Greetings to all, reading with interest comments on the shopping cart.
Over the years I've played in-depth with countless carts, both open source (free, at least initially) and commercial offerings.

My reason for posting now is to set out my take on the 'reasonable expectations' one might have of a piece of software, compared with the price or learning curve that the software demands.

Many many posts here take the approach: 'I want a simple cheap system that does precisely what I require'.

This is an impossible ambition (unless you are feeling really really lucky). The more complex the system, the more likely you are to get 'close enough' to your requirements after investing vast amounts of time or money in learning and configurating the hundreds of admin options that are presented to you.

We mostly believe our own requirements are simple, often because they can be simply stated (in forums such as this one) and because of course we know our own business intimately. We fall into the trap of confusing the simplicity with which a requirement can be expressed (often a single sentence) with the ease of getting a software company to fulfil our wishes. (Anybody remember the clarion call of ignorant managers in the 1980's when talking to systems guys "I just want to press a button ...").

In my business, I have a 'simple' shipping policy. It goes as follows: free delivery on all orders within my 'local' area (in the UK, defined by a list of the first 4 chars of the uk postcode, whats known as the Inbound portion). All other postcodes in the UK, a flat shipping charge per order. And thats it. So, nothing complex, surely? I'm not bothered about item weights or sizes, or the total value of the order. I dont calculate shipping costs on a product/item basis. I'm not picking up on-line realtime shipping rates from freight companies, nothing like that.

I just have this simple system.

In fact its so simple, why doesnt CC cart do it?

THe reason is easy: take 50 guys doing exactly what I do, its quite likely NONE of them work their shipping the way I do. Some will use the royal mail, some will use realtime rates, most would not offer free delivery locally, and so on.

I can get very close to my model with systems such as MIVA (needed a commercial add-on module to do it), and ZenCart (which needs a bit of php tweaking) and no doubt a few others. BUt its my choice now: do I use CC and change my business rules on shipping - which I might actually be prepared to do - or do I pay the price in money or time with a complex system which can configure shipping in many different ways.

Low cost commercial offerings (such as CC) have to work on the basis of grouping up software functionality in such a way as to satisfy their target market. THere are enough guys who are happy with no stock control, and who can operate inside the constraints that CC imposes.

Few of us will ever find, out-of-the-box, an ecommerce program that will mirror our offline business. We all have an indivual decision about the costs & benefits of a compromise between our sticking with our historic business systems, and the holistic 'bundle of benefits' that systems likle CC offer us.

So far as I can read it, CC made just one serious strategy error in the cart functionality. A lack of precise inventory control makes sense to me at the $49 price break: a great many CC users will hold no inventory (ordering from suppliers in response to customer orders). But ... many users who fit the target demographic (ie apparently small or casual traders) are in the market for one-off's. Collectables, jewellery, antiques, and so on. So the omission of a flag which would allow a product to be sold only once feels like an own-goal.

Just my tuppence-worth,
Chris

Chris,

Beautifully stated, and the best explanation so far to help everyone understand why limitations on such an inexpensive piece of software exist.