Should I get CRE Loaded or X-Cart?

I posted sometime back about a E-Commerce solution. I'm using Joomla currently and was going to use Virtuemart as my shopping cart solution.
I've now decided that won't do everything I need and am mainly looking at CRE Loaded or X-Cart but am open to others
Two important things I need are:
Ability to link from the store back to my main Joomla site.

Ability to do multiple tax rates within a state. I live in Colorado and have one tax I charge inside the city I'm in, another for the county I'm in, then through the Denver metro area depending where someone is rates vary.

Ability to offer ebooks and other downloadable products.

I know CRE Loaded offers a content management system now. What is that like? If I choose CRE I may switch away to Joomla to that system.

Both X and CRE can meet all of your goals.

I prefer CRE...but that is me. I think most people just prefer the cart they have more experience with. CRE does offer a content manager version of the platform for sale if needed.

I have also seen a version called Joomla-Store which combines CRE and Joomla which might be worth a look.

I dont have experience with the downloadable products. You might want to search the platforms specifically for how those carts address download products to see what is easier to learn.

I would just go to the main platform sites and just try the demo platform and play with those for a while to see what platform allows you to make your changes and do what you need more quickly. People will tell you to use the carts they know and like the best, but you can see what is best for you with some time on the demos.

Zen Cart is better than CRE Loaded. Well if you can pay, then use X-cart. Paid stuff is paid for some reason.

i use joomla and use another paid cart for joomla. I suggest to my clients to spend some moeny, the paid programs are better, joomla is great for many sites but for carts i advise to spend some money, i dont know about x and cre, i use cs-cart, and like cploonker, people will tell you to use what they like the best.. there are so many out there. you have to do your own reaserch. what is good for one may not be good for another,

i dont see a problem though with linking back to your joomla site

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cploonker

Zen Cart is better than CRE Loaded. Well if you can pay, then use X-cart. Paid stuff is paid for some reason.

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Out of curiosity....why do you find Zen better? I really find them both about the same....but i have not done as much with zen recently. They came from the same two guys working at the CRE project...then they seemed a little different with the early zen...but then CRE 6.2 made CRE seem very close to zen again.....you can even change the menu style in CRE to match Zen a bit...anyway..just curious as to your thoughts on a feature on zen that makes it better.

CRE loaded has a shipwire module so if you decide to outsource order fulfillment and warehousing (its a hassle that can be avoided) its already built in.

Does anyone have any direct experience with the shipwire module on CRE? I am interested in your experiences or how you used it for your business.

A few of our case study customers use CREloaded and some form of the module. I'm not sure if they customized the module or use the stock install.

I'll update if I can find out or hopefully get them to respond.

shipwire.com/cases

If you're ready to invest some cost - go for X-cart. Their support is much better.

In case you need a hand switching to X-cart or some other one - try web service cart2cart. It will automate this process for you.

Hi,

You can manage CRE Loaded products, CRE Loaded product attributes, categories, manufacturers, orders and other things.
You can export CRE Loaded products into Excel file, edit it and then import products into CRE Loaded store - batch updates are so fast now!
Import products into CRE Loaded from your supplier
CRE Loaded product import is one of the prominent features, import from Excel/CSV into CRE Loaded in seconds
You can update your store product quantities, prices and other data using file from your supplier - just import that file into CRE Loaded

X Cart by far. Check out the features

Sorry, Have to throw another one in here. Web Niche Empire software is based on CRE but has many extras too. Have to buy it, but it has a lot of information on configuring as well as getting free traffic.

I haven't used x cart, but I have used CRE and Web Niche Empire. Both Are good.