But then I have to admit that I'm not a coder, and this is not my business. Maybe someday, when I get bored from having too much time on my hands. Probably not for a few years, at least. For the most part, everything I need (for my business) can be served with a good membership management program, like aMemberPro, Post Member Pro, and a few others. To rebuild my business using a membership model, I would just package my products into 4 different groups. I'll probably price my packages lower to compensate for the limited degree of choice, but this may actually turn out to be a win-win situation. Only testing will tell. To offer physical products, which require shipping, I see that I have a couple of choices. I could have CubeCart available in a subfolder of my site, or I could list them on another site (like Amazon.com or LuLu.com) and let them handle the sales. I'll most likely do both. So that's why you probably won't see me as much in the forums. I'll stop in once in a while, and I'll definitely come back to post the results of my new experiment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degsey69 Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 People move on because the the product is just not right for them, or it was but as your business grows it needs more than is offered here. Cubecart unfortunately is not the complete solution and I nearly found myself moving away from cubecart. Fortunately I am now able to post on ebay my whole itenerary from the website and its because of this that I am keeping with it. Degsey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausy Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 Good luck Alan, I haven't been around that long but all the times I saw you on the forum you helped people a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robsta Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 Sorry to see you are moving from CubeCart You know where we are if you decide CubeCart is the best solution for your business again Best wishes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 I do see a time in the future when using a shopping cart will be the best choice for my "frontend", and I certainly still recommend CubeCart to anyone who should use a shopping cart. And as I mentioned above, I'll most likely keep CubeCart on my site (http://www.PowerKeysPub.com) to handle physical product orders. It just won't be my primary focus. At least not for the time being. At the moment, I have 2 websites that are designed to help website owners set up their business. http://www.KeyWebTools.com (a CubeCart site, and will probably stay that way) http://www.SpiritualBusinessCenter.com (a community site) On both sites, I will continue to recommend CubeCart. Again, I want to say that the changes occurring in my business are not a reflection of CubeCart, Devillion, or the community here. I just think I need to shift my focus away from the shopping cart and more towards a membership arrangement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brivtech Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Every so often, I find myself thinking that if I could just devote some time to the project, I could figure out how to add these features myself. But then I have to admit that I'm not a coder, and this is not my business. Maybe someday, when I get bored from having too much time on my hands. Probably not for a few years, at least. I was in that stuation, and started outsourcing the programming. The solutions provided met the specifications, but were not exactly as I wanted, there was little I could do about it, so I bought a few books on php and mySQL, and started to teach myself. Started by breaking the code down, looking for familiar things from the tutorials, and it wasn't long (year or so) before I became quite proficient in programming. CubeCart has been a wonderful teaching aid, and now I can write any mod that I please, and I'm even starting to develop new applications having recently launched a web development business. Not everything is straightforward, and I do struggle with some code at times, I wish I knew more about where to learn php programming. Having been away for over 3 months I wonder if it will take me a while to get back into programming. I did sftware engineering at University and programmed in assembly code and BASIC years ago on starting with my ZX-81, so I've always had a aptitude for programming. I think if you want something exceptional, you need to spend a lot of money on it, or do it yourself. CubeCart is excellent, but not [yet] exceptional. Creating one size fits all does have its disadvantages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 Hi Stevie. I know you've been experimenting with different carts, and from what I can tell, your business is one that needs a cart. I'm sorry to hear that CC isn't meeting your needs. I certainly do not regret upgrading to V4. I've been quite happy with it, although there were a few things in the beginning (like "Customers also bought") that needed to be turned off. Actually, I noticed recently that it was showing private products publicly, so I should have turned it off again. My experience with CubeCart has probably given me the confidence to dive into PHP code and consider how things may be changed. Overall, my opinion is that there will never be a one-size-fits-all cart, as Brivtech brought up. CC serves the low-end of professional stores, leaving many powerful features out to enhance the simplicity of the admin interface. I heard that JROX.com came out with a new ecommerce system that integrates their affiliate software with a cart and more. You might want to check that out and see what you think. From what I saw, they had some nice features, but the pricing was a bit steep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homar Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 I too recently moved away from CubeCart for my own site. I needed a licensing system, and although I could have modified CubeCart to perform this function, I just thought it would be simpler to use a script designed for this very purpose. I still love the simplicity of CubeCart and will certainly continue to work with it. I just wish the developers would listen to their customers and work towards integrating the features we're all itching for. Hopefully, the team will make good use of the survey. Devellion have the opportunity to be competitive again with CC5. I just hope they don't throw this away. Good luck Alan! I also took a detailed look into aMember not that long ago. I think it should meet your requirements well. 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.