Zen Cart

[Guest bigfatmusicshop]

Hi All,

Please excuse my ignorance, but i am completely new at this and am trying to find a solution that will work.

We wish to build an online toystore, so we will be holding a lot of inventory.

The two carts i have narrowed down to are Zen Cart and Cube Cart. Until this morning Cube was my FIRST choice, but then i downloaded a copy and discovered that there doesn't appear to be any inventory management facilities. EG: To input stock levels etc

Also, the examples of Cube sites (live stores) are a little unimaginative (which of course is not Cube's fault) and dull.

Does the quality of the live sites reflect the difficulty involved in customising the design?

Or have I looked at the wrong sites?

Must also add there is a comicbook site that is fantastic (built with Cube), but it has been modified by a professional web designer.

Please don't take offence to my post, i just wanted to get some educated opinions on the features and useability of Cube versus Zen.

Thanks

(Hope you can give me a little insight to the differences and pro's and con's of both)

[Guest stormnebula]

I have no experience with zen but here's some info on cubecart.

A lot of the live stores just use the out-of-the-box layout. There are lots of ways of updating your cubecart store. Take a look at the hacks and mods forum.

Twisted, one of the forum members has submitted a tutorial that shows you how to completely change the look of your store if you don't want to use the out-of-the-box layout. There is also an 'instock mod' which enables you to add quantities to your products.

Another great bonus for cubecart is the support here. This support forum is great.

[Guest]

You might also want to check out this post:

http://www.cubecart.com/site/forums/index....833&hl=zen+cart

[Guest bigfatmusicshop]

Thank you!!

I'll download the mods and check out Twisted's 'How To Guide'

Hopefully I can show you a snazzy site in a few weeks

:)

[Guest]

I stuck with CubeCart because of how easy it was to get into the code and make modifications. As has been mentioned, most people just take the cart and add their products, without putting any though behind it. If you even put an ounce of thought into the design you want, you can come away with a nice looking cart.

Checking the "Show Off" forum might bring up a few different designs. Here are a few I found through that forum:

https://rt.genesysits.org/

http://www.gammaonline.co.nz/shop/index.php

http://www.thebrasschest.com/

http://vaxitrol.com/index.php

http://www.senecasmokesdirect.com/

http://www.bodyjaz.com/Qstore/Qstore.cgi

And my own site (just because I have to show it off once in a while):

http://www.dbookbooth.com

[Guest OskMedia]

yea its easy with V2 but is it with V3 i find it more hard like a cooky cutter still good coe but harder for the novice

[Guest]

The two carts i have narrowed down to are Zen Cart and Cube Cart. Until this morning Cube was my FIRST choice, but then i downloaded a copy and discovered that there doesn't appear to be any inventory management facilities. EG: To input stock levels etc

Mods available to do that. Lots of inventory = who cares.

Also, the examples of Cube sites (live stores) are a little unimaginative (which of course is not Cube's fault) and dull.

Clean & Simple. Looks good enough.

Does the quality of the live sites reflect the difficulty involved in customising the design?

Easier than Zen but not easy.

Or have I looked at the wrong sites?

yes

Just use cube already :)

[Guest]

also look at http://gbasp.org . That turned out nice.

[Guest bigfatmusicshop]

WOW!

[also look at http://gbasp.org . That turned out nice}

Fantastic!

Was that really built with Cube?

I'm impressed. I also realise that it will take me a while

to come close to that, but it's somethign to aim for.

Thanks heaps for the help. I'm downloading both V2 and V3 to see the differences.

Will let you know what happens.

:)