I have a client who uses eCC for quickbooks integration with their webstore. Originally we had them on the WP E-Commerce plugin, but the new version (3.8) is badly broken, and after a horrendous couple days trying to fix it I’m forced to abandon ship. So I went through the list of eCC compatible shopping carts hoping to find a suitable replacement.
The List
Here’s the full list of eCC compatible shopping carts from their website:
- Avactis
- osCMax
- BigCommerce
- Pinnacle Cart
- ClaimTheWeb
- Prestashop
- CRE Loaded
- Shop-Script
- CS-Cart
- Ubercart
- CubeCart
- ViArt Shop
- Interspire
- BigCommerce
- VirtueMart
- LiveCart
- Volusion
- Magento
- WordPress
- Mal’s eCommerce
- X-Cart
- OpenCart
- Zen Cart
- 3d Cart
- osCommerce
The Criteria
Open Source
First of all, non-open source carts were taken out of the running immediately, with the briefest of overviews if they looked interesting. In addition to the cost, I’ve learned from harsh experience that closed-source shopping carts are a nightmare to work with (xSilva anyone?). If I can’t get into the guts of the thing, its not worth wasting my time.
Pretty Backend
Since I actually have to sell this thing to a client, its got to look good. I don’t have time to do customisations on the admin area. Its got to be attractive and usable out of the box.
Good Documentation
Its hard to find, as many projects have moved over to the “knowledge base” style of not-really-documentation, but its pretty important. If the docs are bad or non-existent, its got to have a good forum and an active community.
MVC
Once you go MVC you never go back. Shopping carts are way to complex to use old coding styles.
The Losers
Closed Source and Closed Core Losers
The standout among closed-source carts was Interspire. I didn’t use it but it looks super slick. Probably a good turn-key solution (as if that ever really works). I also included closed-core carts (i.e. “97% open source!”) in this losers list because they tend to be just as useless as closed-source.
- Avactis
- BigCommerce
- Pinnacle Cart
- ClaimTheWeb
- CRE Loaded
- Shop-Script
- CS-Cart
- CubeCart
- ViArt Shop
- Interspire
- BigCommerce (Interspire’s hosted solution)
- Volusion
- Mal’s eCommerce (Free, but hosted only)
- X-Cart
- 3d Cart
Open-source Losers
Carts that made this list include those that didn’t make the criteria above and carts that are based on a CMS, like Drupal and Joomla. They may be great, but my bad experience with WP E-Commerce has soured me on those.
- osCMax
- No updates since 2010
- Drupal based
- Ubercart
- Drupal based
- VirtueMart
- Joomla based
- Magento
- A sea of terrible reviews that site code bloat, bad load times, overly complex markup
- WP E-Commerce
- I was really excited about this project initially. Latest upgrade (3.8) was a huge step in the wrong direction. I'm of the opinion now that WordPress is not an appropriate platform for e-commerce.
- Hard to customise
- Documentation has disappeared
- Basic functionality broken out of the box
- Confusing backend
- Zen Cart
- MVC based, but…
- Messy documentation
- Ugly, outdated backend
- osCommerce
- Also MVC based (Zen Cart was based on osCommerce) but again…
- Bad documentation
- Ugly backend
The Preliminary Winners!
I’ve narrowed it down to 3:
- PrestaShop
- MVC
- Small & Fast (according to reviews)
- Actual documentation!
- Active community
- Smarty templating (boo!)
- LiveCart
- MVC
- Passable backend
- Smarty templating (blech!)
- Concrete5-style blocks
- Backend not compatible with IE (uh-oh!)
- OpenCart
- MVC +L
- Here's a rundown of the specific flavor of OpenCart’s MVC: http://www.opencart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4113
- Very little documentation
- Feature poor according to (old) reviews
- Active community
- PHP templating! No Smarty to learn
- Really slick backend, the best of the bunch
- Lots of ajaxy javascript animations in front and back
- MVC +L
Now I have to download and install the winners. Check back for the grand finalist!
3 Comments
Open Cart is the winner for me so far, although I cannot close the door to zen-cart just yet…..it does have some functionality i can use.
One example is that it keeps the text field attributes the same in all products used. this means that with a little java-script you can do calculations, attach calendars with restricted dates etc etc….. I cannot do this in OpenCart or i have not actually looked into it yet. OpenCart 5 looks very promising and the VQmode add-on is amazing!
Opencart is very good once you spend around $150 in add-ons. You can do things x10 faster after this.
I also like Eclime, it comes 95% ready to use and looks good but there is no much going on with it , and no much support.
One new arrival is TomatoCart…..and now this looks promissing!!! There is a lot of buzz around it at the moment because it looks shiny…. but i will wait a bit until i use it.
Ammon,
Thanks so much for this great list!!
I am researching integration of instore POS + ecommerce solution. We mainly do wordpress development & would like to use a wp cart, so your article is very helpful!
Can you email me a link to the site that you are using this solution on? I would really appreciate it. I need to make a suggestion to our client in the next day.
I really appreciate it!
Thanks,
Lisa
Hi Lisa!
Glad you found my post helpful. I wish I could give you some happy news and a good suggestion, but alas my search did not go well. I tried all the carts in the winners list and several in the losers list and all of them failed in one way or another. Especially WP E-Commerce. I think it was the worst of the bunch. No wait, LiveCart was the worst, but WP E-Commerce came in second to last.
As far as I can tell, Webgility’s eCC integration software just works like crap. Expensive crap, but crap nonetheless. The interface is horrible and you have to manually adjust so many fields after syncing that it ends up being a big ol’ waste of time. Inventory synch works some of the time with some of the carts, but even that basic functionality is really iffy because it often doesn’t synch product variations, which means its totally worthless.
I did find one cart that looks really good: OpenCart. It’s fast and pretty and the code is great. If your client really wants Quickbooks integration (and can pay for it) I would suggest using OpenCart and contracting a programmer to make you a custom Quickbooks integration program using the Quickbooks Web Connector. A good place to start would be http://consolibyte.com/. Their website is messed up right now, but they do custom Quickbooks integration with OpenCart and they have a connector they are testing now. It only syncs inventory in one direction so you have to manually set up products. The quickbooks web connector is a mess so you prolly want to go with a really experienced developer.
Good luck!