Looking For Integrated Shopping Cart Solution

[jskp]

I have outgrown my current shopping cart and am now searching for a flexible, simple to use, easy to maintain e-commerce solution that includes the following features:

1) Shopping Cart
2) Inventory Tracking
3) Order Management

I am currently using a very simple (but great starter) web-based cart called ASecureCart. I am also looking for a good accounting package to make my life easier when tax time comes around.

Currently, I am doing everything manually in spreadsheets including inventory tracking, accounting and order management and it is getting to be too much.

I have looked into going with Volusion and like the variety of features that it offers but find that it is not very flexible when it comes to layout. I would be limited to using Volusion's product layout templates...

Any guidance would be MUCH appreciated!

[dvdtvshows]

Take a look at ProStores (used to be Kurant StoreSense).
It is an adequate package.
The only big drawback is that it does not use W3C compliant html.
We use it at http://www.dvdtvshows.com and our hosting company http://www.serrahost.com/ does not charge any per transaction fees the way ebay hosting wants to...

[JPnyc]

Well that's only a big drawback if it doesn't actually display in all the major browsers. You can write code that won't validate by way of the w3c validator, but will display fine in every known browser out there.

[Barney Stone]

I don't think you will find one solution that will include both a good shopping cart and a good order management system, at least not in a small business price range. Software companies usually specialize, and for whatever reasons, shopping cart companies are not good at creating order management programs, and vice versa. I don't think I'm allowed to name the solution that we offer in this forum, but if you search Google or Yahoo for "order management software" you will find several solutions, including some that work with a wide variety of shopping cart systems. Some are even designed and priced for small but growing ecommerce companies. And some combinations of shopping carts and order management systems are able to do some pretty sophisticated inventory management. With a little bit of research you should be able to find a combination that will work for you.

[upswing]

A good shopping cart fairly complete with many extras is Interchange. It used to be part of the red hat installation. A download can be found at http://www.icdevgroup.org/

[InfoSourcing]

Well it looks like you are looking for integrated "all-in-one" software or enterprise solution, and if you have/need 5 users then it is worth investigating into Netsuite or Everest or Interprise suite all of them have integrated ecommerce, Inventory mgmt, Order mgmt and accounting but again price is a factor to consider but you could certainly see Interprise from price point, shop around with a budget in mind ...

[SBasket]

Beanbasket.com offers a shopping cart that has inventory tracking. If you use Order Motion, they have the ability to integrate it.

[KCI Web]

I agree with Barney above. There are no all-in-one solutions that work out of the box - at least I haven't found any yet. Netsuite may, but it is very pricey. Stay away from Icode (Everest) - the company is not going to offer good support. Interprise is too new and I would let it mature for another year at least. Order management can best be dealt with through www.*********.com with their product Order Manager. It is the most complete solution I have seen at a reasonable price. They have excellent support and are always improving the product. Go to their website and go right to their user forum linked from their home page and you will see a lot of users as well as their tech support helping each other. - a rare find! I have been using it for 2 months and can always get support issues dealt with quickly- usually with a phone call.

It works with all the major shopping carts. Give them a call
www.*********.com

[TipPro]

Just out of curiousity KCI Web, what eCommerce shopping cart platform does your Web site use? Can you provide a url to your Web site?

[KCI Web]

We use a web language called WEBDNA - formerly webcatalog, from Smith-Micro. It may lose its support and there aren't a lot of users left, but it fit our needs. It allows very fast searches on unlimited fields and combination of fields. Most of the out of the box shopping carts are very limited in what they allow as far as inventory records. WEBDNA runs the site largely in memory cache and so the searches are lightning fast - which our customers appreciate. It is a language written specifically for the web.

PHP is very similar and has a very large user base and lots of coders and so, I would recommend it for anyone starting out on a custom site. OScommerce seems like a good PHP out of the box shopping cart for open source folks, but I haven't looked too closely into it. When I find a .NET solution that really works right and is backed by the right company, I will switch.

For accounting, we have a bookkeeper who uses quickbooks- www.*********.com integrates with quickbooks, but we just give our bookkeeper daily reports and she does the rest. Then passes the information back to me weekly and to the accountant at tax time.
As to my URL, i prefer to be anonymous.

My advice to newbies and otherwise:
Be very careful of companies that want a piece of your business, like SEO outfits and big software companies that want to jack their pricing up after you are beholden to them. Look for support -especially a public user forum- for any software or service you are considering.
Good luck!

[TipPro]

So KCI Web, do you export your orders from your Web store and then import those orders into the Stone Edge software?

How do you relay information (such as order tracking) back to your customers on your Web site?

[KCI Web]

We import the orders from the website right into order manager several times a day. It is still a little convoluted since we have a custom site and are in the process of rewriting our order export to make it easier, but eventually it will be a one or 2 button process - as it is for those with standard carts.

All orders are emailed when we process them initially as to their order status. They are emailed again when we have charged them and are shipping (we charge everything in house - no pre-auths on our site). Ordermanager has built in email templates (customizable) so emailing from the order is super easy. All tracking information is automatically emailed from Worldship, Fedex and dazzle. In addition, Although we haven't set it up yet, www.*********.com has a service whereby you can automatically export all processed order information right to their site and point your customer there ( on a page you design so it looks like your site) for total order status which includes expected ship date- or actual ship date with tracking link.

[noblenull]

Does anyone else think KCI Web is pushing Stone Edge a little too much? Joined the forum just a few days ago, and every post has been pushing Stone Edge. Just an observation to be careful where you are getting your opinions from...I don't have an opinion either way on Stone Edge.

I've been searching for exactly what you describe for the past 3 years. I've been keeping my eye on Atrex since they integrate with osCommerce, and have a version 12 coming out in the next few months. I've also looked into New Haven Software, Dydacomp, CoLinear, Stone Edge, Interprise Solutions, NetSuite, Everest, Coresense, etc. None of them have all of the features I'm looking for, or are way out of the reach of a small business.

In the open source world, keep an eye on OpenBravo. They seem to be on the way up, and gaining some attention. www.openbravo.com

[KCI Web]

"Does anyone else think KCI Web is pushing Stone Edge a little too much? Joined the forum just a few days ago, and every post has been pushing Stone Edge. Just an observation to be careful where you are getting your opinions from.."

noblenull, I resemble that remark. ;)
actually, i think Stone edge has a horribly ugly interface- very microsoft. The inventory listing area is not good enough for our use as we need more custom fields (you can add 16 custom ones, ,but only 4 text) and we are developing our own on line inventory records that we will then import into order manager instead of trying to export the other way. Some listings are kind of slow even though we have gigabit ethernet now - just a microsoft Access thing. But they have done such a beautiful job of putting in features that small ecommerce retailers like myself need, it just works - and has support! and a public forum from their homepage!
From 1996 to last Feb, I was on a program called PIMS professional inventory management System www.executron.com and they offered no ( zero, zilch) support. The program served me well but I never knew if it would crash and then had to try to contact them and, when I would get them they would give me the usual condescending support attitude - I hated having my business dependent on those a--holes. I'm happy to have reasonable people i can call and get answers from with no attitude.
That being said, I'm game for a better solution, it's just so hard to find the truth about any of those programs and often it is not about the layout and functionality of the programs (icode should work great, but...) but about how buggy they really are and how lousy their support is. You can only get that from users.

I live on my backoffice program - it has to work. Let me know if you find a better one because i am all about improving my business and will jump in a minute for the right product.

[Gary Harrison]

I've also looked into New Haven Software, Dydacomp, CoLinear, Stone Edge, Interprise Solutions, NetSuite, Everest, Coresense, etc. None of them have all of the features I'm looking for, or are way out of the reach of a small business.


Hi Nobelnull,

Where did we not meet your expectations? Were we missing a feature you need or out of your reach?

[TipPro]

i think Stone edge has a horribly ugly interface

I believe Stone Edge's interface is a little intimidating for the average user at first. I am sure after a couple days of use this intimidation is completely gone, but this initial intimidation is what may persuade someone to choose another similar program such as ShipWorks over Stone Edge.

By the way, more on topic of this thread...

I am familiar w/ NetSuite solution and it definitely can handle everything but lacks the ability of being completely customizable. NetSuite is working towards allowing users to customize everything but it is understandably hard. If everyone customizes their solution in completely different ways, it makes it a nightmare to roll out software updates.

For example... Miva Merchant allows for a ton of customization but when Miva decided to have a major software upgrade they had to release pretty much a new separate program. So if you wanted the update you had to rebuild your Web site on the upgraded software.

[noblenull]

Where did we not meet your expectations? Were we missing a feature you need or out of your reach?

Gary,
As far as I'm concerned, your product is not ready for a production environment. The functionality you promise sounds like it will fit the bill, but at this point I'm not going to take the risk of investing in your product.