Re: [cobalt-users] Shopping carts for Raq 4

[Greg Hewitt-Long <cobaltusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>On Tuesday 14 October 2003 12:00 pm, Greg Hewitt-Long wrote:
>
>> How is security a pain?  FreeSSL.com certificates can be purchased and
>> installed in about 15 minutes flat.  You will need to have site that
>> require SSL on their own IP address to accomplish this, but this is a piece
>> of cake - contact your upstream about more IP addresses if required.  We
>> use IP addresses fairly fast - each of our "business" package customers
>> gets their own IP - this is recommended for anyone using ecommerce, or
>> thinking of adding ecommerce in the near future.
>
> I wouldn't use FreeSSL anyway.


Pick a cert - any cert - even thawte and versign certs have problems if you don't reconfigure your server to deal with browser screw ups (M$ browsers).

>I have already had a bad experience with
>off-brand certs not working in all browsers.


The new root offered by freessl will relieve practically all issues.  Just because your early experiences with certs fell short, does that mean you stop looking for decent solutions?  That sounds a little Neanderthal to me...

If everyone took that initiative, we've never have a computer, let alone the net.... I doubt you'd even enjoy the use of the wheel.... [sigh]

> A lot of digging found browser
>bugs to blame,


Yes - did you know that internet explorer failed to re-negotiate SSL session back with IE 5 and 5.5 SP1 - they fixed it in SP2 and then reintroduced the error in IE6 - this happens on ALL apache servers under *nix - you have to deal with issues as they arise - next objection please?!?


> but it was still a big problem when purchasers call
>complaining the certificate is bad when in fact it is not.


It was probably your server wasn't patched to get round the problems that occured, or you used really unknown root chains.

> I can't deal with
>angry store owners when something like this happens.  This was a saga and a
>whole other email.    


Sure - but don't put ALL non-major certs in the same box because you had a problem with some.

> > Hosted carts are not a good solution in ANY way, shape or form unless you
>> enjoy sending cash out the door.  The "cost" of adding a cart system to
>
>There are many affordable carts out there.  If you had looked at coolcart you
>would have found that it is very affordable to set up, annually it can cost
>less than the price of many certificates.  $120 per year to start.
>
>For a webmaster that has never set up a cart, spending days flailing around
>trying to figure out why they can't get a cart working can be more than worth
>the few dollars a cart would cost.


I don't advocate sending them down a route without help and support - if it doesn't fit your business model to support your customers, then don't.  I don't care if it's right or wrong for you.  I'm offering an alternative and MY OPINION.  My original post actually said - "imo" - or "in my opinion".

>
>With coolcart, you copy and paste a piece of cgi, make a few edits and it's a
>working shopping cart page.


Yawn - PayPal's cart works this way too... another bad idea.

>
>How much is it worth to get past the aggravation and get back to work doing
>the other things that need doing?


Who says that you're not being paid to do this work?  If you're being paid, then it's all work that needs doing.  If you work with a solution, you'll get faster - and faster, and faster.  It doesn't matter what solution you choose.  I'd just say that I owe it to *OUR* clients to NOT send them down a canyon without an exit strategy.  Hosted solutions are a blind road unless based on a solution that can be migrated - ALL proprietary hosted solutions are dead ends imo.


> Not everyone knows that you need to use
>ascii upload and set permissions on configuration files.


Who says they need to mess with this?  OsCommerce once installed is a browser maintained store - much as many others.  That part isn't unusual in the least.

>
>Even if they read about them somewhere, that does not mean they understand
>them or their ftp programs have the ability. You are assuming this guy has
>the same level of expertise that you have.


No - he asked for advice and a consultant - I KNOW he doesn't have the same ability.  He provided that information on a plate.  I never once told him that he had to this all himself....  please don't twist my words.


> If they were asking questions
>like this, he probably doesn't have your expertise.


I know.  I never implied he did - you made some leap from 2+2=4 to another conclusion of your own I think... you inferred something that simply wasn't in my post.


>Finally, if the customer can't afford a shopping cart.  I am not sure I want
>to deal with them.  Will that final check clear the bank?  Are they going to
>stiff me?


We offer another alternative - it ranges from $500 to $1500 and it's a "professional" solution - in my opinion, and experience, we have covered our bases.  We have used and discarded a LOT of hosted solutions.  Putting your cart into a hosted solution is a foolish move in my opinion - *UNLESS* it's open source, or easily ported to another host.  When Intel closed Icat down, they left thousands of customers high and dry - a lot of ecommerce dreams were broken and the proprietary solution left them no migration path.  If you want that business model and your customers inexorably tied together, I wish you all the luck in the world - let us pray you don't need to bail out solution - as you have NONE.


We have many clients, all have varying budgets, timescales, agendas of their own etc - we have a box of tools, and we try to apply the most appropriate tool for the job - this means we sometimes recommend a paid ecommerce solution (software, not hosted), and we have osCommerce as ONE of the tools for the other opportunities - whether they have money or not often isn't the deciding factor.


>I can get a coolcart setup in about ten minutes time.


About twice the time it takes me to install oscommerce on a virtual site.   Or are you referring to actually loading products and taking orders?  That's a little longer - using easypopulate, once the client supplies the product data, that's between 1 and 5 minutes for 1,000-5,000 products.

> I seriously doubt
>someone new to oscommerce could set it up in an hour or two.  It would take
>more time than that to read the docs.


That's not comparing apples with apples - you are experienced with coolcart.

I can deploy an oscommerce store with products in about 45 minutes and I can deploy an Actinic store with products in less than 10 minutes.  That's not to say a newbie could - by ANY stretch of the imagination, it's a learning curve that might need to climbed - the installation ISN'T something our customers worry about - we do that - it takes all of 5 minutes to install and we do it for free.

>
>As for the security being a pain.  There is more to it than a cert.  You also
>need a way to get the credit card data to the merchant that is secure.  Most
>merchants require someone to set them up with PGP or the like.  That's
>another 2 hour trip out to see the merchant to set up their computer and
>explain it.   Coolcart has a program they supply that handles this simply and
>easily. They download it from their email.  It also can use gateways.  All my
>customers prefer to handle this manually.


Merchant gateways are a decent way to go.  You sound like you walked around this block once before - let me enlighten you - we have too... many, many, many times.

>
>I am NOT selling coolcart and I don't get any perks for mentioning it.


Nor do I for oscommerce.

> Its a
>company I have used for years.


How many?

> We have a good relationship.


I'm happy for you.

>Americart is
>similar in most ways and also affordable.


Another no migration patch hosted solution right?

> Dansiecart is also an affordable
>commercial cart.


have you seen their site?

http://www.dansie.net/

It's very early 90's... sorry, I'd not trust my solutions to someone with such a background image

>
>I looked at oscommerce, problem was it was pretty much a database driven cart
>and it didn't fit our way of building web pages.




>  We want 100% control of the
>look and feel and database driven carts make that more difficult.


you didn't take the time to learn - that's fine.  Stick with your solutions...

>  Many of
>them end up looking like cookie cutter sites.


They certainly can.  For sites which need to look radically different, we recommend and use Actinic Catalog, Actinic Business and Actinic Developer.  Pick a tool that fits your way of working.  End of story.

>  Thats not the look we strive
>for.

ok - good for you.

>There are also a  few proprietary things we do with a cart, and oscommerce
>gets in the way of that too. 
>
>
>Paul Wilson
>webguroo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> - -

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