August 29, 2005

Sunshop Shopping Cart Review

We've just finished another client's website utilizing TurnkeyWebTools' Sunshop Shopping Cart. As many of us need a good, reasonably easy-to-use and user-friendly shopping cart that is as search engine friendly and configurable as possible, I thought I'd do a review.

One caveat about Sunshop 3.x: the checkout sequence is not secure until the third page (where credit card info is requested). This has been corrected in Sunshop 4 (released August 6, 2007) and, as promised, I'm noting that here. Sunshop 4 has a lot of other truly excellent features, including handling themes/design like WordPress does, by providing .html files that can be edited and uploaded (they can still be edited in the admin panel), allowing multiple image sizes and extra images, and other features that no longer require customization. I'm working on a website now with SS4 and will post a review once I'm done — but it's quite elegant and much easier to work with. -Diane

Installation and Visuals

The latest version of Sunshop includes a php page to upload and access via browser, after which it ran through a test and output results that tell you which version of an encrypter needs to be installed. Note: because Sunshop is (according to their site) "98% open source", a programmer friend suggested that the encryption is likely utilized for the two percent that is not open source. Fair enough; I just wanted a good shopping cart, and there's plenty of code there to read if you so desire.

Configuring Sunshop

I've not installed OSCommerce (that, or something like it, are next), but the initial appearance of Sunshop is very similar: right and left columns filled with all kinds of boxes of stuff; middle column for products. My experience with such software (including blogs) is that it can take five or so minutes to install the software, and then next 20-30 hours to redesign and configure it.

For instance, after selecting an item from an index page of thumbnail images, many shopping carts take you to the product page which displays, in all its miniscule glory … the same thumbnail. In my view, an individual product page isn't the time to redisplay an already-seen thumbnail, nor the time to assume people have enabled JavaScript so that they can view the larger product image in a popup. In my experience, many people (I'd say most) don't know what a browser is, let alone JavaScript, and won't know why popup windows don't pop up; they'll just assume the site is either broken or too hard to understand (worse, from a sales point of view, as the customer has now been made to feel stupid). In my view (and in my preference), a product page is a clear indication that the time for cute HTML tricks has passed. It's time to entice and to sell. Thus, product page = large image. And all the work that that implies to make it so. <grin> Anyway …

Sunshop uses a gigantic template that contains seemingly every feature used anywhere in the cart. For those willing to face down dragons with a toothpick, you can download the template via the Control Panel, edit it, and re-upload. For everyone else, you can edit pieces of the main template (header, footer, various pages, etc.) via the Control Panel. And you'll likely be happy that, during install, Sunshop has detected and set itself to various server configurations, like the presence, configuration and location of cURL (making it, so far as I could tell, unnecessary to have one header with http links and another for secure https links).

In my case, liking the software as I do, I rewrote some of the CSS so that I could use my "templates" in Sunshop and just drop "my" Sunshop CSS into any site's external CSS file.

Sunshop also has other features, like being able to assign groups, set up affiliates and discount coupons, but I haven't used these. It also creates packing slips. Best of all was a new feature re shipping. Last time I set up a shopping cart, I had to sign up the client at a major shipping venue (UPS?) and input his client account number into the shopping cart. (Can you feel your web designer time burning up here? <grin>) This time, initiating the UPS shipping option from within the Sunshop control panel walked me through the whole signup process to completion.

As well, my client contacted USPS (United States Postal Service) re getting an account so that we could use usps.com's live shipping fee module, and sent me a mind-boggling (I'd say mind-blowing, and that it was!) huge PDF file with instructions for setting up and testing the USPS API. A quick call to TurnkeyWebTools, where I was advised that they'd already done all that and tested to USPS' — and their own — standards. Happily tossing out the PDF, I simply enabled the module within the control panel and was good to go.

Search Engine Friendly Shopping Cart URLs

Out of the box, Sunshop uses JavaScript for some pretty neat features — and session IDs. I scraped out much of the JavaScript in areas that didn't really need it, and then — after redesigning the look, setting up taxes and shipping and everything else — used the built-in conversion of product pages to HTML with URLs based on the product titles. On a site with a small number of products, this process was very brief. The end result is some pretty fast-loading pages. Add to this your knowledge of on-page SEO and, again, you're good to go.

Pricing & Tech Support

Sunshop costs about $189 USD. Given that something like OSCommerce is free, why would I buy a shopping cart? Familiarity, for one thing, but there's another: support. They have it. That's: included support.

While TurnkeyWebTools does provide email support as well as forums (and a most polite, low-key moderator, for those of use who have "lived" in SEO forums), the fact that one can call during work hours and speak to a tech is a huge plus. Certainly beats plowing through dozens of forum posts, hoping an issue's been covered. I figure the money spent is less than my time is worth. What's more, nothing seems to rattle these guys; they're calm, polite, even cheerful — and how often are you able to call a software company and speak to someone who knows the code well, wants to help, and is even willing to take a look under the hood for you — at no additional cost?

What's more: they listen. I had a number of conversations with the Sunshop guys during an earlier install, particularly with respect to making Sunshop a more search engine friendly shopping cart. As it turns out, I think I was talking to the owner and head coder; at any rate, when I returned for the recent purchase, the sales person was happy to explain the new features, which included almost every last thing I ever had in mind.

Nice, eh? Not only that, but if you sign up as a reseller (they evaluate all reseller applications) and buy two or more copies, there's a 20% discount, with larger discounts to follow … and that's not for purchases made at any one time but for cumulative purchases. After purchase, you just log in to assign your purchased copies to clients.

TurnkeyWebTools also has another, smaller one-page shopping cart, as well as LiveHelper software. I haven't tried these yet but, as you can tell, I'm a happy camper. And no, there are no affiliate IDs in my links above (it doesn't work that way); I'm just talking because I'm happy with the product and the support and their search engine friendly shopping cart.

<Added> I mentioned in the comments below that current versions of Sunshop have a three-page checkout procedure from the point you've viewed the contents of your cart and click "checkout". The first page allows you to log in or set up an "account" with name, address and email address; the second reviews shipping choices, and the third takes the credit card number. Unfortunately, the secure SSL lock does not kick in until this third page. TurnkeyWebTools has addressed this in Sunshop 4.

~ Diane Vigil

79 Comments to "Sunshop Shopping Cart Review"

Sophie Wegat says:
Comment posted on 08/30/05 @ 7:10 pm

Excellent review Diane - thanks. looks like I'll be giving it a whirl too. :)
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 08/31/05 @ 4:23 am

Thanks, Sophie. I have to say that I wrote it, in part, for you. I may try some others but, on the other hand, I just may not bother.
Glen says:
Comment posted on 09/15/05 @ 9:41 pm

Hi, thanks for your review. I am trying to figure out which way the company I work for will go in relation to online trading.

I think Sunshop looks good. I've also had a quick look at LiteCommerce, which seems ok aswell.

Your review has encouraged me to lean towards purchasing Sunshop - Thanks.
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 09/15/05 @ 9:44 pm

Hi Glen. Sunshop is one of a few I'll be trying (isn't that always the way), but it's good to know it's there and that it's workable.
T C Ligon says:
Comment posted on 01/14/06 @ 8:16 am

Thanks for the review.

I have installed several OSCommerce sites and have even tried the CRELoaded version. After all is said and done I am looking at the SunShop because of the text fields allowed in product options. In fact with the product options included with SunShop I dont think any modification of the code will be needed for a client with very intense requirements.

You review has helped.
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 01/14/06 @ 4:11 pm

Glad it's helped.

I should add my one concern: that, upon checkout — after viewing cart contents — Sunshop out of the box will not show the secure (SSL) lock until the last page where customers input their credit card information.

It's a three-page checkout process:
(1) name, address, set up shop account
(2) verify cart, choose shipping
(3) credit card information

It is only on this third page that the SSL is invoked. I've suggested to TurnkeyWebTools a number of times that the entire process should be secure, and am advised that they *may* implement this in the next iteration of Sunshop (due this summer-ish).

For that reason, we're going to do a bit of customization.
Flint Campbell says:
Comment posted on 01/18/06 @ 7:23 pm

For $180.00 we unfortunately decided on Sunshop, found the installation to be quite time consuming. Finally once installed we were quite disappointed to see that it's another version of oscommerce. Of course turnkey denies this, maybe so, but who in there right mind would design a catalog from the ground up to look just like the free open source OScommerce catalog?
We of course found out after the installation that the demo template isn't actually the template that your $180.00 will get you, a disclaimer of this fact isn't posted on the demo page. But apparently just part of the sales tactics as no refunds are given from this company.

The files are more compact than oscommerce but with turnkeys attempts to prevent a buyer
from using this on multiple sites the installation is atrocious and the ability to change the template by changing the TPL and CSS files in any meaningful way that we have the ability to do has been eliminated. You will only be able to change the colors and sizes of the boxes and are pretty much
stuck with the standard oscommerce catalog template unless you have significant programming skills or several hundred dollars to hire someone else to do it.

We found the entry of products to be quite time consuming, and to look at your work the
actual veiwing of the catalog you'll need to open another browser window. The one nice thing about Sunshop is that you can easily eliminate credit card numbers from the database but we never were able to get the catalog with Sunshops configuration to accept credit cards directly through our gateway, so this feature would have come in handy when you're doing manual transcation entries.

To make this html compliant and more search engine friendly the program will create pages in html but will need to be moved to the main directory, when you have several thousand items
that can be quite time consuming. Using an html validator will run into several dozen errors.
http://validator.w3.org/
We emailed this "company" twice to see what the additional cost of another template would be but with no answer and didn't get any response from them until we emailed with a money back request, and [Flame Deleted]. Of course a refund wasn't given and a credit card chargeback claim was filed due to a product significantly different than advertised.

We had tried Extcart which has pretty much the same features, is more customizable and can be
used on multiple sites if needed and costs $70.00 less than Sunshop, but if you don't mind doing a few extra chores you would be better off going with the free oscommerce and using your money for a new template for the free version.

[Comment edited. Please see our Comment Policy.]
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 01/19/06 @ 4:22 am

Flint, thanks for taking the time to post your input. I can't argue that Sunshop's templating system is time-consuming and leaves a little to be desired. However, I guess I'm used to having to put time in to almost any Web software to ensure it's search engine friendly.

The one thing I'd note with Sunshop is that, if you've converted the product pages to static HTML, they don't actually have to be moved to another folder; they serve just fine from where they are generated.

I noticed that Ext-Cart has stopped selling its shopping cart at this point; the page notes that they'll be offering a new cart.

I also *believe* that CREloaded is going to be coming out with a new version soon; I look forward to seeing that one.

But the bottom line is that I haven't found another shopping cart that has all the features I want (i.e., OSCommerce and CREloaded have "search engine friendly URLs" — sort of — but not static pages). I will keep looking, but it may come down to writing our own one day.
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 01/19/06 @ 7:50 am

Via Jill's High Rankings forum, I found SEOShoppingCarts.com — which led me to AShop Software.

This one looks pretty interesting, and has a 30-day demo. It looks like it also employs ioncube which, as I understand it, is a way to protect the software from copying (or something) — I don't mind this, as building, maintaining and supporting software is a time-consuming activity, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to be paid for one's work.
Turnkey Web Tools says:
Comment posted on 01/20/06 @ 11:47 am

In response to Flint Campbells post:

Firstly and most importantly, SunShop is NOT in any way shape or form anywhere close to osCommerce. Have you even taken the time to compare the programming of the two? Perhaps before you make false allegations you should do some type of research so you don’t look like you are just out to get us.

As we stated to you in your support inquires, the template we use in the demo is a template from templatemonster.com. Because templatemonster.com templates are not free, we CANNOT give them away with the cart and we explained this to you on two occasions.

As far as the manipulation of the templates and layout goes, I believe you are being very misleading. Programming, knowledge is in no way needed when it comes to making changes. As long as you have the basic HTML knowledge that one would expect you to have if you plan on making cosmetic changes to the cart, then you should have no problems getting the cart to look how you desire. We have thousands of customers who seem to find making changes to the templates is doable, take a look at our live shop list if you think it cant be done.

In conclusion, I would say please make sure you do some constructive research in the future before making false allegations, it will save time for both of us.
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 01/20/06 @ 1:32 pm

Thanks for responding here, TWT. Good to see you.

I can verify that Sunshop is reasonably easy to redesign. You *do* have to have familiarity with HTML, but if you do, you can make it do just about anything.

I'm not sure about the claim that the installation is "time consuming"; in my experience, it takes about 10-15 minutes (as opposed to say … five?). That simply isn't time consuming in my book.

In my opinion, it has benefits that outweigh those of any other shopping cart we've tested. In our case, we'll likely have a programmer rework the one little issue we have — a scenario that is much cheaper than, say, redoing an entire shopping cart or building one from scratch.
Dr Jean-Paul Theron says:
Comment posted on 01/30/06 @ 8:33 am

This post is in response to TWT's rather rude response to Mr. Flint. [Flame Deleted] Mr. Flint was unhappy about the product Sunshop and I must say I agree with him on every point.

TWT website CLEARLY states how easy it is to set a a webstore with Sunshop. We use GoECart and thay claimed the same thing. Some very basic HTML knowledge is helpful, and I got our GoEcart store set up pretty easily.

When we decided to start a second store I tried Sunshop and paid $180. I TOO found it to be extremely similar to osCommerce on the surface. (I appologise extensively in advance to TWT for not intricately comparing the code as they suggested Mr. Flint do).

Sunshop is NOT aimed at the casual user, if you are and are considering a webstore rather fool around with osCommerce first or try GoECart (pricy as they charge monthly - but remember it includes webhosting).

After reading the attitude of TWT I too will be applying for a charge back soon if I do not get some answers from them soon!
Turnkey Web Tools says:
Comment posted on 01/30/06 @ 11:04 am

Jean-Paul,

I do apologize if my response came across rude but the fact of the matter is that Flint Campbell did falsely represent our software and our company.

Now, what you are referring to as "extremely similar to osCommerce on the surface" is simply just a template set which can be changed easily with a little HTML. As we explained to Mr. Flint we can easily integrate any template if you feel you cannot do it yourself or if you do not have the knowledge of HTML to do so. We offer the demo template set for free as well provided you purchase the right to use the template from templatemonster.com.

Now I don’t know what you mean by "I too will be applying for a charge back soon if I do not get some answers from them soon" but our phone support is always open during regular business hours if you need help with anything. We will be happy to help with any questions you may have. That is why we offer support in the first place. And as you will see with a lot of shopping cart out there, phone support is often hard to come by.
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 01/30/06 @ 11:29 am

I'll verify that about TWT's phone support. I've had occasion to call them a good number of times; each time, they were courteous, helpful — and often went beyond the bounds of what one might reasonably expect even for paid support.

Example: the other day I discovered that two of our clients' shops on shared web hosting were not working. A quick FTP verified that none of the Sunshop files had been changed; my guess is that the web host had upgraded something without telling us (not that they would). An even quicker call to TWT resulted in a tech checking the files, then uploading a new file — and immediately that shop started working. I asked the tech to email the file to me; I uploaded it to the other client's site, and that shop started working again, too. TWT's charge for this (the time, the FTPing and the file): zero.

So far as I know (I've been using Sunshop for a couple of years), unless I were to ask them to custom-code something for me, the tech support charge is always zero. Let's face it: stuff happens, in which case tech support might be needed, and it's good to know that they'll be there.

As to not having to know anything to get Sunshop working, well, I'll say that there's little you can do in life without having to know anything at all. Heck, some people are still "afraid" of computers; getting them to be able to use an "easy to use" email program can be quite an experience. If you want to change Web applications, even easy ones, you'll still have to know something. And knowing that something will make doing it easier.
awd says:
Comment posted on 09/20/06 @ 8:13 pm

I would like to comment on this old discussion. While sunshop is not perfect, it has lots of great features. Apparently v4.0 is due out soon which will be a major rework (including CSS configured layout, rather than tables). I had some issues with v3.5, and thought there were some confusing things in the software, but ultimately, it's very customizable, their support is very helpful and usually very prompt. If not for their support, I wouldn't bother with them. It would be nice to say you don't need support, but this stuff can be tricky and I don't think there is a perfect program out there. It's way cheaper than some of the other stuff I've seen, and includes more features than others.

I'm waiting for the v4.0, but they're definitely worth a shot.

(btw - litecommerce code is terrible!!! I used them once…)
DianeV says:
Comment posted on 09/21/06 @ 12:08 am

Thank you, awd, for your comments. It's always helpful for people to get multiple views of a product.
ctrick says:
Comment posted on 01/26/07 @ 6:27 pm

this is a nice script yo make a e-commerce site. I'm developer and this is into my favorites
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 01/26/07 @ 6:31 pm

I agree. Version 4 should be out soon, and it's pretty fantastic.
Zao Web Design,LLC says:
Comment posted on 02/5/07 @ 5:29 pm

I've used SunShop on a couple different rather high-profile clients. I must say, at first, it did a rather decent job. I have noticed their telephone support to be pretty helpful, even their developers are pretty nice. Someone who has been perpetually UNHELPFUL is whoever is in charge of their Chat w/ sales area. Solano or whomever…I've continually been disappointed with them on that.

I'd love it if they would make it 100% open-source, or at least have the libsecure area not have anything that's actually important. It would be great to be able to have one backend for clients that have multiple companies or stores that are only up for a short time.

In the future, I'll probably just be doing custom stores or modifying OSC to what I need. The time I've spent trying to get this shop to work with my clients needs could have been much better spent.

[This is borderline flaming. Please keep it civil, and see our Comment Policy.]
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 02/5/07 @ 11:53 pm

I know what you mean. However, the upcoming Sunshop 4 (they're in beta 4 now) looks like it will be quite a bit easier to deal with, at least in some ways.
John says:
Comment posted on 02/9/07 @ 9:38 pm

Sunshop appears to be a nice cart with many great features. Security at checkout needs to be encrypted from the start, I will NOT shop a site that transmits my personal information unencrypted. JAVA needs to be dropped - not everybody has it enabled and it frustrates shoppers. I called Sunshop once with a question and they never called back - I rate their phone support as zero and this was on a pre-sales call. I would not want to depend on them if I have a serious technical question. There are so many shopping carts to choose from that it truely is a difficult choice - good luck to all !
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 02/9/07 @ 9:52 pm

When you say Java I am guessing you mean Javascript? With all the advanced features out there especially with what AJAX has to offer there is no getting around its use. Every new cart out there offers AJAX these days as it is the future.

Also, version 4.0 is completely secure wherever information is inputted, you should check it out.
StevenH says:
Comment posted on 03/6/07 @ 2:13 pm

Hello All…

I wanted to address the issue of comparing OsC to SunShop. I'm a bit confused as to how this link was made and why it's being so viralently defended. Sunshop is nothing like OsC from anything other than the initial look and feel to the client. What cart doesn't look like any other cart at first?

Take it from someone who has tried OsC (and gave it a fair shot I might add), and its cousin from hell ZenCart also. As a hosting admin and site developer I try to find programs that take a load off of me rather then piling more on. SunShop is easy to install and from what I can tell (so far) will be a far cry from the complexity THAT IS the OsC backend.

Let's take a look at it from a support issue. Has anyone had a problem with a particular area of OsC or Zen? Have you posted the problem in their "SUPPORT" forums just to wait for an answer? In most cases the response, if any, doesn't address your issue let alone solve it! Last week I threw my hands up with the GNU based carts and opted for SunShop. I installed it in 15 minutes and spent a few hours looking at the lack of complexity with a big fat grin. I had one issue and was pleasantly supported by email within 30 minutes.

Finally a program that isn't built for a coder.

Simplicity can be extraordinary in a world built by people who think all end users are programmers too.

I am parking my 3.5 install until 4.0 comes out in the next few weeks. I look forward to it being the "FIX ALL" I expect. I went over my needs with one of the support guys and I think 4.0 should handle it all just fine. The new version will include the only out of the box weight based pricing feature (that I could find), which is what I have needed for nearly two years. Don't these cart programmers know that a ton of merchants sell weight based product? Coffee, Tea, Gold, Silver…etc When the commodity price changes enough you have to go into ever product and change its price up or down with the market. That is so nonfriendly to us. I'm looking forward to 4.0 just for that change alone.
________________________________________

I know this is old and it has been a year since the original post but I'd like to throw my 3 cents in. Flint, you are obviously more upset with the company rather than the program. I think that the response from a misinformed, shoot from the hip attack was quite reasonable. I'm not sure how you (Jean-Paul) saw it as being rude. Not once was there anything more than an inteligent addressing of each issue with a well thought out counter.
________________________________________

OSc setup is easy?

If you think listing a product after setting classes, attributes and a phenomenally hard template customization is easier, than more power to you.

The preceding is my opinion. I do not, nor have I ever worked for Turn Key, I am just a client. If in the near fiture my opinion changes I'll be happy to digress but for the moment this is my position.

Thanks for letting me hurt your eyes… :)

Steven
IC Online Services
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 03/6/07 @ 2:28 pm

Thanks for your input, Steven.

I am mightily looking forward to Sunshop 4, too. :)
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 03/26/07 @ 4:14 pm

Simplicity can be extraordinary in a world built by people who think all end users are programmers too.

That has to be my favorite quote of the month, if not longer.
Ian Steele says:
Comment posted on 03/27/07 @ 11:53 am

I researched many carts before finally deciding on sunshop. I am posting this because so far their support has been disappointing. Its been almost a week and I still cant get my cart installed properly and I am VERY computer savy.

Everytime I call it seems their phone queue doesnt work or it immediatly forwards me to their voicemail. When I do get someone on the phone they are nice and curteous but I expect live support whenever I call. I dont mind waiting on hold (thats what speakerphone is for) but straight dropping my support calls is not going to cut it. If they dont shape up their support soon and help me I will be complaining more loudly about this product.

Looks very sweet though once we get it to work.. COME
ON GUYS!!
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 03/27/07 @ 12:01 pm

Hi Ian. Bear in mind that computer savvy is not the same as knowing how to work with Web software.

Yes, the phone support (when I've called at least) has been sporadic in the last few months — not good when what we're paying for is a Sunshop license *and* a year's support. I'm hoping that their support picks up again once SS4 is out.

What problems are you having in installing Sunshop?
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 03/27/07 @ 10:28 pm

Dont forget we are in the middle of a move. :)

http://www.turnkeywebtools.com/index.php?l=contact_update
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 03/27/07 @ 10:30 pm

Okay; I'd forgotten that. Fair enough, Chris. And I cannot wait for Sunshop 4. :)))
Russell says:
Comment posted on 05/26/07 @ 4:41 pm

I have read all the posting on this site about Sunshop.Yes I have a sunshop site AND I'M NOT HAPPY with Sunshop Shopping Cart at ALL!!!!!
1. NO BLANK SUPPORT. NONE,Everytime I call it seems their phone queue doesnt work or it immediatly forwards me to their voicemail.
[Flame Deleted] But I will not, I just don't have time.

[Please see our Comment Policy.]
Com One Communications says:
Comment posted on 05/29/07 @ 5:31 am

After being in the web design and hosting business for 12 years,and specializing in e-commerce solutions for 7 years ( we have over 400 active shopping cart customers as monthly web hosting clients) I am amused with this thread….. we have tried over a dozen shopping cart scripts, from Comersus and SalesCart (ASP carts) several perl scrips and numerous PHP applications, including OSCommerce, CRE Loaded, X-cart…..and big boys like Miva and Actinic…weve used them all ( and still have many installs using all of the above) … we decided 3 years ago to become an ASP provider for Sunshop and havent regretted it for one minute.

Are any of the posters here ( besides Diane V, who I know and respect) really knowledgeable about real world shopping cart design, modifying and integration? If you are then you must be aware that, although no software is perfect, that overall Sunshop delivers more features, is easier to use ( beyond the initial couple of weeks to learn everything there is to know about modifying it) is constantly upgraded by the developers, and offers as good if not better email support that any cart I have ever used.

It seems like the posters here have tried OScommerce or another cart, then given Sunshop a couple of hours evaluation and then written it off…. particularly with the awesome V4 version bouncing around in RC… there has never been a better time than to look at Sunshop….

We are always looking at new carts that come out, but after 3 years with Sunshop, for now we are staying put
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 05/29/07 @ 9:34 am

Russell:

It would be nice to hear your opinion on the cart. In fact, I urge you to email us and let us know why exactly you this "CRAP CART". I noticed you posted this on a Saturday so I am going to point out that we don't answer phones on the weekends, which is why you may have been sent to voicemail. If you have a problem let us know, email us, leave a message if you have to… someone will get back to you. I promise.
Russell says:
Comment posted on 05/30/07 @ 8:00 pm

Chris

Well mission accomplished, I have got your attention, and maybe now we can get some where.

You have gotten my opinion in the first post; I do not understand why you ask for it again.

Perhaps clarification is what you are asking for. Well bottom line is, regardless of how good a product is it is [Flame Deleted] if support is not provided.

What would your response be if you had purchased a car and after a week, month, whatever for time, it no longer started and ran. Now you pick up the phone and the line goes dead.

I sent in a support ticket asking about registration in the forums, I receive a reply that I do not have to register in the forums to use the "Bug Tracker". What does the "Bug Tracker" have to do with the forums?

This appears to be not much different than being in a shop to have you car worked on, having a concern with the service department, expressing the concern and then being ushered away from the front counter because some one is afraid that the concern will be heard in the sales department where sales is busy bragging about their quality support.

See a resemblance here.

Now assumption, you obviously assume that I only called on Saturday, well wrong. I had a whole week of this aggravation of not being able to get through on the phone. Assumption is not reality, now is it, it is only an opinion. I live in a world of reality not assumption.

I am the project manager of a project involving this Shopping cart, along with several others, and the phone calls were a follow up to verify the information I was receiving from the developers of the project. The information I received was validated as true and the reason why I posted what I did.

Hopefully now we can get on with reality, I have been very respectful to not have posted this directly into your forums, and perhaps respect should also be given in return by not posting "your assumptions" about me.

Can we go on with the Shopping cart in a professional manner along with the support that is promised with the purchase of the Shopping cart or will things be like they have been.

I am looking forward to a proactive venture with this Shopping cart rather than the reactive venture it has become. NOTE: I did finally today receive feedback that we may have some forward and positive direction.

Thank you and looking forward to your reply,
Russell

[Please see our Comment Policy.]
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 05/30/07 @ 8:09 pm

Russell, if I could ask: given that one often has to ask questions about software that one did not write, is your problem with Sunshop or the lack of support you've experienced?
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 05/30/07 @ 9:18 pm

You don't need to post here to get anyones attention. What you need to do in the future is contact us and actually make communication. Its not like we don't provide support, because we do and we have thousands of customers that can back that up. If you submit a ticket, leave a message, send a email we will get back to you. You may experience some waits once in a while because we deal with many requests on a daily basis but like I said you will get a response.
John says:
Comment posted on 05/31/07 @ 6:30 am

My advice to anybody looking for shopping cart software. Stay away from any cart that depends on JAVA script for functionality. About 8% of people have this disabled in their browser for security reasons. If you are OK with losing that amount of sales then that's fine. Go to any big company and you will notice that they will support both people with JAVA enabled or disabled. This is what sets the big guys apart from the little ones. Carts like osCommerce do NOT depend on JAVA script. Just my 2 cents worth.
Ron says:
Comment posted on 06/1/07 @ 9:11 am

Can you respnd Chris? (Assuming you represent Sunshop:-) I'm evaluating the myriad of shops out there and wonder your opinion on above java post? Thanks
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 06/1/07 @ 11:03 am

At any rate, for purposes of clarity, let's remember that Java and JavaScript are two different things.
Russell says:
Comment posted on 06/1/07 @ 4:19 pm

Good Day Diane
I do thank for your question. The best way to answer that one is,please go to TurnkeyWebTools fourms and I think you can fine the answer there. Here is the link http://www.turnkeywebtools.com/forum/
Thank you for you time
Russell, CT Project Mgr
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 06/1/07 @ 4:37 pm

Thanks, Russell. Actually, I spend a decent amount of time in the forums. I've also called TurnkeyWebTools on a number of occasions and gotten gracious and effective help. It's one of the reasons I stay with Sunshop. Yes, their phone system has occasionally bumped me off after a wait, but that's not been the usual case. But I do understand that, when one needs help, one needs it *now* — so you might be happy to read this thread in the TWT forums: Phone Lines are now working properly.

If you're talking about the workability of the software, let me contrast that with the WordPress blog software, which we also use quite often and are quite fond of. Last year, I was required to upgrade WordPress a handful of times, multiplied by the number of blogs we had to upgrade, within just a few weeks. Yes, WordPress is free, but the only support that "comes with it" is through the wordpress.org support forums, where community members do the helping (including yours truly). Still, there are often posts by people who simply expect something as technical as a web application (and web hosting) to be easy to use without knowing anything.

The other thing is, as a web designer/developer, I'm aware that software often does not do every last thing you want it to do, requiring either that you live with it as is or put time or money into customizing it. It can also be difficult to grasp how to do something with software you haven't written. But, that said, both TWT and Sunshop users post in the TWT forums, so you might get help there for whatever issues you might be having with Sunshop.
Dan Eskelson says:
Comment posted on 06/28/07 @ 12:34 pm

Hi Diane,

Thanks for providing this forum…it has been very educational.

I have been using Sunshop on a parked domain for several years, but lately have been very discouraged with their delays in releasing version 4. I purchased a license upgrade(required yearly) just so I can take advantage of version 4, but now it looks very possible that I will have to purchase TWO upgrades just to be able to upgrade from version 3.5.1 to version 4.

I know software development is slow - and they want to get it right - but their self-imposed deadlines have been missed by weeks and months - and now perhaps a whole year.

Thanks to your post above, I checked out AShop Deluxe…it looks awesome! I downoladed the trial version and am having quite a good time experimenting. Documentation and online help surpasses Sunshop by a wide margin. It seems to have all the features of Sunshop plus additional features.

Has anyone here used AShop Deluxe? - I would be very appreciative of input, positive or negative.

Thanks for your time.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 06/28/07 @ 12:42 pm

Hi, Dan. Well, I know what you mean.

Re AShop Deluxe, I haven't actually tried it (to be honest, I'd forgotten all about it), but thanks for the information — and do let us know how it goes with AShop.
Dan Eskelson says:
Comment posted on 07/1/07 @ 12:14 pm

Hi again,

After working awhile with AShop, I find that it has some very excellent features - most important to me is built-in integration with third party software like AutoResponse Plus.

Unfortunately other features do not match up with Sunshop…esp. catalog and product pages (or lack of).

So I will try to be patient and wait for all the bugs to be worked out of Sunshop v.4.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 07/1/07 @ 3:15 pm

Thanks for that data, Dan. By catalog and product pages, are you referring to Sunshop's ability to create static HTML pages?

If so, I love that feature. The only time I don't use that is when I need some of the dynamic features (the mini-shopping basket that shows what you've added to your cart, or the dynamic currency conversion of prices).
Drake says:
Comment posted on 08/1/07 @ 9:06 am

I guess it's time to put in my two cents today.

I have to agree with Russell, any product without proper support is a [Flame Deleted], excuse my language. That being said reflects on the developer and its company as a [Flame Deleted], which makes no difference on how much the developer defends its product once it's been tagged as a [Flame Deleted]. A mend for a reputation is not fixed with a phone call nor is it an overnight thing.

Products and/or solutions alone will never provide instant satisfaction alone. It's impossible unless you only need one instance of it in your lifetime.

Example: if you buy a hamburger and you eat it, then it provides half of the satisfaction which is nourishment for your body and satisfying your need to want it. The last half or last part of the equation in “instant satisfaction” is the ability for the provider to repeat and reproduce the same experience with minimal effort and variance, which in this case we call "support". Remember, there are many others who can provide the same hamburger but what makes you choose between them is the one that provided the best experience; hence support.

If Turnkey Web Tools provides a good first experience for it's product yet they can't continue to back and repeat the same advertised experience that an evolving customer need relies on then the product has no validity, such in the case for Russell and any one else that have yet to come forth and claim this opinion.

Rather than Turnkey Web Tools taking a defensive stance toward any negative commentary they should take a pro-active stance and say that their support policy will be fixed and taken care of immediately so that they "can" provide the other half of the satisfaction equation. What continues to sell products is the quality of invested support in it to the consumer.

[Please see our Comment Policy.]
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 08/1/07 @ 10:55 am

Drake,

Obviously we cannot make everybody happy all the time. Its just not possibly but I can tell you that we do in fact try. We have thousands of customers and I would say that about 90% would say that their experiences with us have been great, and that includes the support aspect. As with any company you are going to have those few customers who feel that they are not getting what they deserve. Trust me, I have been on that end many times with many companies so I can understand that when you get frustrated you need to vent. At any rate I wont go on and on but let me say this. We have recently made changes to our support policies that I think will help out quite a bit.
Drake says:
Comment posted on 08/1/07 @ 4:26 pm

Chris,

You're right not everyone can be pleased but before Turnkey Web Tool considers their part of the bargain fulfilled, they must make sure they are providing and delivering the entire "satisfaction equation" before they can consider a customer lost to fact rather than self-opinion.
Jesse says:
Comment posted on 09/4/07 @ 3:34 am

oie.

I would have been much more interested in SunShop had no one from the company posted here to defend the company instead of ignoring and learning from the feedback of disgruntled customers.

Moving offices is just an excuse for bad support it does not justify it. With all of the bad reviews of customer support on here and other sites I am loath to try and test the support myself by purchasing the product.

btw, I assume version 4 is now available since on the demo it says SunShop 4, but why is this not implicit on the site?

Why the price increase with version 4?

Hopefully if the support is better and the product improved then the bad reputation will go away. So I will wait and see instead of buying today.

Drake, good post!

-Jesse
TWT Member says:
Comment posted on 09/5/07 @ 3:48 pm

@ Jesse:

It's understandable that negative comments may cause someone to shy away or write-off Sunshop as a potential solution. However, as a member of Turnkey's staff I can assure you that all customer concerns and issues are taken seriously and are approached with the utmost diligence. After all, if the customer is satisfied, it makes life easier for both of us. We gain nothing when a client's/customer's needs are not met. Unfortunately, there are sometimes other variables that come into play. Some of which, neither Turnkey or the customers have control over. These can sometimes prove frustrating for both of us. People also tend to associate problems with restrictions/limitations with their hosting companies, with poor support from Turnkey (Unfortunate…but the most common reason for client/customer frustration).

To answer your question regarding the current version….yes, version 4 was indeed released and is stable enough for a production environment. If you have any questions in regards to it, please feel free to either call us, shoot us an email, or ask via live chat. As you'll learn, we'll be more than happy to answer them.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 09/6/07 @ 12:43 pm

First, I agree that software without support that was included is not what it should be, and possibly too difficult to use without excessive efforts.

However, as some of the comments here are about issues either with Sunshop or with TurnkeyWebTools, that alone can make it seem like all of Turnkey's support is either bad or nonexistent, which gives a rather unbalanced view of things. I also suspect that people who aren't having problems don't generally take the time to post at blogs — so my thanks to those who did, as by doing so, they've allowed a bigger picture view. And I'm uncomfortable that (it sounds like) some of you are making decisions based only upon complaints, ignoring the compliments altogether.

But, to be fair, I feel I have to say something here.

To be honest, I haven't found lack of support to be the case in my experience with TWT, which started in 2004. I'm obviously not the only one who has had good support from Turnkey. Issues? Yes, when they were moving a few months ago, the phone system bumped me off a couple of times after about 20 minutes of waiting — but those were the first times I experienced waiting issues of any length at all. It seems this has now been fixed, as I haven't had problems getting through since then. As to not getting replies to phone messages, I think there was *one* instance (since 2004) in which I left a phone message that wasn't returned. I solved that by contacting them.

Regarding TWT support, I can say that, whenever I've spoken to any of the guys at TWT, they've been very (even surprisingly) pleasant, knowledgeable and helpful. These are nice people. And I've had email support, sometimes during the very late hours that I sometimes keep, although I don't expect any company to agree to after-hours support, let alone provide it. <grin>

That said, there have been complaints here and occasionally at the TWT forums, and those can't be ignored either. Since I wasn't there, I'm not saying it didn't happen. But I suspect that these kinds of issues occur because:

- First, customers having software problems pretty much need immediate solutions when something doesn't work in a way that seems "right", and that can be pretty upsetting regardless of the cause — whether due to a misconfiguration, lack of knowledge, misunderstanding, server or ISP issues or issues with the software itself, and delays intensify the upset. That said, I'm not sure why anyone wasn't able to get through to TWT; I do know that they can be reached by any of the methods listed on their Support page — phone, help ticket, or by live chat. And there are always the forums, where TWT staff post, as do community members, sometimes pretty late at night.

- Secondly, manning a support desk requires rather advanced, in-depth tech expertise (which they have) as well as the ability to assist customers who may be frustrated and upset, or who may be unfamiliar with the software or even unable to describe what's going on; unfortunately, this kind of support requires that you keep your cool no matter what happens. Although I'm sure that most people would like their support issues to be resolved smoothly and quickly, I suspect that they can't always go that way for various reasons, not all of which can be laid at the feet of the software company. Or even the customer.

Example: unless you know what you're doing, it can be next to impossible to install software without knowing how to set up a database or, at the least, knowing what that is, whether you have one and what to do with it, or that the database is not the same as, or in the same place as, the software. These issues aren't particular to TWT or its software; check the WordPress.org forums for the sheer numbers of people whose installations didn't go smoothly (some of *them* yell, too). Well, this type of thing is not the fault of WordPress any more than it is the fault of TurnkeyWebTools; it has to do with the server and web hosting account, and whether the customer and web host understand what's going on or what to do about it. Still, the software is often blamed. Even so, I'll bet that, if you let TWT know about it, they'll jump in there and try to help. They've proved that many a time, although if the issue was raised in the forums — yelling or not — sometimes the customer doesn't put forth the effort to come back to say that TWT had resolved it for him/her.

- Delay in the release of Sunshop 4: well, yes, it did take an awfully long time. On the other hand, they did something unusual for a non-open source company: they asked us what we wanted. The list of what we wanted was lengthy (as was the 15 pages of customer comments here) and people kept adding to it as time went by — and, so far as I can tell, they gave it to us and more. I know that some of what I wanted required rewriting some of the database and setting up a whole new way of editing themes because I didn't feel like clicking around in an admin panel, but they did it. I also know that some of us, including yours truly, were not always so calm about waiting. But here it is; SS4 isn't just a minor update; it's pretty fantastic and a pleasure to work with.

So, that's been my experience with TWT for the past three years. Where there's an issue, they'll try to help. Perhaps, though, if I'd been screaming at them full tilt and screeching around forums and blogs, they might have been a little less thrilled about doing so. And if I had been, I'd think it fair that they were less than thrilled, or affected by what I'd said. I can only think what it feels like to pour your heart into something only to have the occasional customer "go off" on you and publicly while you have to mind your manners at all times. It's a kind of "you have to be perfect, but we don't" scene that doesn't seem too … fair.

And yet, to balance this out, I understand that software can be difficult to understand, particularly software as complex and advanced as Sunshop. It would be nice if the Web was just an easy-to-understand "click and go" affair rather than the high tech scenario that it really is, which includes software, servers, programming languages and the Web itself. But it isn't. I can say it gets easier after a while, but I can feel for anyone who's not up to speed and having problems, questions, etc.
Sean Harrington says:
Comment posted on 09/15/07 @ 5:40 pm

Diane,

I would like to thank you for managing such and extensive, informative, and helpful forum of Sunshop related information. I just finished reading all 50 posts (as of 9/06/07) and feel that I have made the right decision in recommending Sunshop to my client, whom I am building and e-commerce site for. I recently finished a Graphic Design program at a University that focusses more on print based design rather that web design or programming. In a four year bachelor’s program, there are only 3 web design classes that are offered (in contrast to the 15 print technology, typography, and studio design classes that are available). Having taken all 3 web classes, (only one of which was required) I am confident in my ability to build sites in CSS and Flash. However, the majority of my programming abilities I have learned by experimenting, troubleshooting, and reading. So I am perfectly willing to put in the time required to learn a new programming tool or language.

In the initial planning stages for the e-commerce site that I am building, my client and I looked at several shopping cart programs before deciding on Sunshop. Although I did not come across your blog prior to purchasing Sunshop, I did find a few positive customer reviews that led to the eventual purchase. Now coming from my background that has more of an emphasis on design rather than programming, it did take me quite awhile to get Sunshop installed.

When I first ran the version tracker, I received “Failed” messages across the board. I contacted the folks at Turnkey Webtools and they were very helpful in determining that my client’s server configuration would need some modifications before Sunshop can be properly installed. Lucky for my client, he has one of the most professional and efficient hosting companies imaginable. (For any of you in the Portland, Oregon area, the guys are Spirit One truly amazing!) They were able to determine that the site was set up on a DSL only package, and needed to be upgraded to a DSL/Web Hosting package.

After this was set up, the Zend Optimizer version of Sunshop failed, but the Ioncube version passed. So after downloading the Ioncube version of Sunshop 4, I read in the installation instructions that I needed to set up a data base with the specific read, write, and execute permissions. Well, having never dealt with this before, the hosting company was extremely helpful in assisting me with this set up so we could get the Ioncube version of Sunshop running. The only problem, was that when I attempted to load the Ioncube version, I kept getting a message that said “Install2.php is corrupted.” It took some time on hold to get through to TWT Support on this particular day, but when I did I was extremely impressed with the service. When I explained the situation I was asked the obvious questions as to whether the database was set up and the "Config.php" file was properly modified to correspond with the database. “To the best of my knowledge,” was my answer and as it turned out, I had set up everything properly. Yet for some reason, the install would not run, and the TWT support tech kindly offered to attempt the installation process for me, free of charge. After several hours of work and troubleshooting, it was determined by TWT that the Ioncube version was not going to run on my client’s server and that the solution would be to have the hosting company install Zend Optimizer. Since this program is a free download, the folks at the hosting company had no problem helping me out with this request. As soon as Zend Optimizer was loaded onto the server, I was able to finally complete the installation processes. During the installation, I did have to make a few calls to both Sunshop and the hosting company to get the permissions and the "Config.php" file set up correctly, but these were minor issues that were resolved quickly.

So now, here I am with Sunshop installed, and no real idea of how to get started on modifying the look, or even linking it to my website. Since there are no instructions outside of the installation that are included with Sunshop, I am hoping that there may be some tutorials online or somewhere in the TWT forums. Do you, or any of your readers know of a source for basic, how to get started information on Sunshop? I have explored the admin area briefly, but would like to have a better feel for what I am doing. If there are currently no written or video tutorials in existence, are there any tips that you or your readers can offer? Are there points that you wish you had learned earlier in your work with Sunshop? Thank you again for your reviews and blog. It is through which that I look forward to eventually becoming a Sunshop Ninja. Sean.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 09/15/07 @ 6:06 pm

First of all, you're very welcome. We all started from the beginning, and help each other, you know?

Secondly, thanks for your take on the guys at TurnkeyWebTools. In my few years of experience with them, I'd agree with your experience.

Third, re customizing the design, I'd say you're way ahead of many people because you understand CSS (and, I assume, HTML). Bear in mind that SS4 is written in XHTML, which is slightly different than HTML, but mostly the same.

(1) Back up everything, including the Sunshop files on the server and the database (your host will be able to help if you don't know how). In fact, every time you're going to do anything radical, backing up is the first thing to do. As I always say, a word to the wise: too many copies is better than none.

(2) Theme modification: There are two ways to modify the look (or "theme") of the site: first, you can edit the code in the admin panel. I intensely dislike clicking in admin panels for days on end (a) because I dislike it, and (b) because I have to take extra steps to copy every change onto my hard drive — so I lobbied heavily for separate HTML files that we could edit on our machines and upload to the server. Amazingly, TurnkeyWebTools provided that in SS4. So, if you'd prefer to edit the files on your machine (bearing in mind that they're in separate pieces):

In the Themes folder, copy one of the themes and name the folder something else (e.g., mytheme), upload it to the server, and select it in:
Settings > Manage Settings > Shop Settings > Theme Directory
Select mytheme and press Edit Settings

Then just edit the files on your machine and FTP them to the server in the /themes folder.

I say "just" edit the files; it can be quite a bit of work given the sheer number of files involved in a shopping cart, but if your client (or you) are not intent on changing everything in sight, maybe it won't be. :)

Lastly, thanks for giving your comments. Websites like this one gain a lot by visitors' input, and I appreciate it wholly.
Sean Harrington says:
Comment posted on 09/18/07 @ 5:10 pm

Diane,

Thank you so much for providing such an extremely fast and helpful response to my previous posting! As I now have Sunshop installed and am using it for the first time, I found great value in your assistance. After adding some items to my client’s Sunshop store, I am finding that TurnkeyWebTools' program allows for users to easily create databases for categories and manufactures, as well as quickly update items that have already been added. Overall, Sunshop is a user friendly shopping cart program that once installed and set up by a person with programming knowledge, can effortlessly be turned over to a client with no previous programming experience. For people who are looking into purchasing Sunshop, I would recommend it for the easy of use, and well defined settings.

In regards to adding items to the shopping cart, I have a couple of questions that I am seeking your professional advice on. First off, what is your take on the META sections? I have read mixed reviews on the effectiveness of META tags, but in your experience, how important and/or effective is it to add the META: Title, Key, and Description.

And last, do you have a recommendation for the image size settings of the THUMB, DETAIL, and LARGE categories. I was told that a picture that is sized at 72 dpi and saved at about 50 kb is a good range for the LARGE image. Like any user, we are trying to maximize image quality with fast loading and server space.

Any thoughts or input that you or your readers might have in these areas is greatly appreciated. Thank you again. Sean.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 09/18/07 @ 5:39 pm

You're welcome, Sean.

Re the meta tags, I use them. I've been optimizing websites since the '90's, and even though (it appears that) the meta keywords tag isn't of much use right now, the meta description can be. They're just not the end-all and be-all that they were in the 90's.

Re the image size settings, I think that depends on what you've got, what you want, and your target market. We're working on a SS4 install right now for which the client wants larger images (they've got beautiful products), and ended up widening the whole site at the client's request.

Obviously, the basic idea is to have the page be as lightweight as possible, but selling and allowing visitors to view products is vital, so it's a judgment call. That is, if I have killer images that don't communicate well at smaller sizes, then bigger sizes are the way to go regardless of what "should" be done.

Bear in mind that web images should be saved at 72dpi.
story says:
Comment posted on 01/2/08 @ 5:38 pm

This is the best resource to find nuts and bolts answers without searching on end in forums. Huge thanks to everyone here.

I wonder - does anyone have leads about where to find someone to modify Sun Shop? Someone who's familiar with it already.

Thanks
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 01/2/08 @ 5:43 pm

Hi, story, and thanks for the compliment. As I've found help on the Web in the past, especially in the early years, one of my purposes in starting developedtraffic.com was to share information that might be of help.

What kinds of modifications do you need? If you could contact me, I'll see if I can lend a hand.
Harry Harris says:
Comment posted on 01/22/08 @ 8:13 am

My experience with phone support for this product is that it is almost non-existent. I have spent hours trying to get support on this product for my client.
The software does have a lot of features but the scripting code and templates are all over the place.
There is no real operation manual and you better be prepared to spend quite a bit of time figuring things out. I would not recommend this cart unless you are familiar with php and template concepts. Even then
it may not be easy going. In my opinion this cart is trying to do to much using way too many templates and bits of code. This has produced a fairly complex web of structure that clients (check their forums) are having difficulties with. A decent manual would go along way in resolving some of this but no manual has been forthcoming since the first version was put out.
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 01/22/08 @ 11:43 am

Harry, sorry you feel you had a bad experience with support. I do have to say though that at times you will have to wait on hold for more then a few minutes to get someone on the line, especially on Mondays as those are our busiest days. We are there though answering calls everyday from 10am to 6pm PST. I don't quiet understand what you mean though by "scripting code and templates are all over the place". For easy design changes you should not even have to make changes to the code at all, all of your changes can be made directly in the templates which are all located in one folder. Also, you are correct about the documentation not being completed yet. The new 4.0 version was barely released a few months ago and we are wrapping that up. In the meantime feel free to contact us with your questions or visit the forum as there is always active discussions there.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 01/22/08 @ 11:49 am

Harry, if I could ask, what are you comparing Sunshop to, if anything? Most shopping carts, if you dig into them, are pretty darned complex, so I was just curious.
Harry Harris says:
Comment posted on 01/23/08 @ 11:15 am

Hi again. In regards to phone support it has been my experience and my clients over the past year that getting connected to anyone even within 15 to 30 minutes is difficult. Not quite what this review said. In regards to the templates: it is astounding what a users manual might accomplish. Yet it is still not available.
There is very little information on how all of these templates work together as a whole. Yes there is a bit of info about each template in the template settings section of the admin interface. But it is left to the client to really figure things out. Its like a puzzel to piece together and hopefully solve for what you want it to do. I am not comparing Sunshop to other shopping carts and realize the background complexity is par for the course in a cart that has as many features as Sunshop. However if you carefully read the above review
the reviewer is not your ordinary client who just wants a shopping cart for their site. The reviewer understands
a lot about web developemnet and the components involved in shopping carts. I suspect many purchasers of Sunshop will not have this know-how. If you choose this shopping cart and are not a web developer be prepared for a fairly steep learning curve or hire a person with web skills to work with you. Again decent documentation would go a long ways to solving some the issues I have raised. To be fair I have found that if you can get phone support it is very helpful and polite as the reviewer has said.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 01/23/08 @ 11:32 am

Thanks, Harry. You're right about my review; I'm a web designer. That, of course, gives me an enormous advantage in working with database-driven software.

That said, I'm not sure where one could get a simple, easy-to-use shopping cart without opting for one of the online carts where the actual purchasing is done on a third party site.

In my experience, many people want the Web to be completely intuitive and easy to use, but it just really isn't, even if you're only dealing with static websites. Yes, you can pretty much use Sunshop, WordPress and the like out of the box, but if you want to customize them much, you do have to know something.

That said, I agree that documentation would go a long ways to helping most people.
Bill G. says:
Comment posted on 01/30/08 @ 8:43 pm

It has become time for me to weigh in on SunShop Shopping Cart. Before purchasing SunShop I read all of the posts in this forum, carefully. Relatively speaking I was forewarned by reading the post about the downsides of the cart and lack of telephone support and a user manual. Irrespective of the negative posts I made the decision to buy the cart. BIG MISTAKE. After owning and using this cart for several months I am now sorry we bought it. NOT ONCE have I been able to get someone on the phone from tech support. Each time I have upgraded this cart our Store went down for a day or two AND suffered lost sales because of a technical issue with the upgrade process. It happened again today upgrading to version 4.0.9 and this time was the final straw. We owned two carts before owning SunShop and we never had the upgrade problems we have with this one. Harry Harris covers it quite well in his post number 60. My advice to anyone looking for a good USER-FRIENDLY cart is to seek elsewhere UNLESS YOU ARE AN EXPERT with PHP and HTML. When you read the ads about SunShop they make it seem like this cart is a breeze. Don't be a sucker like I was. As I type this we are again losing money from loss of online sales. I am going to stop typing now because I am still quite angry and am going to just be redundant, and, I have to try to get our cart functional again. After that I will be seeking another cart. To all prospective buyers…BE FOREWARNED.
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 01/30/08 @ 11:35 pm

Bill G.

And here I am answering your support tickets, after hours no less, trying to get you through your problems with the upgrade you are performing. You are going to sit there and say you are not getting support from us when I know for a fact that you have lots of tickets in our system that have all been answered promptly and that you have received nothing but the complete opposite of your post above. I also know that you talk to Sam on an almost daily basis when you need help.

The upgrades are simple and yet you point the finger at us when you cannot perform them properly. Frankly I don't know what more you want short of us doing everything for you. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the posts above under the name Harry Harris are in fact you. Its a shame though that after all the support and assistance we have provided you that you are going to come here and not tell the truth.
Bill G. says:
Comment posted on 01/31/08 @ 7:16 am

"I also know that you talk to Sam on an almost daily basis when you need help."
That's a lie. Not true. At no time have I have ever gotten through on the phone and spoke to Sam nor anyone else. Nor did I say I never received "help", I stated that I have NEVER gotten through on the phone to tech support, never.
"The upgrades are simple…"
That's a joke. The only way an upgrade is simple is if we (the developer) do not make ANY personal modifications, leaving the cart templates stock. You unethically make it appear to readers of this forum that the Cart (from the development side) is so simple and easy to work with. I'm here to warn potential buyers that THAT (truthfully) is not true. Getting help SOLELY by email rots - each time I have attempted to upgrade. YES, I have gotten help by email, but NO support by phone as I have indicated in above and in my first post. No manual, and for all intents and purposes, no telephone support. The Cart does have some very good features, but those features are outweighed by the almost impossible task of getting through (telephone) to tech support, the lack of a half-way decent user manual and the upgrade issues for those of us who have modified our templates, and I am not Harry Harris.
Bill G. says:
Comment posted on 01/31/08 @ 8:50 pm

And here's more reason why newbees should not consider this SunShop Shopping Cart…ever since I purchased a few months ago the order search function does not work. No matter how I enter search criteria the entire list of orders appears. I have brought this matter to tech supports attention about 2 weeks ago and Sam fixed it for me - albeit temporarily. Now, after the upgrade to version 4.0.9 it's back to not working. ??? This is outrageous. There is no way for me to search orders using the Admin Panel feature. In order for me to search orders for a particular customer's order I have to log in to my Web site host and enter into the phpMyAdmin and search the MySQL database. Is this rediculous or what. And they (TurnKeyWebtools) wonder why people get upset. A search feature is basically mandatory in a shopping cart admin panel, and this one does not work still. There is no [logical] reason why this can not be fixed permanantly. Now watch how they jump in here and try to blame it on me. Again, be forwarned shopping cart seekers. You'll be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 01/31/08 @ 11:11 pm

The search feature doesn't work, but it works fine in the demo? You are the only person to date who has said the search feature doesn't work. Is that a bit odd? I am not going to sit here and argue with you back and forth. I will simply invite anyone who has a question about being able to get through support to simply call and see for themselves. And when you get through to a support rep, you will see that we are in fact there answering phones calls EVER DAY from 10am to 6pm. I find it hard to believe that you have never been able to get through. Perhaps you tried once and didn't get through right away and hung up.

Diane said it best when she stated: "In my experience, many people want the Web to be completely intuitive and easy to use, but it just really isn't, even if you're only dealing with static websites. Yes, you can pretty much use Sunshop, WordPress and the like out of the box, but if you want to customize them much, you do have to know something."

Since day one Bill all you have ever done was jump on us for every little thing you thought was out of place or needed revision. Just looking at your forum posts proves my point. If it was really so hard to do these things, don't you think you wouldn't be the only one complaining. That is all I will say.
Dan Eskelson says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 6:39 am

I have received the last few exchanges by email…as a former Sunshop user, I will weigh in with a short response.

The potential of Sunshop is good, but several minor (or major, depending on your workflow) flaws and glitches often get in the way of smooth operation. Some of these have been brought up by Bill G…others were more bothersome to me.

I fought with these for several years, believing the developers that the next best revision would be the pie in the sky solution. No such luck. Each revision introduced further annoyances and required time consuming searches for fixes or workarounds.

The wasted time and increasing frustration no longer was worth it…I purchased another shopping cart at three times the cost, and it was a wise decision. Sure, there are improvements to be made even in that cart, but the core functionality is excellent, and the business operation now flows as it should.

And the new cart *is* "intuitive and easy to use"…even with customization and revision.

Hopefully Sunshop will someday reach its potential…and current paying users will not need to be continual beta testers.
Bill G. says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 8:25 am

Chris, I could care less what you think or say. You threatened me the other night with not wanting to provide support to me anymore because I get angry. Your darn right I get angry and I have a RIGHT too. Your company has a legal and ethical obligation to provide support irrespective of the fact that the customer gets mad because they have a defective product. Since day one of using this cart the search feature did not work. Another problem that STILL exists is after a customer creates an account and enters his/her Billing and Shipping Info, when the customer logs in and enters an alternate ship-to address, when the customer advances to the next confirmation screen their new ship to address is overwritten by the shipping address they initially entered at account creation. This problem has existed since the day we bought SunShop. None of the upgrades has addressed the problem.

Now, Instead of you spending so much time reading the posts in this group trying to counter the honest complaints people have about the problems they are having with the cart, why don't you keep your nose to the grindstone FIXING the issues. You certainly like to sell your product and take the money, how bout FIXING the problems and apologizing to the customers for the problems in the first place!

Finally, can anyone in this group suggest a GOOD shopping cart? We are going to be ditching this one real soon, as soon as we find a more reliable one, and one where the company reps REALLY provide tech support and don't threaten their customers.

My communications with Chris from this point forward are over. I don't appreciate the threating emails he has sent me. If I did that to one of our customers I would expect that customer to go elsewhere for the products and not buy from us.
Bill G. says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 8:44 am

Here's a current example of the issues with SunShop. I just had a customer try to place an order and here is (copied and pasted) what he just said to me:
"I look forward to the new cart… I typoed my cc number and couldn't submit after I corrected it!"
You see folks, it is issue like this that I am concerned about for unsuspecting people buying this cart. It is a GOOD THING that I do all our web developing, if I we had to pay a developer to try to fix the defects in the cart we would not be making any profit with our business. I recall in one of the earlier posts in this group a gentleman stated that he had to pay his developer $2000 for an (what Chris says no one has problems with but me) upgrade!
Sam says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 10:35 am

As someone who performs upgrades quite often, and as an employee of Turnkey, I can tell you that upgrade issues usually happen when you don't replace all of your shop files with the ones from the new version, and do not update the templates accordingly. Code is pretty black and white. It either works, or it doesn't. In this case, it does. And the upgrades are in fact painless IF you don't miss one of the steps in the process.

If you do all your own customizations, I can see how it can all become overwhelming and how you can run into problems. ESPECIALLY, if you are not a programmer or a designer, who knows at least basic HTML. I have seen grandmothers perform upgrades with no problems. It really isn't that complex. Again, unless you have done some extensive customization and are not an actual programmer or designer (With HTML knowledge).

I can understand Bill's frustration…but as someone who has helped him many times, I can tell you that quite of few of his issues were easily addressed. And without making him feel bad, some of those were directly related to how he went about the upgrade process.

Out of the box, Sunshop is a good product for the price. If you're going to tinker with code or design, I suggest installing a second instance of it and testing your changes and upgrading THAT, to avoid problems on your live shop.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 11:02 am

If I can add something: when upgrading, you'l be uploading a large number of files (in a large number of folders).

In such a case, it's usually best to delete the files on the server before uploading the new files. I first ran into this with WordPress upgrades (if you don't know, WordPress is blog software); the WordPress guys strongly recommend deleting the files on the server before uploading the new ones. I would never have believed that some files on the server may not get overwritten during the upload — but I've since lived to witness it.

I don't know if this is of any help, but it could be.
Sam says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 12:07 pm

Indeed it is. So true too, Diane. If you are a programmer or a designer, you'll know that this will happen OFTEN throughout your career. ;-) And you may wind up going in circles wondering why something isn't working. While deleting the files does not ensure they will safely upload 100% of the time, at least it is easier to verify when a file is missing….rather than when one was not overwritten.
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 12:17 pm

"I don't appreciate the threating emails he has sent me. If I did that to one of our customers I would expect that customer to go elsewhere for the products and not buy from us."

Are you serious bill? Here is your email and here is my reply.

Your Email:

"And you wonder why I get so upset. Still, after the upgrade to version 4.0.9 the search feature in the Transaction Search section of the Admin Panel does not work. This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE. Why the hell
can't your coder FIX THIS PROBLEM ONCE AND FOR ALL! This cart is a piece of SHIT!!!"

My reply:

"We will no longer assist you if you cannot conduct yourself like a grown up."

I can see how that is threatening.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 2:02 pm

Thanks, Sam. I think some of these things fall under "tricks of the trade" … things that make things easier or make them work correctly.

I would also say, for those of you who are undertaking to modify Sunshop, if you're going to modify the core files (anything beyond the templates), it pays to:
1. keep track of what you're doing, and
2. know that modifications to core files are going to cause problems when upgrade time comes around … because upgrading will wipe them out. See #1 above.
I normally keep a Word doc noting what modifications I've made (and where), links to any pertinent information, etc. Believe me, it saves a lot of grief up the line and I don't have to rely on memory months or years later.

Lastly, I have to say this: if you're going to do much more than swap out a logo — if you're going to restyle the templates for *any* software, let alone modify core files of the program — you'll really need to know some things. None of us were born knowing this stuff; we got where we are by studying, testing, and keeping at it until we got it.

I understand that it can be frustrating and supremely confusing, but there isn't any way around learning how to do it. That is, there isn't any quick one-shot route to programmer or web designer knowledge. I'm talking years, not weeks.

That said, I'll be posting some tips about how to do certain things (like swapping out the Sunshop logo for your own). Just give me a bit.
Chris Talavera says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 2:11 pm

Diane, we actually have something like that in place. Feel free to reference it:

http://www.turnkeywebtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6582
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 02/1/08 @ 2:14 pm

Chris — excellent. Thanks for pointing it out.
Theresa says:
Comment posted on 04/4/08 @ 8:40 am

Thanks for this really informative page!

I'm teetering on the verge of buying Sunshop as I really do like the look of it and all the features.

BUT I'm quite a lot concerned about the discussion about the available templates. I have limited editing skills but quite liked the 'modern blue' / 'red' layouts anyway. Are you saying that these are in the demo but not in the software when you buy it?

I'm dizzy with looking at options for my new store and thought I'd finally decided on Sunshop until I read this.

Any updated comments on the template system for the new version would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Diane Vigil says:
Comment posted on 04/4/08 @ 1:18 pm

Hi Theresa. Actually, I wrote the above review of Sunshop 3.5x in 2005. Sunshop 4.x is the current version, and it comes with a handful of templates, so you get your choice, including Modern Blue and Classic Red.

I keep promising to write a review of Sunshop 4, but am having to work around my schedule (I'm a web designer). Sunshop 4, in my opinion, has quite a number of enhancements from the earlier versions. If you can believe it, the guys at TurnkeyWebTools actually asked their customers what we wanted, and implemented just about everything from a ridiculously long list. I'm building two stores with Sunshop 4 right now, and it's also much easier to work with than earlier versions, and (as you can see in the demo), it's pretty snazzy.

Any complex software can be a bit confusing at first, but if you look at it and play with it, you'll get the hang of it. You can also ask questions in the TWT forums.
Norm says:
Comment posted on 05/3/08 @ 11:38 am

Hi Diana,
Thanks for all the information you provide on your site, it’s very helpful.

We’re currently using the latest version of Sunshop (4.1) and we’re wondering if you or one of your readers has ever built a bilingual site with this cart?

So far, we have translated the language pack but we can only use one or the other by manual selection in the admin panel. We wanted to use a splash screen to let the client select his language and then have Sunshop call the appropriate language pack.

Also, how do we get Sunshop to accurately update the database independently of the language being used so the products quantities are properly maintained globally?

BTW, our PHP knowledge is very basic; we only started looking at PHP after the purchase of Sunshop.

Thanks!

Norm

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