[ic] Dan you have some competition

[Jim Balcom]

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Terry Cox wrote:

TC>>You had given me some information which is below for review. I don't
believe that is what I need. I will try and formulate a better question but
before I do I will check the on-line help. This was just a question I needed
answered before I start using interchange. I have not decided yet if I will
use it or not. This is one of the questions I need answered before spending
a lot of time with it. I am still toying with the idea of programming my own
since this will be a a very, very small store and I want it to look totally
like a Ma/Pa type store. Nothing extremely fancy and very easy to get around
in.

Interchange is NOT easy. It has a VERY steep learning curve.

I spent nearly 6 months doing the basic groundwork just to get something
basic up and running on July 4th. The learning curve is still steep, after
nearly a year of playing and working with it.

IC is a VERY powerful software package. It is VERY complete, and therefore
complex.

Prior to changing to IC, I was using commerce.cgi. This is an excellent
program and much easier to set up and maintain. I left it because it has no
decent shipping options, whereas IC has excellent shipping options. If
commerce.cgi could have been easily modified to handle shipping by zones, I
would still be there.

In fact, one of the benefits of commerce.cgi that is not available in IC is
to be able to add options to an item and increase the price. (A basic small
T-Shirt is $5.00, select a large size and the price goes to $10, add
embroidery to the large size and add another $10 for a total of $25). This
is cumbersome in IC because you need to make each size a different SKU and
the embroidery is yet another SKU and you have to check to make sure that
they have a T-Shirt in their cart before they can buy it. Or, you can write
your own routines in ITL that will do it - which many people find to be
quite easy.

To use IC, you've got to get, at least, a small amount of Perl under your
belt, and quite a bit more of ITL.

If you want something that you can open the box, input your inventory and
have a grand opening, IC is not it.

-= Jim =-

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Jim's Linux-Operated Underground Bomb Shelter

Tagline for Friday, November 30, 2001 at 19:30 PM:
The Hubbell works fine; all that stuff IS blurry!

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This Linux System has been up 124 hours

My web page: http://www.idk-enterprises.com
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