6 replies to this topic

[tina]

One of my clients likes SquirrelCart, so we have almost chosen that shopping cart to attach to her Joomla site (the web developer has been using and attaching Squirrelcart to other Joomla and non-Joomla sites for a while now).

Before we commit, I am trying to find out more info about the product and the company - recent info.

Is anyone using SquirrelCart?

If so, what version, or are you waiting for their latest version to come out?

There seems to be only one contact person (emails/live chat), Jamie Whitney, who is extremely helpful, but notes that there used to be two doing that job.
Has SquirrelCart been purchased by another company?

Does anyone have the latest 'skinny' on this company?

Thanks for your remarks!

Tina

[Randy]

It doesn't look like anybody is using a current SquirrelCart Tina. Which kind of surprises me.

I used it on a site once, but that's been ages ago when SC was still in its infancy. Back then it was okay, though it seemed to get a bit carried away with url variables. That was easy enough to correct with a quick bit of mod_rewrite, but ultimately I needed a couple of things it didn't support, I couldn't find a 3rd party app to do what I needed, so moved that site to a different cart platform.

[ryanknox]

Tina,

I've been lurking on this site for a month now and saw this topic and had to join up and throw in my two cents (I plan on joining more discussions as well ).

I recommend squirrelcart 100%. I've been using the software for about 4 years now. I'm currently using version 2.14, but just bought 2.52 today. The newest version uses the mod rewrite that Randy mentions above and yes I waited for this version. It makes your URL's nice and pretty .

As far as the company goes, Lighthouse Development or ldev.com, I've always remembered Jamie and Rich being the only two. I still think it's both of them (don't quote me on that though) and I believe they've been extremely busy with the release of version 2.5.

If you have any questions about their software, I'll try my best to answer them for you.

[nethy]

I recommend squirrelcart 100%. I've been using the software for about 4 years now. I'm currently using version 2.14, but just bought 2.52 today. The newest version uses the mod rewrite that Randy mentions above and yes I waited for this version. It makes your URL's nice and pretty .

If you don't mind me asking: "what about it do you like?" I'm interested in knowing what makes people prefer one cms over another.

[ryanknox]

If you don't mind me asking: "what about it do you like?" I'm interested in knowing what makes people prefer one cms over another.

For starters, I only have experience in two online shopping carts, squirrelcart and os commerce. I took over the website development for my families small business in 2004 and inherited an os commerce disaster. My father had paid a "website design company" thousands of dollars to make him a website. The final product between the about us pages and the shopping cart pages wasn't seamless and consistent and it bugged the s*** out of me. I'm not saying that Os commerce is or was a bad product. I just remember having a nightmare of a time getting everything to come together and looking seamless and professional.

So my search began for an inexpensive shopping cart that I could integrate into any design easily (I guess you could say that was biggest preference). After about a week of research, I chose squirrelcart. Here are the reasons why.

1. PHP based cart
2. Works with Mysql
3. Used a lot of different payment processors, I went with authorize.net
4. At the time you had the ability to upload 4 different images for a product and auto resize within the squirrelcart admin
4. The sleek admin control panel<--very nice!
5. UPS online tools was a plus
6. Inventory and stock management.
7. Highly Customizable <-- my biggest reason why

I've been using squirrelcart for around 4 years now and the only bad thing I can say about the software is the ugly urls. As I mentioned above, version 2.5 takes care of that and writes the 301 redirects for your old URLS.

As with any tool, YMMV.

Let me know if you have anymore questions, I'd be glad to give you my opinion....

[nethy]

For starters, I only have experience in two online shopping carts, squirrelcart and os commerce. I took over the website development for my families small business in 2004 and inherited an os commerce disaster.

I've heard quite a few bad os commerce experiences. 0 experience with it personally though.
I'd imagine that it is really for those that want a lot of control over the code themselves.

[michael_ter]

I've heard quite a few bad os commerce experiences. 0 experience with it personally though.
I'd imagine that it is really for those that want a lot of control over the code themselves.

Personally I started with OSC. In the end I bought an commercial shopping cart because I could not get payments through my gateway. And now I do miss OSC - your can make nearly any modification you need and all for free - there are lot of modules and there is a huge forum. You shuold not be a programmer as there are instructions how to make modification.

The main problem with commercial cart is that sooner or later you will need modifications, so you should pay each time. For instance, I paid for the cart I am using $200, then I needed some modifications, I paid $200 and $350.