i'm confused! So Nina is the style.xd.com.au is that different than Catalook? Can catalook be made to look like that? I like the way the style store is layed out but playing with Catalook I dont see how I could do that. Any pointers on this area?
Netguy, I've just confirmed that the buggy implementation I've inherited is indeed Portalstore. So you can look at my first post in this thread for some user responses on the system. Sorry I can't tell you where to go and try it out ;-( codegalaxy, so happy
to see I'm not the only confused person! Nina, can you clarify, please? Thanks!
Oh I am really really sorry to confuse you.. Part of my input was to show that ecommerce does work. 1 - Style.net.au - is my own product I have paid to have developed from the original WillowTree Software - This project was started in May 2003 It is owned by
me, and I have the source code and files that make up this product and will further develop on a client per client basis. It is not related in any way to portal store or Catalook. It is a combination of functionality from WillowTree ecommerce, and my own product
ezistore, prior to getting involved in dnn. I created the look and feel of the interface and product display. In fact you can see how it looks for the time being on http://www.sensuality.com.au (adult products if it offends, dont' go there) but the client
loved the layout of it products and I worked with developers to create the look and feel. 2 - Portal Store - Purchased either very late last year or early this year - I have about 35 copies of it, none of which I could get working as per requirements or expectations,
so I have no running sites using Portal Store 3 - Catalook - Purchased in April 2003, and not able to use, but in September 2004 was contacted by Susanne from Catalook to look at her cart again. I have succesfully implemented on several carts now which are
not yet ready for release due to content being inputted. Based on the fact I have near completion - several sites, I will have links on my own site as they are done. My apologies for the confusion. It's not my intention, I suppose I have been trying so many
products to get them working for clients.. and hope this clarifies things. Nina
Portal Store can be made to work. We got ours running in about a month with a lot of customizing for our needs and including getting products loaded. That being said, I have to agree with a lot of the comments about the store, but I've found: 1 - This product
REALLY, REALLY needs a good manual to help you through the flow. 2 - I found the product confusing, but not buggy. Only found a couple of bugs. Storefront once setup, just keeps working solidly. 3 - Support is really over the top. In my experience, I found
small product improvement are quickly added, causing a new version for us. 4 - It suffers from being designed where users can add their own products like Snowcovered. This really does add to complexity of adding products. 5 - If you spend the time, only about
1 week for us, you can get a really nice looking storefront. Good design based on skinning would have really helped though. 6 - We are only running about 500 products, so for a larger site I cannot speak. 7 - Our feedback from our customers is that they like
the flow of the program. Unfortunately as it is a wholesale only site it is restricted to approved users, but a screen shot it here http://www.spinningwheelonline.com/portals/0/screenshot.jpg.
My own product / style cart - because he has 18,000 products and he uploads images via ftp and database via upload interface. It's perfect for what it does - depth of cataloguing product, you select the top category and if you had more subcategories below,
you can drill down. I guess it's more for people who have a product with many sizes but look the same. Here we can show the image with tech specs and sizes.. so if you can imagine companies with information and pricing on different sized products - this is
great for it. It's heavy duty - it works with his own system he's contsantly updating and never touches prices manually. Catalook - offers some nice cool features, like icons for products, different ways to display products, great *email a friend* feature,
referrals, and the option work and you can have many subcategories. I did a job for client that never went live because they couldnt' get content/product images.. the business change, and sadly their site wasn't ever posted live, it was very disheartening,
but 2 years down the track, they've now got the images, and I've taken them from the infrastructure we wrote for them and putting them into catalook - there about 2,400 products, 300 categories/subcategories - all ready, but never visible until products are
added. I can give the client a master xls sheet, which they can import into the catalook db, upload via ftp and click *import* and they have a fully populated shopping cart.. They are in full control. Information about a product in catalook is all there..
Show me a site in Portal store that has imported categories that have been successfully imported - I'm not saying that Portal Store isn't good, and it appear that the spinningwheels site looks lovely - but it took me 4 hours to build a cart with 2,000 products,
another few hours to skin it, using catalook - Catalook installs perfectly - Portal store doesn't - it comes up with hundreds of lines of sql code but we're told - that's ok, it's not important.. Getting 5 updates in 24 hours is great support, but it's telling
me there is something inheritently wrong - these aren't updates, they are fixes to problems - Have you ever tried to export your products from Portal store? Do you know which table contains it all? I'm looking at simplicity here.. I've lost time in doing my
own skin development and site development trying to get modules working, of which I don't get paid, and neither would anyone here, you just chip away thinking - I'm nearly there - but when there is a good alternative, why not evaluate what's out there and
make a decision. I was skeptical - really suspicious when I got the email from Catalook - I'll be honest, and thought .. it was so hard in April, what's changed... but kept an open mind.. and it's been fruitful doing so. The install, 22 modules - Not one error
.. not a single red line of code.. It is only a matter of week now, maybe even over weekend, after I have caught up from moving house and rebuilding my office, that I'll have my sites launched.. I'm happy to give people a little look if they email me, that's
cool to, but I just wish so much I could do my work quicker so I could my information out quicker.. There's so much to tell people, and so little information. On another note - I offered early this year to write complete documentation for Portal Store, and
I just checked the email response - it was.. - It is more than ample thank you very much -.. so the offer has been there to document their product. Maybe someone here could take on the task for them. I think Catalook is so good that my next ambition is to
provide Susanne with some nice skins that can go with the store, they are simple, easy to do and just changing a few images and lines of code make the a great looking site. I'll dig out my work in progress and post some links to show you why I like Catalook
and for .. 49US .. great value - I just wish I had the ability to code and output something like that. And please note, I don't mean to offend anyone or sound rude or abrupt.... I just have soooo many great ideas and experiences with DNN. And if it helps you
save time, finish a project, get a deal, learn something more.. then all the better. Nina Meiers
netguy
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