Current Zen Cart user looking to switch to Prestashop, advice and help needed

[MrMac]

Hi all, I have been a Zen Cart user for the past 4 or so years. While I think Zen Cart is a great system, very lightweight and powerful. I have come to a stage with my online store that I am far to busy (and incompetent) to be able to update the zen cart site to the current release. As the core code has about 30+ addons and I cannot program more than "hello world".

So I think it could be a good opportunity to look towards a system that has virtually all of the addons I have had to manually integrated into zen cart, built in.

I am a very very small UK based business that is VAT registered. I have downloaded the latest 1.6.0.5 and played, I am very impressed, however, I have noticed that it is calculating VAT wrong. Can some help me on this?

 

Being VAT registered business where 80% of my sales are B2B, having the correct VAT calculations is 100% essential
 

[prestashopninja]

Hello,

 

There are a few paid modules and a website specialized on migrations from a cart system to another. You can find them all if you google "zencart to prestashop".

 

I don't think the VAT problem might something unsolvable. 1.6.x is still a baby and may have some small issues, and most of them are fixed almost instantly.

[MrMac]

Hi, migrating data seems like it could be easily done via the prestashop imports, just time consuming lol. Tho I do know of cart 2 cart if i get stuck.

Searching google, I see UK VAT rounding has been an issue as early as 1.2

I find it hard to believe that it has not been resolved yet or there is not a patch... I recall zencart having rounding issues for UK VAT when I first started selling online, but they fixed that with a patch.

I would seem that regardless of all of prestashop's lovely features, bells and whistles, for me, it if cannot calculate the basics of tax, then I just cannot use it

 

Edited March 25, 2014 by MrMac (see edit history)

[prestashopninja]

I would seem that regardless of all of prestashop's lovely features, bells and whistles, for me, it if cannot calculate the basics of tax, then I just cannot use it 

 

 

Probably you didn't install the correct locale file, or something like that, or maybe a tiny bug. But, if someone can't access to a feature with ease, this feature in question is simply nonexistent for him.

If I was to sit in the chair of Prestashop's head developer, I'd make the quoted words above framed and hang it on the wall.

[MrMac]

please explain? "correct locale file"

I set the store up for UK, what else can I do at my end to get this to work? As it is the only thing stopping me from migrating from zen cart to prestashop..

(and some performance issues, but I can get the hosting company to work around that)

Edited March 25, 2014 by MrMac (see edit history)

[MrMac]

This is what I get when I run a test transaction and the tax is wrong in both the front and back office

Widget = £50.99 ExVAT (VAT is at 20%)
1 x Widget @ £50.99 exVat = £61.19 Inc VAT -  CORRECT
10 x Widget @ £509.90 exVat = £611.90 Inc VAT - INCORRECT

it should be £611.88 Inc VAT

Edited March 25, 2014 by MrMac (see edit history)

[sweetserendipity]

I used to use Zen Cart for a different business and have about as much coding experience as you do.  I got to the point that I was holding my breath when adding modules with their page long instructions.  Especially when it involved doing something to the database.  I can follow directions, but if there was some kind of conflict, troubleshooting was terrible.  PHP files are easy enough to go back and replace back to the previous version, but I got really good at screwing up the database  Anyway, I closed that business last year.

 

Also, I found Zen cart doesn't include a lot of modules in the core files that seem like they should be intuitive.  Stuff like if you want to control inventory by attributes, that's an addon (at least it was in 2009 when I originally loaded zencart).  Prestashop automatically does that.  

 

Now I'm partnering with someone for a new business.  So a few months ago, when it came time to create a new website, I decided I wanted to find something that was a bit easier to load and ended up here.  The addons are certainly easier to load with just a click.  But I found that there are some necessary addons that aren't free.  Like if you plan on using Paypal Payments Pro, you have to pay to get that mod.  There's a free mod for paypal standard and paypal plus.  I got paypal standard to work fine, but I have yet to get paypal plus to work.  It just hangs there, takes the money, but doesn't send notification back from paypal to prestashop correctly.    Argh...  Also, if you use mailchimp, that's an extra cost.  I never had to pay for addons for the payment gateway before and was a bit surprised by that. And if you want a decent theme beyond the default, you'll probably have to pay for it.

 

Anyway, I do find prestashop a lot easier to work with than zen cart, and the new 1.6 back office looks really amazing.

[MrMac]

Hi Sweetserendipty... I still think Zen Cart is a very good, light weight & lightening fast cart (I have 40,000 items listed) and my load times are 0.15 seconds a page.

I have noticed some performance issues with PS with only 100 products added, but my hosting company are the 'muts nuts' and will crack up my hosting (they helped me loads to get my zen cart site that fast)
 

I would absolutely LOVE to migrate from Zen Cart to presta, not because I think Zen Cart is rubbish, but because (like you) I cant get my head around 'hacking the code' to add IMHO essential features, (stock by attributes, add customer/order from admin, stock flow and management etc, import/export, CRM)... BUT, and this is an epic BUT, I am a UK Based VAT registered company, and Prestashop incorrectly calculates VAT. Not only will this give me a major headache with customers and the HRMC, but it will cause massive payment gateway issues with companies like PAYPAL when the gross/net values are wrong. (as it did with zen cart before they fixed the rounding issue)

Oh well, maybe in Prestashop 1.7 it will be fixed, I have looked thoroughly online and the tax rounding issue as been about since 1.4, sadly this makes Prestashop 'not fit for purpose' for UK VAT registered B2B companies.  

Seems I am stuck with Zen Cart and having to use a multitude of offline systems to manage suppliers, stock, CRM

[prestashopninja]

please explain? "correct locale file"

 

 

I was talking about importing the localizations packs but it looks like you already did it. The miscalculation is probably a result of rounding options so it's "not a bug, but a feature"

 

 

I am a programmer and I just wanted to add a few words on the speed and performance topics. 

Imagine you had decent capital to get a webstore built from scracth, answering all your needs and not containing anything you would never use. The source code would be most probably one or two megabytes tops, and it would work at least 1000 times, maybe more faster. Simply put, you are using a generic shopping cart software just because you don't have or don't want to spare those resources for building a new shopping cart of your own.

You may have a website in your local language, accepting only Paypal as payment processor and Euros as currency, selling only some training PDF's for a local exam, not useful for the people from other countries (as in French "baccalauréat"). 

In this case, with a Prestashop solution, you would only be selling "virtual products", so you wouldn't need any carrier. The tax would be fixed and even the same for every product. If you pick up Prestashop for this kinda project, we will talk about a problem of scalability. I have a webstore with almost the same conditions as above: I'm running a webstore selling only modules for Prestashop (including a module used to speed up the store by caching third party module outputs!). The only language is English, the only currency accepted is Euro and all my products are virtual ones (no need for carriers). The only reason my store is a Prestashop one is that I knew people would laugh at me telling "he's trying to sell Prestashop modules on a Wordpress site!". However from the point of scalability, WordPress would be a more accurate choice. All and all I needed to do was to add a simple Paypal plugin There are a ton of Paypal plugins around and most of them are free of charge.

All those above are about the shop owner's point of view. For developers of the carts such as Prestashop or Magento, there are a few other points they need to take into account: They need to serve a software which could run in a decent manner both on a simple webstore like mine, but also on a multi-currency, multi-language website selling goods all around the world, with various carriers depending on the location, accepting goods from muştiple manufacturers aand storing them in multiple warehouses. Doing all that, they need to find a decent way for third-party developers to integrate their code without dong any damage to the rest of the system, while still being extremely customizable, being retro-compatible as possible and having all those bells and whistles to attract the customers -so the shop owners-. 

To cut it short, scalability is important, but also important are the answers of the questions "what will happen if I need to upgrade it someday?", "what will it take if I ever come accross a bug?", "what if I will need a very unique functionality? what would be the development cost and how easy it will be integrated to the system and will they play well together?" and finally, "If I want to get rid of it, how easy will be to migrate to another?"

It's been a bit some kind of inner monologue of my programmer part and my shop owner part, yet I hope this could be a good start to create some empathy between the developers and shop owners.

Edited March 26, 2014 by prestashopninja (see edit history)

[MrMac]

it is a bug, it has been acknowledged as a bug... -

lol, no one with any sense builds a commerce site from scratch, lol.. even Tesco & Next are a hacked up magento

 

[prestashopninja]

lol, no one with any sense builds a commerce site from scratch, lol.. even Tesco & Next are a hacked up magento

 

 

I know, we are highly "off-topic", but this is arguable. When first versions of Prestashop and Magento were out (2007-2008) there were already a number of successful e-commerce softwares around. I think this is due to the fact that the things change and evolve very fast for internet, communication and e-trade. IMHO, there will always be space for novelties to fill the gaps.

[MrMac]

I have no idea why you have taken this off-topic? LOL

1.6.0.5 cannot correctly workout UK VAT, this has been acknowledged by prestashop.

Widget = £50.99 ExVAT (VAT is at 20%)
1 x Widget @ £50.99 exVat = £61.19 Inc VAT -  CORRECT
10 x Widget @ £509.90 exVat = £611.90 Inc VAT - INCORRECT

it should be £611.88 Inc VAT

Until the maths is correct, PS is Not Fit For Purpose for UK VAT registered businesses. As this bug has been around since 1.4, and they have classified it as a minor bug (WTF) I don't expect PS to ever fix this issue.

Sadly, because I would of loved to use PrestaShop...

[robocarlo]

If prestashop admits it a bug, have they resolved it, any patch etc.

[MrMac]

If prestashop admits it a bug, have they resolved it, any patch etc.

they sent me a message saying they will try and role out a patch within the next couple of months. But they have marked the bug as 'minor' in their Forge bug system.

 

I am not expecting a fix, as I have read threads of incorrect VAT rounding for UK as far back as 1.4, there are loads of community posts for 1.5 where developers from the UK have tried to patch it, but sadly.. they all failed blaming the way PS calculates

 

Currently looking at CS Cart & Open Cart as I dont expect PS to ever fix this.

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2014 by MrMac (see edit history)

[prestashopninja]

Hi again,

 

I just tried to setup the very same environment as yourself and curiously it works good for me. So I think we can work it out going through the configuration and narrowing down until we find what we have as difference. I just wrote down the currency details (iso, symbol, etc) manually. 

 

Please see the screenshot.

 

 

[MrMac]

Hi again,

 

I just tried to setup the very same environment as yourself and curiously it works good for me. So I think we can work it out going through the configuration and narrowing down until we find what we have as difference. I just wrote down the currency details (iso, symbol, etc) manually. 

 

Please see the screenshot.

 

ukCart.png

I hope so, I deleted the test /dir...

 

I will reinstall and give it a bash... most appreciated!!

[MrMac]

gutted...
So why do we get different values?

[MrMac]

hi, thought I would drop you a line. I have played thoroughly with PS. While it is very feature rich and visually beautiful systen, I have come across far too many bugs and problems to be comfortable with migrating a live business over to it. Many thanks for looking into the Tax issue tho... and all the best    

[rka81]

Can you not just apply a Manual refund / credit/discount for the difference - if u check each order ... Just spitballing haven't actually thought if the logistics as currently only on my phone so can look into it further