I'm writing this fully expecting the moderator to swoop down and delete this post, but here it goes (I'll be reposting this gripe on blogs and forums across the net).
 
This is a general warning to potential buyers of the Viart system about the type of company you're going to be dealing with. Thus far I like the product itself (except for the inexcusable non-support of W3C standards . . . next version!). Given the time differences between the US and UK, the support has been responsive and professional.
 
However . . . we've had two big problems.
 
They know very little about cascading style sheets (css) and how they work. Even taking into account my css skill level (an expert, probably in the top 15% of all css programmers), from what I've seen and what they've told me, they are in the bottom 20% in terms of skill level. When I asked for some changes in the custom work they're doing for us, they didn't even understand how the font declaration works. Looking at their css, it's elementary, inefficient and generally a mess. They don't have a css expert working for them (FYI, moderator, I'm available to consult).
 
Our second problem is that given we've spent nearly $1800 (okay, the dollar isn't what it used to be!), they try to charge us more and more for every little change in our custom work, even though this wasn't stated when we signed up after have extensive email communication detailing what we wanted and approving an image of our custom design.
 
There were elements missing in our design (that appeared in the image) that they wanted to charge us more for. It's been a constant battle with them, fighting over the extent of the work we're paying for, and it all boils down to them either changing the rules on the fly or not being clear from the beginning. Either way, that's not our fault.
 
And now as I write this, they have responded to the latest battle by saying they'll do the work as outlined in the design comp. BUT, I had to battle for that, I had to write the email, I felt I had to write this note, and all of this is costing me time.
 
Let it be said, in this latest battle I sent them a totally pissed off email, but they still responded in a professional manner. They deserve credit for seeming to be cheerful people, but if they aren't charging enough for their product they should charge more up front and stop trying to drive customers crazy by making up the money on the back end.
 
Okay, moderator, DELETE!

skips_webmaster W3C Standards I think is over rated because not all Browsers comply with WC3 Standards and what elements works in one browser it may behave differently in another. So this being the case why bother?
 
I think people like to get pedantic and attempt to build the perfect site but this will only work (W3C Standards) if all browsers complied.
 
CSS has been around for a long time do you really think if the WC3 Standards was so important Viart would of not looked into this more seriously years ago?
 
You know what it is its the next generation of webmasters who hibernate in forums and learn off each other and meeting WC3 Standards is the in thing.
 
I am about to purchase this cart and your post has not stopped me.
 
When it is law to have a website that complies with W3C standards so it works with a browser or to be listed in a search engine is when I will look into this more seriously.
 
Didn't mean to rain on your parade.
 
Have a good one.
 
Joe

I have to say that this has not been my experience - and I have had a great deal of work done for me.
 
I concede that the Viart way of financing work is interesting - but I have another shop that has been operating for a few years with US based software and in that time very little significant improvements have been made - and when I ask for PayPal Pro in the UK they say they have no plans for the UK version at this time.
 
So, yes, Viart can feel like a challenge at times, but for me it provides an excellent solution and I am very happy with it.
 
Chris

Sorry to hear your frustrated enough to go bad mouthing Viart on blogs n forums throughout the net.
 
Had my issues with the Viart cart but mainly self caused. And any problems get sorted. Basically I like and trust Viart and see it is a continually developing effective system that lats me ( with limited skills ) actually make money selling my products.
 
Its my choice in business who I deal with and Viart has been a good choice for me too.

I have to side with Viart on this. I have tried and used several shopping carts out there. They all have pluses and minuses. For my needs, I find Viart an incredible value as no one else that I found can touch their features for triple the price.
 
While the Viart cart is lacking some detailed documentation, I have found the cart to be solid and working for when I need with few exceptions. And those minor exceptions are able to be worked around or Viart is providing a solution for tem at a reasonable cost.
 
As for the support response, that others seem to complain about on the forum - I invested in $99 premium support when I purchased the cart and have always had prompt answers.
 
Jsut thought I should toss in my $.02 and I have an opposite opinion to the original post.
 
Teo

I think you get what you pay for.

I believe that I'm satisfied with what Viart has to offer. I'm a little concerned about how long the support tickets are sometimes, and custom work...but I think that they've handled every problem I've come across, and they're willing to help out in depth...so I'm happy

ps...are you kinda cocky saying you're in the top 15 percent of the market for css knowledge? If so..then why are you using Viart? If I was in the top 15% for css knowledge I would hope to be working for a firm or myself with other people that could create their own package...

Hello Bill,
 
Let us give our comments on your forum thread.
 
Firstly, we consider that we have fully completed the work for which you have paid $800, namely we have created a bespoke design according to your wishes and transfer the design to your site. By the way, at present the cost of such design services equals to $900 ($25 per hour). This cost covers the time our specialists spend on creation and transferring the design (plus the time of support team while discussing all the peculiarities of the work).
 
The work does not include any programming features that may need if the standard shop does not support them. In case a user wants or requires some specific modifications, then he has to pay an extra sum which is calculated for each modification according to our standard rate $25 per hour.
 
We admit that in your case it was our fault when preparing a design we haven't taken into account that we have added a few elements that required additional changes and time. When transferring the design, we realised that the footer we have created for a design will require some additional programming. Therefore, we suggest that we can add the same footer for a small fee of $50. You refused to pay as we haven't agreed this sum beforehand and we then proposed to make the footer free of charge as we acknowledged that in this case we were not quite right. We always try to be fair in such matters and do our best to satisfy the clients' needs and admit our faults.
 
Regarding W3C support, we are planning to prepare our nearest release according to W3C standards. Please, keep in mind that we value each client and are of course interested in imporving our product as well as our support. Therefore, we appreciate your opinions as they give us an incentive to work better and make our product as close to the needs of our clients as possible.
 
And thanks to all our clients for your kind words and your trust in us.
 
With kind regards,
ViArt Support Team
 

I'm glad Joe isn't being swayed by my post not to purchase Viart; that wasn't the purpose writing the post. The purpose was to tell people about our experience (the mixed bag), and hopefully get responses that either confirmed or countered our experience. Clearly our experience, based on the above responses, has been the exception, not the rule. And that's great! That gives me great hope for the future. I do wonder why the above posters have the "either you're with us or against us" attitude.
 
Joe, sorry, every modern browser DOES try to comply with W3C standards. In fact, the standards are not just about browsers, but also the coding of html/xhtml in general (and covers many other aspects of web communication standards). There is some minor variability in the compliance of browsers, but the latest versions of ALL browsers (except the built-in AOL browser) do a pretty good job.
 
Why would a css expert use Viart and not build his own system? Well, css is just a small part of the whole cart system; I didn't say I had expertise in building the whole system, that's why we chose Viart. Our shop sells stuff, we don't design web apps.
 
Again, I'm glad to hear that our experience thus far hasn't been normal.
 
Bill

It's good that this thread could be left alone because the truth has come out. I've been with Viart for more than 2 years and I wont move as long as they keep doing what they have been doing, I've been dowb the OsCommerce road (ya know) never want to go there again.
Viart support are always helpul, understanding & above all curteous. Their pricing for custom work I do not have a problem with, the only thing, just a little thing I worry about is paying for added features that would be used in a next release.

wish i could edit my spelling :)

I am more then happy to pay for customizations and then have them added to a release which benefits us all. We have paid for some features and they will be in the next release.
 
I think this is very ethical, Viart could also just add patches and let every customer pay again for the same stuff.
 
This is the best solution I have come across and we are moving our entire company shops over to Viart the next months.

I am really pleased with ViArt! I've tried a lot of carts, both hosted and self-hosted. And I've spent a ton of time reviewing features, emailing or calling the company for clarifications.
 
I can tell ViArt is having some growing pains, but wow - they are delivering a lot of new features every few months. I found a bunch of carts that were contenders in the $300 to $600 range, went thru free trials where possible and ViArt came out WAYYYY on top.
 
They've been kind, thoughtful, and responsive. (though in USA I have to be remember to submit a late-day ticket to get a response next day) And I love the direction I feel they are headed.
 
One more thing, I talked to two users here in US on the phone, they were both pleased, before I jumped in after the trial. One had spent $500 on services and was blown away by what he got.

I am very pleased with the viart system. I'm not sure about what you mean with growing pains, lol, but I'm also a US user and feel everything with ViArt has been a success thus far!

I am new here, have not purchased ViArt yet. Have been researching. I have found 3 carts that I have enjoyed so far. ViArt by far in what I want to achieve is the only one that can do it. The others are great for straight product selling, but will not do custom work themselves.
The people at ViArt, Anjula, Denis and Natalia have been very professional and responsive to all my crazy and weird questions. I think I have driven them mad with the numerous questions.
I am having them do some custom work as we speak, and I don't even have the cart yet.
I would like to see them succeed and I want to be a part of it.
As an affiliate, I am promoting their product.
Sorry that you had a rough time with them, but I am sure it would have been a lot tougher dealing with other cart companies.
Only 1 wish I have is for an esthetically pleasing Storefront to start off with.

What did I mean by "growing pains"? I am in my 50's, and maybe that's an older expression. It originally referenced a child's teenage years, when they are growing so fast that they feel emotional and even physical pains from the rapid changes. When business people talk (or used to) about growing pains in a business it is usually an enthusiastic comment that a company is headed in an exciting new direction, and things are happening so fast that things are a bit imperfect for awhile.
 
I tested ViArt for about a month and went "live" with Version 3.3 in late January. I am very happy, and already see that Version 3.4 has still more excellent features. (see Latest News/Articles page).
 
I'd also like to comment on "WC3 standards". We are a small business and want something that works quickly and well. I tried Microsoft Expression Web after they dumped FrontPage and can see that all these tedious protocols may have beauty in the long run, but hey, my life is too short to care at all about it now. The only person I know using it now works for HP where they are hyper concerned about standards. I just want something nimble, straightforward, and with features that will help me.
 
Each shopping cart on the market is different, each is a creative act by the designers. None is perfect, each one has a learning curve. After a LOT of serching I feel ViArt is the best available. Its features are astonishing, and they keep adding more.
 
The forum isn't perfect yet, and you'll see questions that seem to indicate big holes in the design. Don't worry, all these are just normal learning curve things with occasional bugs, and ViArt gets to the bottom of each one. I think a lot of the questioners either were using the free trial and left, or they got a fix from ViArt staff and never updated their forum comment.

I agree. I think that Viart's weakness is within the Forum. NO ability to edit your own postings, have moderators without access to the actual backend system, etc.
 
I think that they'll implement these features coming up soon so I'm fine with that.

I have posted way back 2 years or so ago when I first bought Viart they needed a modern forum. Alas they still keep rolling with this home brew turd forum.
 
Regarding CCS in Viart, totally true it is a mess. Especialy in the 3.2 version I am still running, It sounds like they have not cleaned it up still as that would be a major undertaking. All I can say is when editing it, you should use some CSS helper plugins like Firebug for FireFox, and getting the latest Dreamweaver doesn't hurt either. But you also have to double check all CSS issues with each browsers.
 
Regarding Coding in Viart, is a redundant pain in the ass. A lot of the times the same routine is repeated in a dozen files all which have to be changed to impliment a new functionality site wide in many cases. The lack of use of reused code in some areas makes me want to , there is also just sprinkles of OO coding here and there. No coder would call Viart's code art. I know however some like linar coding over OO coding, fair enough, but that still doesn't mean you can't use shared function libraries so you don't repeat the same code over and over. What this means is that in case like mine where I have a bunch of custom written functionality for my site, I am still back using version 3.2 becaue the task of migrating my changes to the latest versions is just not worth it.
 
It will also be interesting to see how some of these pay now for beta development companies like Viart will fair when MagentoCommerce comes out at the end of this month. Don't rush out on Magento yet though, it is a sluggish dog with very high system requirements, but it's free and really well put together, maybe in a year or so it will be the new standard. It will definantly be gunning to shoot down osC and Zen as the leading free cart and will put many smaller pay carts in the hurt. Its use of modules and extensions, multi-sitess and ajax is bleeding edge (but why they went with PDO is beyond me. I'm figthing for a change to ADOpd+Ext.) Anyway check it out now, but it's not a replacement...YET!

Luckely nobody is forced to use Viart. We are very happy with it and it suits our needs perfectly (software company).
 
Re. forum, I agree and Viart should just add support for major boards instead of trying to copy phpbb or others. Same for the helpdesk btw, just take a compare with www.perldesk.com . But this is again not applicable if you target to sell to mom and pop shops that need an out of the box solution for their eintire business. For that Viart is perfect imho.
 
Just my 2ct.

I am so surprised that this thread has been resurrected for the benefit of such sad people.
If you don't like it I cannot understand why you are so keen to expend all this energy here.
Those who like Viart, for all its (many) shortcomings are happy to work together here.
Those who do not should just find the eCommerce they like and go there, please. And lighten up a bit, you are not forced to use it

ViArt has worked pretty well for me after the initial several days of removing countless TABLES from templates. Skips is right about the poor CSS and W3C non-compliance but in the end ViArt has a pretty good application for a good price. Just take the time to make it suit your needs.

You will not find a software that would appease everyone. They all have their shortcomings and their pros. From experience, even the most thought out software never covers every eventuality or condition.
 
In designing a software, you have to put it to the test in the marketplace before it can get all it's bugs or features ironed out. No matter how much you pretest or beta test it initially, there will be issues once you go live. You will always have to tweak it in places and improve your application as users apply it in different industries.
 
I will not claim to have tested many shopping carts, but I did download a few and tried them, but then I knew exactly what I wanted and if the others did not have the KEY features for me then there was no point in wasting my time with them. There are others that are really good and would work really well for many of the shops, but you have to compare the entire package; support, cost, ease of use etc etc. Some were technically challenging to install, support for the software was weak, customization was an issue.
 
I am sure ViArt will only improve from here on. It has some very powerful and neat features that suit me and my needs, and hopefully I will have it up and running in a couple of months you can all tell me your thoughts.
 
I have to agree with Chris, (who helped me make my decision an easier one to get involved with ViArt and Dan was the other) that we are here so the forum is the place to share ideas and help each other out.
 
Sorry to ramble on and on. Lets move forward and build successful shops.

Well said templatehood
I have just moved my main site to a new server and added four more sites in a multi site operation.
I paid Viart to do this and Anjula was extremely fair with me on the pricing and, despite some difficult and unexpected problems server wise, she was patient and very helpful.
I so much want to maintain a positive forum. I am prepared to help anyone I can with my limited expertise and I appreciate all the help I get.
And, more than that, I get lots of help from Viart - you just have to ask and work with them.
It is crucial to recognize that, as we are using a common language that does not always have common understanding around the world, we must think about how we communicate.
 
Chris
Bristol UKx

Chris, very well summarised!

Having just found this message, I think it is very good that everyone has had the opportunity to speak a loud and vent their frustrations, I also could do some venting but I would rather comment on the more positive side of this software and the strengths of Viart.
I searched and spent months, even bought other solutions but I finally found Viart, I am on my forth development and whilst I am a novice, I am learning fast, very frustrating at times and I would have to say one thing? Mention anything in the way of a requirement and you know the email that is going to come back, but in fairness the cost is not bad and if you consider your time over what you pay it is a steal.
 
I say, 10/10 to the Viart team for providing a very flexible solution at a fair price, you have my support.
And no matter how crappy and mad we get, they also respond in a very level well mannered tone, I have to give you credit for your patience also.
 
I look forward to the day when I have gained the knowledge to support those who are starting out like myself.
 
Thanks for the opportunity to make these comments and Good Luck to Viart.
 
Regards
Msquared