Hello everyone.
 
I am a website builder looking for a great cart to use for my client websites. We have been testing Viart for about a while and the system is impressive.
 
I tested the system we downloaded 10-12 weeks ago relentlessly since its $300 its big money to invest in a system so we need to make sure its right.
 
 
I wanted to make sure the system was still great and no big changes were made. I signed up for the latest version hosted on the viart server a few days ago. No files were changed. After testing the new system there was something noticeable that was changed. Before when you checkout and you enter the customer details and tick on the tick box below for details being the same it would auto populate the shipping cost on that page.
 
The new version doesn't do this.
 
If you choose Paypal and click on continue your taken to Paypal with the overall charges made. What happens if you have shipping options?
 
If you choose credit card the shipping is visible.
 
I can't believe that this system works this way. How stupid is this? It makes me wonder what the coders were thinking.
 
The solution is simple.
 
Page 1 - Add Shipping Details. Click on Continue.
 
Page 2 should show the shipping charge or shipping options along with payment option.
 
Page 3 depending on the choice checks out.
 
For this very reason I am contemplating moving on to another cart. Total time lost would only be a few hours but if upgrades are going to be made with bugs like this I am going to invest in something else.
 
Go ahead and do a test. Signup for the online demo and try it out using USP v2.0
 
Proof of this testing and the findings were done by Natalia on Live chat who had someone look into the settings and confirmed my findings.
 
Is this going to be upgraded soon or do I need to move on to something else?
 
Thanks
 
Joe

You need to make sure that the shipping options are a required field, then it will not continue to PayPal without a shipping selection.
Having asis that, this 3.4x release has definately some avoidable bugs that have irritated.

You need to make sure that the shipping options are a required field, then it will not continue to PayPal without a shipping selection.
Having asis that, this 3.4x release has definately some avoidable bugs that have irritated.
 
 
And how do we do this?
 
Since Viart was unable to help yesterday?
 
Joe

Yes, so major flaws. I would recommend them putting the shipping selection entirely on a seperate page..

Its stupid and I am really disappointed I spent so much time testing this system out.
 
I think more focus needs to be made on the shopping aspect of this cart rather than anything else.
 
Doesn't matter if I need to I will spend the $300 else where.
 
Joe

well, 300.00 isn't really a lot of money when it comes to ecommerce solutions, and I've tried other ones out there, and this one seems to be the best available to suit my needs right now. A littlw custom work and I'm happy

No worries as long as your happy with the way the shipping is calculated and the lack of visibility with Paypal. I showed my customer and he chuffed.
 
good on you.

Come to think of it, you dont need to do anything. Mine just works, even with PayPal it wont let you go to pay for it unless a shipping option is selected..

wow... the stupidity of some people. If they would really sit down and try it out, they'd realize it's a very nice piece of software

I am laughing at the replies I have received here.
 
Dan do not dare call me stupid. You should take a good look at yourself in the mirror with your silly replies.
 
Visit here http://hosting.viart.com/~197374/
 
Do a test order with a US Postcode using Paypal and let me know how you go. I did not install this the Viart installer did. Unless it has been changed by Viart it don't work and the Viart support team checked the settings and confirmed these findings yesterday.
 
Dan I pity you for thinking the way you do and to come up with thereplies you have. Another thing I did not mention that this software was not nice so what issue do you have?
 
Natalia from live chat checked this and had a support person look into it and has obliged there is a problem. What part of this don't you understand. You really think I am going to spend a month testing this system if I am not interested in buying it. Build a bridge and get over it. What I need to know if if there is going to be a fix not a crucification.
 
Unbelievable.

JOe, I am sorry you seem so upset with responses.
 
I guess you called for a response from Dan with " I showed my customer and he chuffed ". If you have not picked it up in the forums, there is a very loyal following for Viart.
 
This does not mean we are blind to problems but we all seem to feel that we cannot get half the features and functionality for half the price elsewhere . . .
. . . and what we do, when there is a problem, is to call Viart straight away and, as I hope you found out, they come to your rescue and sort out your problem.
 
I am sure you were very frustrated and that easily leads to anger.
My only practical recommendation in future, for what it is worth, is to delay upgrading. Many users upgrade quickly - they find all the bugs [for which I am grateful to them] and, several mods later, I can step in to upgrade with a much more stable offering.
 
I really hope all does work for you now because I am sure that Viart really does work hard to provide the best eCommerce solution in the affordable market.
 
Best wishes
 
Chris

Joe,
 
I tried that link, added somehting and went to the PayPal site, it included the shipping amount. I used a US shipping address.

Hi Mark,
 
If you were to buy an item from Amazon would you want to know how much the shipping is going to cost first or would you be happy to put in your address click on a button and be taken to Paypal where the shipping is added and your left to guess how much the shipping is?
 
I know I would want to know what the shipping is and so does my customer which has a large customer base with 10,000 items when he compared the old version to the new one and noticed the difference he chuffed and was not happy with this change. At no point should someone call me stupid because my customer chuffed when teh difference was noticed. The point I making is that the older version showed the postage charge when you clicked on the tick box, the new version does not.
 
I have been working with my customer who has a link to this post for the past month. At every point I prasied this system and it works really well however this changed when we did a quick test on the new version. We were minutes from buying the system and I stopped my customer from doing so.
 
If you think its great Business practice to include the shipping into the total and not to show the breakdown then good on you. Sales of any shopping cart that has this approach will drop because people want to see teh break down in the shipping. This is not correct nor is it professional. I wonder what would happen if there were options in the shipping to choose from.
 
People need to stop getting protective and start understanding and helping people. At no point was it my interest to pick on this cart.
 
I noticed a difference between old and the new and I know that this is not right.
 
As explained above there needs to be step 1 where you add the shipping details, step 2 you view the shipping charge or select a shipping option and what payment option you want to use and step 3 takes you to the payment page.
 
I am not being complicated. People need to and have every right to know what they are being charged for shipping rather than taking a guess when they are taken to Paypal. If I knew this change was underway I would of not wasted my valuable time using and testing this system.
 
Worse case scenario this suggestion could be made as an option in admin and I don't understand when something is not broken why an attempt is made to fix it.
 
I have explained this problem in a number of different ways. I was happy to stay with the old version but can not because the site has been hacked and the files have been altered so we have no choice to move forward with an upgrade.
 
I was hoping someone would look into this but all I have had was replies, opinions and name picking. I am really disappointed in this upgrade its forced me to look for another cart for my customer and any future e commerce sites I build.

I agree with everything that you say. Unless there's a major misunderstanding I just dont have the same problem.
You must have a different way of setting up the options to me. Can you go to my site and see if it's the same http://on2dvd.com.au/shop
 
I know that the checkbox creates an error in the page script that it didn't before, I am still waiting on that one to get fixed, (maybe it's fixed in the 3.4.5?). This simple error doesn't really effect the process though, although annoying, you just enter it manually.

I should say too,select a product under $400 and select australia, state as Vicoria and postcode as 3123 to make it work, being that I dont have proper international options.

Hi Mark I did not download the version and test it I used the online demo.
 
I am also using Firefox and your version when you click on the tickbox it don't work like the previous one.
 
The setup above if for the US.
 
It's disappointing I am now left in limbo.
 
Not sure what to do now.
 
Joe

Joe,
 
I have just updated to the latest 3.4.5. You should check my site again, it is definately fixed, the checkbox does not update the shipping options.
 
Unfortunately, the options on my product list and details pages still do not work. ie, selecting an option does not update the price on the page- it still passes it through to the cart though. (this is annoying)

"the checkbox does not update" SHOULD READ does update

Hi Mark,
 
There was nothing wrong with the way this worked so I have no idea why it was changed. For this reason and the way Viart decided to change this which was not broken worries me to the point with what else will they tinker with in the future. If something is right leave it and just improve it.
 
I have decided to find another solution.
 
Whether we spend $300 or $600 we need to find something that will work.
 
The shipping cost is the most important feature especially when the client is in the US and it is uisng an auto shipping calculation feature via USP
 
I really wanted to use this system for my clients.
 
Life goes on.
 
Thanks for your replies.
 
Joe

Fair enough Joe, I wont insult you,
I just dont understand why it is such a drama, it is fixed now, which makes it about 2 weeks at the most it was broken.
I doubt you will find that perfect system that never has any problems. My 2 cents.

Hello Joe,
 
In case, if you like to show shipping cost on PayPal you can change a little one parameter value for your PayPal payment system.
 
Go to payment system and update parameter 'item_name' value to something like '{basket} Shipping: {shipping_cost}' instead of just 'basket'.
 
The shop is quite flexible for such operations.
 
I hope it helps you

Cool tip.

Thanks Monk.
 
Mark going by the demo I have used its not fixed. If it was and this was clarified by Natalia I would be winging.
 
Cheers
 
Joe

Our firm had a similar experience. We spent a lot of man hours evaluating and testing Viart. This product has tons of really great features. We constructed a demo shop and showed it to 5 clients who are in the need of a store upgrade. They all loved the demo, all 5 gave us the OK to go forward. We decided to deploy one of the sites using Viart, if it works and a few quirky things get fixed up (by us or them) we will go ahead with the other 4 sites.
 
Our opinion is the back-end interface, quirky way some features are deployed, and poor docs will limit Viart to a 'cult' following.
 
That's OK to start, but in order to get mainstream, the finishing work really needs to be done. The product managers need to talk to store owners and the folks that deploy stores. Docs need to be improved so designers can deploy and customize, features need to work intuitively/logically, and some really basic things need to meet the competition.
 
The things that really got to us:
 
1) cannot accept decimal amounts for ordering
2) 1 level tax, with a quirky exception for states in the USA.
3) No way to render price or quantity breaks
4) Product databases are disjointed. This is OK if you can import/export to them.
5) Import and export work differently - you cannot import a file you exported
6) Poor documentation.
 
With some market focused product management, Viart could be considered a mainstream product. Getting a few high traffic sites could put it on the path to being a contender.
 
I agree with Joe on the price, because its $300 purchase, it isn't expected to be any less than it's competitors when it comes to finishing and bugs.

The demo you have is probably not the latest version (which apparently came out today) I just updated my site and it is fixed- if you look you will see.

3) No way to render price or quantity breaks
 
You mean, buy more and get a better price?
That's been there for some time actually.