I have been testing PicturesPro's Photocart by TSG Enterprises for couple of week now, getting to know the program and I must say I am very impress.

I cannot do any in-depth comparison with Skooks or Pickpic because I don't have real access to either, but my conclusion is that for those who are looking for a shopping cart Photocart is a steal and is a must to look at.

It has every feature you can need or want. The level of customization is impressive. It can blend into your website. How is that for branding? The looks of demo they have at Pictrespro website does not do justice to the power of Photocart. I must say that in that area Pickpic as well as Skooks may look more impressive... but only on the surface.

The software sells for $279 and for $78.00 more you get two great add-ons: Slide show (can be use in the Gallery splash page or to allow the customer to browse the gallery in a slide show; and an Accessory Store, where you can sell anything using or not using your images. For $78 extra are well worth it.

It has many payment gateway, including Google and Paypal.

What I did was to check out the support forum and OSP and visit the sites of those who had purchased the Photocart and see how they implemented it. And it was a wow... you have so much flexibility on how you implement it, that its looks it's entirely up to you.

For what I can gather from the Pickpic and Skooks demos, it does everything the "big boys" do but for a $1,000 less and can be installed by you in less than 30 minutes. Or if you prefer for just $30 Tim will install it for you, usually within 24 hours.

Sadly, the first time I heard of Photocart and compared the price I thought that it could not be as good as Pickpic or Skooks when there was such a big difference between them. That prejudices became worst when i compared other carts at that price range and even expensier and came short of the standards set by Pickpic and Skooks and the feels of services like Pictage and Collages.net. But how wrong I was!!!

There is no doubt that Pickpic and Skooks are excellent programs. But I think that, as many of the services that are popping everywhere now, are too expensive, specially when compared to Photocart.

And there are other alternatives at the same price bracket or even less expensive, and while there are very nice, they are not as feature rich as Photocart. Truly, Photocart is in the same league with Pickpic and Skooks, so don;t let the price throw you off into thinking that Photocart is at the level of the other alternatives in the same price bracket.

Customer service is great also. Tim answers every question within 24 hours (even on vacation!... well maybe 48 hours then) and it has an incredible support forum where everyone is excited about Photocart. It feels like a open sorce forum where everyone is sharing to make Photocart better.

And yes, it has a gallery splash page where you can integrate SIW shows as easy as you do to your blog.

And when they claim "just one time purchase" it truly means that... upgrades are free always!

If you are in the market for a shopping cart I can think of a thousand great reasons to consider Photocart.

Have a great day.

Thank you for bringing this up!
I am considering to get Photocart to replace Skooks. Skooks is a scam.
PS. I don't see photocart supports Google check out.

Right Now it supports:
Authorize.net
email payment form
email payment form - UK
eProcessingNetwork
Paypal Website Payment Pro
SecurePay
USa ePay
Paypal standard business
Mail Check or money order

This are the ones that will be supported in the upcoming 4.2 release, that according to Tim should be early 2008:

openecho.com
linkpoint.com
googlecheckout
yourpay.com
secpay.com (uk)
Worldpay (UK)
merchantanywhere.com
Nochex
innovativegateway.com
quantumgateway.com/
novainfo.com/costco/

If you have any questions feel free to PM me anytime. I am no expert on Photocart but I'll be happy to share my experience so far.

Thanks, I got it this weekend and LOVE it. It offers SO much. I am sure the new update will bring even more exciting features. BTW, go you know if there is a list of all new features for 4.2 version?

Do you know if it supports Paynet or not? Also, can you generate gift certificates on there? I'm probably gonna be going this route myself soon.

i LOVE my photocart! Tim is super helpful.
it's completely customizable.
a great product at a very reasonable price.

It will be in the next version which is scheduled for early 2008. Tim has a support forum which is great to find answers to different questions.

Hmm, how early '08? I'm ready to leave Pictage.

Does anyone know if GoDaddy can support one of these carts?

http://www.picturespro.com/pages/web_hosting.html

GoDaddy on Linux is supported.



I don't know. This is what Tim was talking about.Here is an official site
PhotoCart
Contact Options
Ask Tim a question. Usually he responses in 24 hours.

I called Tim, so I'm sure he will be getting back to me soon. I think I'm gonna go ahead and get a photocart as soon as I can add my gateway through it.

You can generate gift certificates, discounts, credits, etc.

This are the payments gateways it supports:

Right Now it supports:
Authorize.net
email payment form
email payment form - UK
eProcessingNetwork
Paypal Website Payment Pro
SecurePay
USa ePay
Paypal standard business
Mail Check or money order

This are the ones that will be supported in the upcoming 4.2 release, that according to Tim should be early 2008:

openecho.com
linkpoint.com
googlecheckout
yourpay.com
secpay.com (uk)
Worldpay (UK)
merchantanywhere.com
Nochex
innovativegateway.com
quantumgateway.com/
novainfo.com/costco/


According to Tim, he is shooting for a first quarter 2008 date for 4.2

My suggestion is that if the payment gateway si not listed you should contact Tim and discuss it with him. There may be alternatives that I don't know.

As for pricing, is very flexible. Here are some of its features:

Flexible image pricing
You can create “Price Groups”. The price groups allow you to price galleries differently, so you can have one set of sizes and prices for portraits, and another set of sizes & prices for weddings. There are no limited to how many price groups you can create. You an create also quantity discounts for multiple prints of the same image.

Packages
Photo Cart lets you offer two types of packages: “Traditional Print Packages” and “Custom Packages“.

Traditional print packages are packages where you can include for example: 1) 8x10, 2) 5x7, 8) wallets and you can select 2 poses. The customer will add the package to their cart and select the slots where they want the image.

Custom packages are a bit different and flexible. These packages the customer just selects the amount of images you set that come with the package. You can also add options to the custom packages for things like collages, posters and more. Custom packages can be used for (these are just examples):5 images on a CDSelect 20 images for a story bookSelect images of a collageSelect 2 images for a poster and enter in your name and select a size.These are just examples and are flexible so you can create your own options.

Also with packages, you can offer “Purchase this package and receive X% off of a la carte pricing“. You can enter in the percentage of discount when creating or editing packages.

Gallery items
Gallery items are items you can offer on a per gallery basis. This might be something like “All image on a CD” or “DVD slideshow of all images”. With gallery items the customer just adds to cart and there is no images selecting.

Offer coupons & early bird discounts
You can create coupons in Photo Cart. They can be set as a percentage discount or a dollar amount discount. You can also set a minimum order amount and if the coupon can be used more than once.

Early Bird Discount can be used also. This is a global settings and can offer “Order within 30 days and get a 10% discount off of your order”. This is a global option, but you can turn it off and on on a per gallery basis.

Baby / Bridal Registry The registry allows your customers to create their own bridal or baby registry (or whatever you can come up with) and have other people come to your website and add money to their account.

The customer can create a registry from the registry section of Photo Cart or you can create it in the admin. When they create a registry the will be given a registry code. For someone wanting to put money on someone’s account they can go to the registry section and search for them with either the registry code or that customer’s email address.

The registry purchase will be added to the cart and checkout as normal. When that order is paid, that registry purchase amount will be put into the customers “Credit” system and they will be able to see the purchases and total credit amount when they view the registry section of Photo Cart.


As you can see it is very complete solution for an incredibly low price. The best referral will be those who use it.


I just wanted to share this solution with you all. I strongly believe that when something is that good we have to spread the word. Specially when it can help keep the bottom line low and more money in your pocket.Yes, GoDaddy supports the cart. You must use the Linux, however. I run mine in Goddady. No problems.

I agree with Dave 100%, I’ve been with Photocart for 2 years now and have never had a major issue.
Tim, has been super to work with and the best part is he listens to his customers, if you have a rocking idea on how to make the shopping cart better he will implement it.
I’m hoping that the Album layout sections will be included in the upgrade and if it is I will be doing the jig.

David,

Gift Certificates are not fully supported. Please, don't confuse people. Read about it here:

http://www.picturespro.com/community/forum...427070507090347

Thanks for posting this info! I'm on the fence about using another "shopping cart" than my current system. Is Tim the only one handling tech support?

Thanks for all the helpful information!

I am currently trying to decide whether to continue proofing with low res CDs or to go to an online cart like PhotoCart. One thing I question is whether the upload times for large events like weddings outweigh the benefit of having online ordering.

Is having PhotoCart or something similar more a benefit to the photographer, the client, or both?

What is the upload time for say 100 images in PhotoCart? How many do you upload at one time?

Care to share any other benefits of doing online galleries vs. low res CD proofing?

In the end I just want to be more efficient with my time in 2008. I also want ordering from me to be a pleasant experience for my customers. Hope this is not too much of a diversion from the topic of this thread...

Thanks in advance!

Upload time may vary, I would say resizing and uploading 100 image took me 15 minutes and my connection is slow for upload (40kb/s). I use Dave's uploader for Mac. Great software and does everything in one upload: resizing, thmbnails, zoom images, etc.

I would vote for PhotoCart or similar system with both hands. You have to create options to your client which are easy to use and convenient, then they will buy. Everyone familiar how to shop online, there is no difference here. Your client will go online and order prints. Guests can go online and order prints. You don't have to send each guest CD. That would be very expensive. Look at Apple and iTunes. You can buy a song with one click. Easy. Would you buy it if it would require to go through multiple forms, etc? Well, maybe, but it won't be very convenient and can be a stopper.
Here if you create convenient and pleasant experience to your client of buying prints they will buy. It must be easy and simple.

I think I'm for sure going to go with photocart. I'm just still waiting for Tim to return my phone call.

awesome post!

Thanks for the info, Alexander.

Does anyone know if you can create custom products in the accessory store for each client?

I not sure what do you mean "for each client" but let see if I can answer the question anyway.

You can create custom products that are gallery (event) specific. It won't show up in any other gallery unless you enable it in that specific gallery. So, you can offer a "product" for the wedding of so and so only.

You can also create custom prices with custom packages that you can apply to only one client. But for either you do it from inside Photocart and not from the accessory store.

The accessory store is an add-on and with it you can sell any product, regardless if it uses images or not. You can use it to sell cups with images or pureses with images or if you make a DVD teaching something or a book or just anything... in the accessory store is where you sell it.

Photocart is really very flexible.


Alex H.
Thanks for the clarification. To clear what I was trying to say... I was making reference to discount coupons and not the kind customers can purchase by going to the site and purchase to give away. If that was what was asked then, no, is not supported at this time.

You can create coupons to give to your customers for discount on their orders. Coupons have a start date, end date, amount of discount (dollar amount or percentage of order), a minimum order amount and whether it is a one time use coupon.

A work around that I use until 4.2 comes out is that you can create a "Product" called "Gift Certificate" of different denominations ($5, $10, $15 and so on) in your Accessory Store so any client or your customer can buy and in the notes can specified whom to send it to. Then you create a Discount Coupon and send it to the recipient.

Don't forget that you can also have "Early Bird Discounts" that can work like the gift certificates that you may use at Pictage. Just send an email to your Bride requesting the emails of those persons whom she wants to benefit from the discount and send them an email (from within Photocart itself) letting them know.

So, there are alternatives here... Lots of flexibility.


Vanessa
I use Tansmit and to upload 800 images at quality 75, 700 by 700 it takes from 30 to 45 minutes (I have cable with 512 upload). With Pictage the same amount would take me close to 24 hours due to the fact they are high res. I also check "minimize Embedded metadata" which helps get smaller files.

The Dave uploader is nice and does much more than upload... resizes, creates thumbnails, etc and has a very good price.. but I found it to be slower that using regular ftp. Still, a very good solution because it does everything for you and its very nicely design. If you can wait a bit longer for upload, it is worth it.

The way I have been doing it is by creating an export preset in Lightroom with quality 75 and resize to 700 x 700 72 pixels. LR does it quickly and then I upload to Photocart. Then in the Photocart admin you complete the upload process and it creates the thumbnails, etc.

So you got two ways and both are very fast.

great post

Thank you so much, David! That really helps!

So whatever happened to version 4.2 in Q1 of 2008, it's almost end of Q3 2008 and I still see version 4.1 on the main site with a "last updated" date of March of 2007. I am about to pull the trigger on Photocart, can anyone confirm that this is still being supported and developed? If so, when will the new version come out?

I think so. I think Tim is working on destination tax support in a new version. Many states have it and it is real pain in a butt support it. Last time I talked to him was in July when WA started using destination tax. I had to modify my photocart to pull the tax rate from WA's DOR web site.

Yeah, I made a post on their forums because saying that a new release is coming out on a certain date and missing that date and not making any mention about it, at least along the lines of "I am still working on this..." gives the impression that product development and/or support have stopped. I found this post, then went to the site, and I see version 4.1 as the latest and the product has not been updated since almost 1.5 years ago, so naturally to someone like me, looking to invest in Photocart, this gives me serious pause. Beyond that, I get the feeling from reading their forums that since the upgrades are free then it's somehow wrong to expect the product to be upgraded with some frequency, and yet free upgrades is being used as a selling point for the product.

I have no issues with support. Tim responses to my emails. He was working on a lot of improvements and I am sure he wants to make the product as stable as possible before the release. 1.5 years (18 month) is a normal cycle for software products. Do you know how long did it took PickPic to go from one version to another? More than that.
So far I have been very happy with the product.

I agree. Tim has been great. I can fully understand the support concern though since an upgrade was due out many months ago. I just assume that he's really busy working on it, and its just not quite ready for prime time yet. I bet the longer we wait for it, the better it's gonna be.

It's really important for companies to set proper expectations though. Don't build expectations for a new release coming out soon, then take too long with it.