X-Cart forums

[ezi designs]

Hi all

In an effort to better understand X-Cart and in an effort offer a few missing mods alond the way, i am asking for you all to update me on what you would consider 'your' most sort after mods or mods that would be very helpful to everyone.

If i can find out, then i may be in a position to develop these with the help of the experts around here.

This is not a marketing campain of any sort, just a way to get under X-Carts skin and offer more to a already wonderful shopping cart that can only be made better.

If you are a moderator on here, maybe you can help by pinning this to the top of the page.

Richard

[balinor]

I'll actually move it to Third Party Mods. I'll tell you one mod that would make you a million bucks...X-Cart Pro with multiple shipping origins. A gift wrap mod would also be very helpful.

[groovico]

Here's some thoughts for you:


The following have always needed addressed for a proper modern ecommerce system:


PARTIALLY SHIPPED ORDERS:
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Partially shipped orders, theres no real way of dealing with this properly in x-cart, this shouldn't be done by modifying the existing order system it should be done as an extra clean addition to it via a seperate table and customer information display where the order would be marked Partially Shipped, with a link to what was shipped and what is still waiting.

X-cart tend to cause alot of thier own problems by changing the workings of the cart and over complicating simple proceedures, the above should be done adding ONE extra flag to the order status, then having a completely seperate table and area for dealing with the partial shipments to avoid causing upgrade problems later.


VOID or paritally refunded orders:
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Being able to ADD a negative order, for example a customer bought $100 of goods, but one item worth $10 was refunded while the rest was shipped.

We should be able to ADD an order to the system for -$10, this keeps the figures in the cart system correct, the customer recieves an reciept for -$10 too.

It's such a simple way of doing things, i've never understood why x-cart doesn't allow this. It's a massive oversight for such a simple fix.


X-AFFILIATE:
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A better affiliate mod (x-affiliate is very basic), we've been asked many times over the years to code an affiliate system for x-cart, we ( www.firetanksoftware.com ) have always had a company policy not to duplicate x-cart's efforts so we have never undertaken this. X-cart really could do with reworking x-affiliate, it needs a better way of handling payments to affiliates, it needs proper accounting for affiliate payments, better faster ways of dealing with products affiliate want to sell etc


CHECK OUT
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It's about time we had a one or two page checkout, there's been plenty of sites out there that have managed this, x-cart still has a poor way of thinking about thier checkouts, the fast lane one was an improvement, but far from ideal.

If a user has an account and is signed in, they should be able to go straight to a page which has the shipping selection, notes selection and a PAY NOW selection. which takes you either to a payment gateway or the credit card screen.


IMPORT SCREEN
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The Import screen in 4.1.X.... is the work of a programmer, whilst impressive technically, from a general user point of view it's pretty much a nightmare to even look at let alone work.


PRODUCT ADDITION SCREEN:
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It's slow and very clumsy to add products in x-cart via the interface, theres too many screens, too many screen refreshes. At the very least it should have a QUICK add screen which lets you do the basics of

adding a thumbnail,
adding the detail images,
adding the title,
the descriptions,
prices,
tax,
categories
Options
wholesale prices

All of the above could be done easily on a single user friendly screen using either ajax, javascript or a series of iframes, without all this going back and forth.



RETURNS MOD:
----------------------
Honestly... from a customers point of view, x-carts version is frustrating, confusing and poorly implemented, the sites we've install this on customers don't like to use it, it's too hidden and poorly thought out and customers resort to emailing even after you give them step by step descriptions of what to do 8 out of 10 customers fail to work it.

From the admins point of view it's far too basic and limited, again it should be linked to a void or partially refunded mod.


SUBSCRIPTIONS
-------------------------
Again a built in feature of x-cart that has had very little work done to it and is basic to say the least


Uploading product images:
-------------------------
The renaming x-cart does is a major pain in the ass, sorry to say it but it really is. An option is needed where x-cart will accept and upload using the original file name.



The irony here is x-cart is already fantastic, feature full and will do much of what almost everyone needs already.

We've been working with x-cart for years now with customers all around the world the same issues are always brought up again and again. We've done alot of development over the years but the above we've not tackled yet as we tend to focus on bolt ons rather than mods.

[ezi designs]

Hi Balinor & Groovico

Balinor i take on board what you have suggested and see if i can get a little more info on your suggestions. Can you elaberate a little more what is no included in the Pro version.

Groovico, thanks for the detailed information and i take on board what you say.

One question i must ask, do you think that there will be any upgrade to the current version of 4.1.3 in the very near future. I only ask as i would be a shame to put so much effort in only to find out that any upgrade may include such suggested additions.

Thanks

Richard

[groovico]

Originally Posted by ezi designs

Hi Balinor & Groovico

Balinor i take on board what you have suggested and see if i can get a little more info on your suggestions. Can you elaberate a little more what is no included in the Pro version.

Groovico, thanks for the detailed information and i take on board what you say.

One question i must ask, do you think that there will be any upgrade to the current version of 4.1.3 in the very near future. I only ask as i would be a shame to put so much effort in only to find out that any upgrade may include such suggested additions.

Thanks

Richard

Richard,

The above have been an issue for years, I'm not sure why x-cart have never looked into those sorts of elements.

Balinors suggestions of a gift wrap mod and multiple shipping mod (this ones been attempted by several developers in the past already in various styles) have also been requested for a long time.

You can always ask x-cart directly, and you probably should before you start coding anything if you think it may be included in x-cart 4.1.4. The 4.X branch has been plagued with issues since it's release, there was a time when development on 4.0.X stopped while x-cart fought the bugs. 4.1.X is such a drastic change it should have been called x-cart 5 as they started fixing many shortcomings in the 4.0.X architecture.

3.5.X branch was actually and still is incredibly stable, 90% of our own clients still run on 3.5.X branch because it does the job and many have sites generating close to 7 figures, that says alot for x-cart 3.X .

[ezi designs]

Thankss for your advise.

After asking the question about future upgrades low and behold the question was answered, now all i have to look at is 4.1.4 to see if it is a big change.

This thread may take a while to get going as i was expecting a few more suggestions really, but both of you have give me food for thought and for that i thank you.


Richard