I have pondered this post for a long time – I expect a certain amount of abuse because of my opinion and I can deal with that – but I stand by my statement – the internet needs to be rid of osCommerce and that goes doubly for it’s bastard love children XCart, CRE Loaded and Co.
I found myself in a strange place a few weeks ago when three customers all running different shopping carts all needed template tweaks, modules coded and shops maintained so I am not just talking out of my arse when I say that the old shopping carts are quite frankly crap.
To go from working on a Shopify template to trying to line up pixels in XCart is like leaving a massage and dragging your naked carcass Bruce Willis style through broken glass.
To go form adding products in an Interspire shopping cart to adding products in osCommerce is no different to eating at Rockpool and having 2 minute noodles for desert.
I don’t mean to slam all the hard work that has gone into what where tremendous shopping carts. Some great coding was done and for a long time it was the best shopping cart available. Those days have well and truly past and the mere existence of these second rate shopping carts is holding back the internet experience for a planet of online shoppers.
I have a new rule – if your shopping cart is osCommerce, XCart, Zen Cart or CRE Loaded I will not buy form you. If you don’t care enough about your products to present them properly I just don’t want them.
I know it seems harsh sticking the knife into a product I used for free for so long but I also believe it is time to start cleaning up the internet. No more Internet Explorer 6, no more java applets and no more old, bloated, 35 click shopping carts with awful or no templating system.
The rant could go on and probably will in the comments but for now I will leave you with a task. Click your way through the osCommerce Live Shops Directory the head over to shopify.com and tell me which website sthe internet is better off without
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi
I agree that changing the "template" on an oscommerce site can be a pain in the a***. But… I run b2b and retail sites using osc and I wouldn't *dare* hand over the hosting of my store to another business I have no control over. I can move my source code to another server today if I want, but not so with Shopify. Sure my provider might go down, but the impact will be minimal…I do backup
I would be curious to know if the underlying code in Shopify can handle only allowing prices to be viewed by customers with validated accounts (as necessary with b2b), including VAT calculations for intra-community transaction when a customer has a valid VAT number, for example.
I know where you're coming from about lining up pixels tough
Yeah I tend to agree when it comes to self hosted software, you just have more control. I think going with something like Magento or Interspire is much better than oscommerce.