Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`m taking a post that iouone2 posted on a different thread ... and I hope he doesn`t mind if I start this discussion here ...

[quote=iouone2]

I often wonder, if I decided to leave my current shopping cart system, how difficult is it to slip into someone elses database system? I know you will need to transfer your domain name, but what about the database and purchasing structure. How much has it changed and what were the difficulties discovered in order to start over somewhere else? Do you loose everything (site design, visual structure, other)

[/quote]

All that I can tell you right now is ... I have some incredible resources that have steped up to the table to assist GoTruckStop.com, including several folks here at SuN`s Community Forum. (For all of you that have offered your services (here at the forum or in private msg`s) I say THANK YOU.

We changed hosting services rather easily, however I do recommend that folks back-up their web sites (ftp) on a regular basis ... as well as the data base.

The image changes have gone fairly smooth ... we are still missing a few hundred images for our products ... but that should be remedied in the next few days.

My other suggestion to folks that are not familiar with html and ftp ... get familiar. Don`t sit back and be afraid to learn. I recall a sage piece of advise I once received (gosh, and I truly forgot about it till now)

"Take control of your destiny ... or someone else will."

I wish I could share more with you at this time ... however till all the transitions are completed ... I don`t want to lead someone down the primrose path.

 

TJG,
I am glad you created a new post. That`s probably the best way to get away from the other negative shtuff.

If anyone else has experienced a change like this, what do you have to say?


-------------------------

Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

migrating from one shopping cart to anther is never easy. Even if you move from one well known cart to another there will always be difficulties with the migration.

Some cart will offer migration scripts from one cart to another but these aren`t 100% full proof. If you do plan to move from one cart to another expect some downtime, and if you can setup everything in the new cart before shutting down the old one.

Lots of people face this problem because they initally got a shopping cart which worked for them "at the time" but didn`t allow them to grow into it. The flip side of this is people getting too much cart and being overwhelmed! There is no right or easy answer, but with careful planning and making decisions for the now and a bit into the future will save you lots of headaches.

That`s the the great part with working with Vince Creazzo and Spads.com. Vince is a "Certified Shopping Cart Developer" for Authorize.Net. Authorize.Net, one of the largest gateways for credit card processing, has very strict standards for their developers, as you can see from the following link ...

http://www.spads.com/whatsnew.htm

I`ll keep everyone updated as we progress with GoTruckStop.com.

Moving shopping cart systems can be a lot of work.  Try to get into a system that you `own` rather than pay for on a montly basis.  These guys know that once you`re into their system you can`t easily switch, that`s why the pricing structure is so darn attractive in the begining.  Same goes for Email lists ;)

 

-------------------------

Bryan C. Fleming

http://www.BryanCFleming.com

Personally I always recommend using a hosted application over owning one. Why? Because most of my clients just want to sell stuff. They don`t want to worry about server/application security or patching/upgrading software. They also benefit from on-going development.

Switching is always going to be a pain, even when you`re not changing software (i.e. just changing hosting company). I always try to integrate the shopping cart with the clients accounting system. Part of the reason for doing this is that it makes it easier to switch software.

-------------------------

Blog - http://www.buggy.id.au/

I asked our main programmer this question since he`s more experienced in this area than I am. Here was his reply.

All shopping cart systems store information differently in the database.  Converting is possible, but takes some time to do.  It can most likly be done with a script after analyzing both systems and deciding where variables in the old system will be stored in the new system.  Each system probably looks different as well as having different ways to access information.  You shouldn`t loose any of the design or visuals, as they are not part of the shopping cart system itself, but the main website that the shopping cart fits into.

Hope this helps :-)

-------------------------

The shopping cart is not other thing that a database (back-end) and some code (front-end) working together to display and process the data or your inventory if you like.  Therefore you have two pieces to think about it when you want to move from one shopping cart to another.  In custom development, you can change only one piece at the time or both, it is more flexible.  In a canned solution, it is up to the vendor to adjust the new platform to import your existing data and make it  work with the vendor`s framework (front-end).  In the custom development solution, I would suggest to keep the same front-end and upgrade the database.  Your online store will continue working almost without any outages.  Then, you can upgrade the front-end of your shopping cart knowing that your inventory is safe.


-------------------------

Marcelo Schmidt
CEO - savvybyte.com