SunShop 4.x is a php
/ mysql based shopping cart system. The product has been around for several years, and is fairly mature. This version is a rewrite from the 3.5 series, which seemed to have some security issues. I've installed and customized / hacked the software several times now, and have found it to be a pretty good product overall. Below I will go over my experiences with the software, and highlight some strong and weak points.
Installation / Requirements
The software requires php
and mysql (database), and they provide a system check script which will tell you (a) if your system will run the software, and (b) what version of the software to download.
Installing the software is generally pretty easy. After editing a config file (with your database settings, etc.), there's an install script that walks you through the install. Main sticking points are making some directories writable, and making sure youctually create the mysql database and access privileges ahead of time. Otherwise, it's about as smooth as installations go.
Features
The product is pretty robust with features. This is a partial list, but some of the highlights:
Full Product editor
Category and subcategory editor (multiple subcategory levels, products can be in multiple categories, etc)
User / account manager
Full set of payment modules, payment options
Full set of shipping modules, options
Support for digital / downloadable products
Custom product fields - attributes, options
Templates are files - can be edited through the interface OR on the filesystem
Related products / featured products
Users can leave product reviews
Transaction viewer / editor, with packing slips
For a full list, you should check out the website.
Pros
These are the biggest benefits I've seen using the software, as compared with some other systems out there. They are listed in order of importance (to me!).
Full source code! That's right, you get the full source code to this baby. That's important because I never had a client who could use an ecommerce package "as-is" out of the box. Everyone wants changes to certain features that you simply can't do in the templates. This is the most important feature to me, because some requests are very unique, and would never make it into a code release from the vendor. It also means I never have to tell the customer "I can't do that."
Robust Product Editing. The product editor allows multiple pictures, additional options with cost (eg. XL t-shirt, add $2.00), weights, customized shipping options, and even downloadable / digital products. In addition, you can add "related products" to try upselling, and also custom fields for specialized products. There's more too, like specifying the box size the product ships in, if you need that (odd size boxes cost more to ship), and how many can fit in a box. This is the most robust product editor I've seen.
Editable Templates. For people who know HTML, these templates are great. You can tweak and customize just about any part of any screen you want. Note: There is not a WYSIWYG editor, so you need to know HTML to edit these. Also, they contain some variables, so you need to be careful. If you are a programmer/designer, these are great. Non-technical end users should not edit these.
Payment Settings. This includes the standard modules for connecting to paypal, Authorize.net, etc. but also allows you to manually process credit cards, accept personal checks, and purchase orders. These are especially important for business-to-business vendors, who don't need everything to be automatic. You can choose which you accept.
Transaction Viewer / Editor. Some shopping cart programs fall flat when it comes to editing finished transactions. SunShop allows you to edit transactions, add products, change totals, etc. In addition, it lets you send updates to the customer, letting them know their order status. There is a "packing list" screen as well, for the actual shipment.
Price. The license fee is about $249 per site, less if you become a reseller. This is in line with comparable products, and the feature set and stability you get is great.
Cons
These are a few problems / annoyances that come up with the product. With the source code, you can always work around these problems, but it takes some effort.
Partial orders. When orders partially ship, it's a little clunky to handle. For instance, there's no way to mark which items shipped / not, and the packing slip shows all items. So you'd have to manually cross out those items. Same problem when you ship the rest of the order. There's no way (except for the notes field) to keep track of what's being shipped and when.
Templates. The templates are great, except it takes a lot of hunting sometimes to find the right template for the screen / area you are looking for. Maybe if they encoded the template name into a comment so you could find it when viewing the source, that would help. Also, the templates for the "Admin" side of things are not editable through the browser. You have to dig in on the back end and sort through php
code to fix up any changes. This is important to developers whose clients want some things changed on their admin area.
Bulk items. If you are managing hundreds or thousands of items, the product editor can be tedious. Granted, most shopping carts have this problem, but some features to maybe edit some fields globally might be nice. They have an import feature, but then you need to maintain your product list outside of the system, and upload it whenever something changes. I've seen notes that some people have problems with the import option as well.
Recommendation
After a lot of looking around and testing, I now use SunShop as my standard ecommerce package for clients. The product works well, with few bugs, and has a great feature set. The fact that I can customize the source code, if need be, makes it a great choice if you have any coding prowess. Overall, if you are looking for a great "in-house" shopping cart system for your website, you won't go wrong with SunShop.
I am writing this review to save save my brain from the countless hours of banging against my desk due to frustration with this company's software.
Lets start with SunShop, their shopping cart system. DON'T EVEN BOTHER. It's NOT "TurnKey" like they advertise and requires hours of setup and program source code modification... That's not including the countless hours you will spend trying to figure out how to modify the terribly coded system. You need to be an advanced PHP programmer to even get it embedded into an existing website.
And their customer support and live PHP helper system? They don't work. At all. The people on the other end of the line are clueless... you won't get any REAL help IF you can get past the countless re-freshes, errors, and freezing of the live helper during the middle of chats with them.
This is a summary of my findings. DON'T go with any software from this company. There are plenty of GOOD alternatives for everything they offer.
