Just in case you need integrated labels invoices, we are just developing these for CSCart at www.labz.co.uk (just asked Pat about it and he is muttering about frames, overlays, layers and the like - so I guess it will be really soon, lol).

Regards,

Just a quick update.

We have has a number of issues with our server meeting the needs of CSC, moved to a VPS and still some problems but getting there.

There are no import facilities for configuring departments (categories) so these have to be manually entered (pic, text, page title etc..) and we have over 500 so very time consuming.

Order processing is not as slick as Actinic and the way it handles back orders is far from ideal. Waiting for a quote from CSC to customise it for us.

I will add that CSC support has continued to be excellent although the free support period is only 30 days so just purchased another 30 day period.

The first significant bug has just been spotted during final testing - CSC calculates tax incorrectly and they are aware of it yet still markets the cart!!!! Not sure yet how I am going to get around this as we were due to go live this week.

I still believe the merits far out weight the issues but I cannot believe the VAT calc is wrong.

Paul

Apparently the 'proper' fix for the tax calculation problem requires a significant re-write and no date for when this will happen. It looks like CSC calculates the VAT on each individual item purchased and sums these. The problem for us is that we have a product range that includes 1000+ low value items that customers can purchase in large quantities. The method adopted by CSC means that a 5p item + VAT is rounded up to 6p, the 1p VAT is then multipled by the quantity purchased - say 500 giving £5 of tax rather than calculate the VAT based on a tax exclusive subtotal which would have given £4.38 VAT.

Once this was pointed out to CSC, they provided a fix first thing this morning where from what I can see they have removed the number formating (significant digits) for the tax calculation which now gives a correct result.

So whilst there should never have been such a bug as this, CSC have at least provided an acceptable workaround solution quickly.

looks like you're getting stuck in there mr cooper. keep us informed. i love reading about peoples adventures.

Well, we have gone live with the site and orders are coming in. 5,000 products with over 600 categories so quite a bit of work. Still lots to do but we now have a sound basis to work on.

I do not like the order processing side but may well suit others. We are paying CSC to modify it so that we can handle back orders. I will say that their rates are not unreasonable and will still be paying less than an upgrade to V10 of Actinic.

Paid for a third party 'add on' to have automatic updates to currency exchange rates. Also will be looking at an add on for twitter.

I would like to seek some advice though. Rightly or wrongly, we are having a change from being focused on robotics to the more general area of electronic and mechanical components. Part of this change is a move to a new domain name.

Currently it is technobots.co.uk
the new site is technobotsonline.com

We are trying to persuade customers to buy from the new site and will ultimately close down the .co.uk domain. We have reasonable search results on Google and that is helped by the number of inbound links. Moving to the new domain means no links so far and poor Google results. Google is mapping the site on a daily basis (CSC gives excellent reports on all users including robots).

Can anyone offer advice on how best to manage the domain move, not fall foul of any phising (which has already happened but Google cleared it very quickly) and to maximise on the links we have built up.

Thanks

Paul

Well that's it, the 'old' Actinic site is now closed to new orders and we have plenty of links from the old to the new site. We have a 301 redirect from the old home page to the new site. Traffic to the new site is increasing steadily and CS Cart is working well.

I will finish by offering one recommendation and that is make sure your server has at least 512MB of memory with 256MB for PHP. You can get away with less for smaller sites but we had to upgrade to this level to get reliability as regards site maintenance (csv uploads etc..) and cart speed performance for users.

It has been an involved upgrade but very happy to have made the move from Actinic and CS Cart continues to provide excellent support for $60 / month, less if you buy support in longer periods.

I am far from being proficient in CS Cart but if I can be of assistance to anyone in the move to CS Cart, Email me: paul(at)technobots(.)co(.)uk I will endeavour to help.

Paul

technobotsonline.com