Thread

I’ve used EE on one site so far and think it’s ace, although v2 is looking even better as I’m a CodeIgniter fan.

What I’d like to know is what people suggest for an e-commerce platform when using EE?
I know EE has a module for e-commerce, but has anyone integrated OpenCart for example?

I’ve used the FoxEE module that integrates foxycart with EE. I liked it, but haven’t used any other carts at this point. Am interested in Cartthrob though…

foxee or any other system similar to that have never made me a fan - no matter how well they work (FoxEE does seem to work well!).
But CartThrob does look interesting - be interested to test that when in the wild.

At the end of the day though - typically i go down the path of if your building an ecommerce - go with a dedicated cart. if you want a CMS which might sell the odd tshirt, etc, then put up with the awkwardness.

I have not yet found the perfect mix.

Terrible name. Pshaw. You are incorrect sir, and I completely rebuke you.

That being said, I think you’ll get past the name.

First time hearing of CartThrob (terrible name!) looks fantastic though and is has relieved some of the disappointment over the ShopIgniter pricing!

I like the name - it’s corny, but also catchy and memorable.

Barrett, how does CartThrob compare to FoxyCart? Does Carthrob have any monthly fee, or is it just a one-time purchase price? How difficult is it to set up a payment method? I am looking for a solution for a very small store, maybe 15 items, tee shirts and cds.

Newton here. Barrett avoids humanity. I told him he has to spend some time handling support on the CartThrob forums and he told me:

it goes against everything I believe in when it comes to forums….. lurk quietly and never post.

ANYWAY. 😊 CartThrob has no monthly fee. It’s a one time charge of $100.

CartThrob has an auto-install system to do basic configuration. You can have a t-shirt store out of the box, and samples of other types of stores… software, donations, single page checkout.

It comes with several common payment gateways. If you use Paypal Pro, Authorize.net, TransactionCentral, SagePay, eWay, LinkPoint or Quantum it doesn’t take much effort. If you’d like another payment gateway, you can request one, and we’ll get to it in our own time, or we have a flat fee service for gateways that is very, very reasonable.

If you’d like to hear a bit about how CartThrob works, take a look here:
http://cartthrob.com/docs/sub_pages/choose_blogs_to_store_product_data_orders_and_coupons

Just started looking through the documentation and i want to say the cart looks great. I need to go through it in more depth, and probably buy a license and trial it… but finally a cart in EE i can see being of value.

Payment gateways -  being UK based - a lot of my clients like to go for their banks as processing gateways. So HSBC, Barclays, etc qre currently quite popular. SAGE/Protx you have already done, and glad to see your avoiding Worldpay!
congrats.

Am I avoiding Worldpay? Hm… We just basically started with the gateways we had sitting around for other things, and started adding more for our group of beta testers, based on their wants and needs. Beyond that, we’re kinda working on figuring out our next steps. I know Rob is anxious to get a few more plugins done, and I am too. We just have to balance our day now with continued CartThrob development, support, and existing client work. If CartThrob is successful though, it’ll free us up to spend more time on it.

I’ll probably start building out the next most requested payment gateway on Tuesday. Rob will probably continue work on the paypal standard stuff.

I use foxycart/foxee. Carthrobs looks pretty awesome, I’m impressed. I will see where it goes and probably test it on new store soon. Is is integrated with Quickbooks?

There’s no built in integration with Quickbooks. It wouldn’t be tough to output data for Quickbooks though, but it’s not a priority right now for us.

HOWEVER, we’re doing a full integration with Quickbooks for one of our clients, and we plan to use a vendor we’ve used in the past to do EE/ Quickbooks integration. I’m going to ask him how much for full rights to the source code so that we can sell a streamlined integration module. If we do get a full integration solution, I’m sure it won’t be cheap, but whatever we do it will be done well.

I tested the FoxyCart/Foxee combo and was pretty disappointed.  I found the module to be unacceptably quirky and was utterly displeased with the docs.

Cartthrob looks great and I can’t wait to get a copy and take it for a spin!  Unfortunately it will have to wait a couple months as my current workload is pretty intense—and the next commerce site on my docket requires a shopping cart with quickbooks integration.

I agree that the docs for foxee could be better, but foxycart if pretty good. The guys are pretty good with their support.

Since my company uses quickbooks too, it’s something I’m interested in even though I can pursuit it as fast as I’d like. I’ll let you know how things go when we get to it though. Backoffice integration would be killer. Right now it’d be pretty easy to output order data in a format that could be imported by Quickbooks, but I don’t like that. I’d rather do a streamlined webconnect method and pull info right from the database.

As for FoxEE/FoxyCart… I’ve used them too, and I think there’s a place for both CartThrob and FoxyCart in the EE toolkit. FoxyCart certainly simplifies PCI Compliance issues.

Thanks Leroy,

We have released build 036 of Foxee which includes over 100 new features, fixes and security updates. We have also overhauled our docs and have included a much needed setup guide.

We also will be announcing our 2010 Best Site contest, this years winner will recieve a iPod Touch!

For those of you that need quickbook support the guys at Consolibyte have created a great tool for foxycart which we will be incorporating into foxee in the future.

FoxyCart has put together a great explanation on PCI compliance, Integration flexibilty and the cost of running a e-commerce store. Certainly worth a read.

Common E-Commerce Myths

Congrats Chris on your launch.