Ready To Make Switch, But...

[SteveK]

I currently have three sites hosted with 3DCart and another two hosted with Volusion. I really want to move the Volusion sites over, but have a couple reservations. These are my real money making sites, so failure is not an option. Each would require at least the semi-dedicated package.

Two issues prevent me from pulling the trigger immediately:

1. Weak import functionality: It appears that not all product fields can be imported. Also, it appears that one can not selectively update fields (except price/quantity) through product import. And, data exported is in a different format than the import template. So, if we needed to make a simple change to a couple hundred products, we would have to export, do vlookups in excel to get the data into the import format, and reimport. There's a lot of room for catastrophic error, and it would be time consuming (this is a two minute job on other carts). And, if we wanted to add or change something like a sales pitch to a custom field (for example), it would be impossible via bulk import because that field can not be imported. Also cannot import 301 redirects.
   
   
2. No UPC Code field for products: This seems rather basic, and I am surprised it is missing, especially with Google Shopping requiring either UPC or MPN. Other shopping engines use UPC as well. We could put the UPC in a custom field and just have it not show on the template. However, I'm not sure if we could get this to work with GoDataFeed (and therefore Google Shopping, Bing, The Find, etc), which powers our CSE feeds. Also, we would not be able to import UPC codes into a custom field because, as mentioned above, custom fields are not in the import template.

So, someone please tell me that I'm wrong or that there is a workaround for these two issues. Any other guidance would be appreciated as well.

[Jimmy]

I currently have three sites hosted with 3DCart and another two hosted with Volusion. I really want to move the Volusion sites over, but have a couple reservations. These are my real money making sites, so failure is not an option. Each would require at least the semi-dedicated package.

Two issues prevent me from pulling the trigger immediately:

1. Weak import functionality: It appears that not all product fields can be imported. Also, it appears that one can not selectively update fields (except price/quantity) through product import. And, data exported is in a different format than the import template. So, if we needed to make a simple change to a couple hundred products, we would have to export, do vlookups in excel to get the data into the import format, and reimport. There's a lot of room for catastrophic error, and it would be time consuming (this is a two minute job on other carts). And, if we wanted to add or change something like a sales pitch to a custom field (for example), it would be impossible via bulk import because that field can not be imported. Also cannot import 301 redirects.
   
   
2. No UPC Code field for products: This seems rather basic, and I am surprised it is missing, especially with Google Shopping requiring either UPC or MPN. Other shopping engines use UPC as well. We could put the UPC in a custom field and just have it not show on the template. However, I'm not sure if we could get this to work with GoDataFeed (and therefore Google Shopping, Bing, The Find, etc), which powers our CSE feeds. Also, we would not be able to import UPC codes into a custom field because, as mentioned above, custom fields are not in the import template.

So, someone please tell me that I'm wrong or that there is a workaround for these two issues. Any other guidance would be appreciated as well.

Pretty sure I can answer your questions:

1. 3dcart is the best one I have used, and I have tried many carts out there. One of the only things I do not like is their import features as they really do not have a mapping options like other carts I have seen. As a matter of fact I have put in a request for what I think is the same type of issue your having. Please see this post and tell me if this is what your trying to say New feature request - 3dCart Shopping Cart Software Forums

2. Your second issue is not a problem as I think you could just use the Alias feature in the build export sets of your google feed.

Hope this helps you out, and please let me know if that is what your talking about on problem one.

[elightbox]

Steve, I just did an export to confirm, and the custom extra fields are in the export template: extra_field_1 ....extra_field_10 .
Also from my experience the format is the same for export and import. I have done so many setting up our store, and have not had a problem (Custom file name is missing from one of the export templates, I am not sure which).

However I agree that this import export to do basic changes leaves room for

There's a lot of room for catastrophic error

We have thousands of products and we constantly make these changes hide/unhide and backorder/outofstock. Having to do an import export to do these is very dangerous.
Now I do not allow anyone else to do export import, which is a big pain in the $!!. My fear is a mass import overwrite error that is not discovered for a while, and then recovery is not so easy.
That is the reason, I have asked so many times for adding other fields that we can change in batch from the admin panel. Seems so elementary for such a great cart. Doing everything by spreadsheet, although very powerful, is also very dangerous.

[watchdr]

I agree with how dangerous it is and I break my export/imports up into smaller files such as by manufacturer or something similar. I then only work on those smaller files and even then I can break those up into smaller ones for updating a certain set of products.