thirtybees's competitors

[30knees]

Reading the future of thirtybees thread, it looks like quite a few merchants are thinking about alternatives should the handover not workout. Which shop system would you switch to if thirtybees isn't continued?

I'd probably switch to PS 1.7, simply because it's the easiest to switch to. JTL Shop or Shopware would be interesting, too. 

EDIT: modified shop is the stupid name of a decent system: https://www.modified-shop.org/ It's not a modified version of tb. 🙂

Edited December 30, 2020 by 30knees

[The Pellet Guy]

Presta 1.6 for me  the horror stories I keep reading about 1.7  makes it sound like a car with no wheels  

 

[led24ee]

I tried 1.7 and ... it was concentrate of all errors from 1.6 But, this was many years ago. I have no idea how things are at the moment. And I have no idea, how much I need to pay for modules.

[wakabayashi]

Presta 1.6 would make no sense at all. You would go to a worse and even more death shop version ^^

[The Pellet Guy]

43 minutes ago, wakabayashi said:

Presta 1.6 would make no sense at all. You would go to a worse and even more death shop version ^^

That would I suppose depend on individual circumstances my 1.6 shop has seen over 250,000 sales to date and still running strong, the DB was a bit big but fixed that, the site itself works very well now, its had a few problems and with a Good Dev a little sticky tape and a few bandages here and there I can't see it falling over for a few years yet,  

I tend to rate site on usabilty and sales over time and not having the latest version, latest versions are great if you have a good knowledge of how things work and how to fix things when they don't, plus each retailer has different needs whats good for the goose may not be good for the gander, 

 

I like BEES though it has some great additions  and a couple of seriously knowledgable Devs, and I have my fingers crossed this will continue in one form or another

 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by The Pellet Guy

[veganline]

I expect to go with the successor, whether or not it's called Thirtybees. Is that "Modified shop?" I've learned obscure tricks on TB and added modules like Prestools.

Just tried a softaculous setup of WP+Woocommerce + a free importer plugin I haven't seen anything to tempt me away yet.

• Shipping zones were one of the draws to Prestashop and Thirtybees when I signed-up. I can set post office shopping zones (UK, Europe, World, Oceana) to match Thirtybees zones (Europe, Africa, etc) and type-in prices for a 2kg parcel. It takes an hour or two, but it's free. Woocommerce might have countries zoned somewhere but I didn't spot it.
• Thirtybees installs all-in-one-go from Softaculous. It's not obvious how to find the shop page for Woo on Wordpress, so I haven't done a speed test yet
• I vaguely think Thirtybees is fast-loading compared to a lot of the others, but could be wrong.
• Canonicalized.com/prestashop-vs-woocommerce says that there aren't many clicks to checkout on Woocommerce which is good, although I've solved that problem on TB.

Magento

• Gross; slow. It's for people who don't pay for their own server.

Shopify / Hosted closed-source

• Doesn't feel nice after having the freedom of an open source shop with loads of extras and tweaks possible. I doubt I could do the search engine optimisation or the tweaks like belts cut to length that I do on Thirtybees

Opencart 

• It's on Softaculous so I'd give it a look. Someone on this forum said it's fast. There is a Phoenix forked version on Softaculous as well. Chandra Enev on this forum said it's more basic than Thirtybees in the default version; you have to pimp it up with modules.

Anything else on Softaculous

• I'd look at Cubecart because it's made in the country where I live, but there are too many to test; all the more reason to stay with Thirtybees.

Cost:  Afterthought 15.27 30.12.20 

• €3 or $3 buys monthly shared TB hosting, with Softaculous installation on Hosting.co.uk. Hostinger throws-in a free SSL certificate too, which saves trying to use Cloudflare. 
• €30 or $30 buys Shopify or Bigcommerce
• Magento needs a more expensive server too

Edited December 30, 2020 by veganline
Cost:  Afterthought 15.27 30.12.20

[netamismb]

What's the downside to keep the same version even if is discontinued? Will get PHP 8.0 soon and the TB will not be compatible with it. But PHP 7.x will still be available for next years, so i would say I prefer to stay with TB for the next years and will see what will be on the market in the future.

[30knees]

I think the problem staying with tb or PS 1.6 is that oftentimes modules for third party services need to be updated or they stop working and that more and more developers are dropping PS 1.6 support.

p.s. modified shop is the stupid name of a decent system: https://www.modified-shop.org/ It's not a modified version of tb. 🙂

[Sigi]

whats about https://saleor.io

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Sigi

[wakabayashi]

39 minutes ago, Sigi said:

whats about https://saleor.io

 

Never heard of it. Their website is very pretty! But it's written in python, so for me it's nothing 😉

[wakabayashi]

5 hours ago, The Pellet Guy said:

my 1.6 shop has seen over 250,000 sales to date

But you don't have any 50$/month to push this project forward? That really depresses me 😔 That's why I voted for "modified shop". Not meaning this strange software system, but going for own development.

[The Pellet Guy]

Just now, wakabayashi said:

But you don't have any 50$/month to push this project forward? That really depresses me 😔 That's why I voted for "modified shop". Not meaning this strange software system, but going for own development.

Be as depressed as you want, Money at this point in time is immaterial and what I do with my money is carefully thought about,  who in their right mind is going to invest in a shopping cart that at the present time has no direction?  monies as it currently stands until there is clarity over the carts future is better used by paying developers for help,  would you honestly bet on a horse that may or may not run?

 

 

 

[Briljander]

We will probably go with 1.7.

I do already have a lot of modules which I have bought that do have 1.7 versions.

Also my developer which I do have a good relationship with is expert in Prestashop but don't work with other platforms.

I do also use Prestashop Store Manager on all of our business computers which unfortunately doesn't officially support TB but supports 1.6 and 1.7.

One downside is all custom work in modules that will need to be redone but at least there are modules for 1.7 which will make the move less complicated.

[rubben1985]

I am waiting to see the decision of the team. For now I have a lot to do in other areas of my business to move from TB so I will stick to TB (and continue if the path is clear). If i should switch it would be to 1.7 just in order to make the transition the easiest.

Anyway, I still trust the NEW TB can have a future. The most critical thing however, in my opinion (because it made a pain in the as* lately) is some kind of official support for modules working with prestashop that the developpers itself do not support (iit happened to me that even if I pay them for customization they do not accept...). There are some module that are critical for my business that if some day will become incompatible with TB I so not want to see myself looking for external developpers that may not know TB.

If TB is "declared" (even if not officially) compatible with PS, this should go further than "expect to be compatible".  Merchants can not depend always on forum help or developers that may not know TB differences. Maybe this could be some kinf of premium suscription but it should exist (for me is almost mandatory to have sucess) WHILE TB do not have still a official marketplace with enough modules (you can not say to clients, in my opinion, we do not almost have very officillly supported module, go to PS modules, but at the same time, we do not support them. You are or you are not...).

Edited December 31, 2020 by rubben1985

[AndyC]

Only reason I would move over is that all my modules can be converted to PS

[undecided]

Frankly speaking, I'm still with PS 1.6 as there was no reason for change in the beginning times of TB and later there were some issues (uncertainty about the future of TB) that kept me away from using TB as productive system.

Now I will see what today's outcome about the future if TB is and then decide if I'll keep an eye on TB or another system as we plan to update our shop in 2021.
The best would be TB, but if we don't see or have the feeling that it will be a successful system, we think of giving PS 1.7 a chance. 

[AndyC]

I asked on another forum to critique my website..

The most common theme was it looked very dated and am using the Panda theme 😮

[undecided]

8 hours ago, AndyC said:

I asked on another forum to critique my website..

The most common theme was it looked very dated and am using the Panda theme 😮

That is one reason why we tend to switch to PS 1.7 in case the TB project does not get a future and a fresh design and have dismissed opencart as well as modified which we were considering as an alternative.

We are really hoping that the new guys at TB will get back on track and might find the time to fresh up the design (not only the visible shop, but also the admin area).

[rubben1985]

10 hours ago, AndyC said:

I asked on another forum to critique my website..

The most common theme was it looked very dated and am using the Panda theme 😮

in my opinion I think it is not a thing of Panda or TB but the need of a touch by a professional designer (please, do not take this bad 😉 ). For example the logo is pixeled, the product font i would say is not the best because it look old... And llittle bit of ux id also needed: left colum in mobile version should be called menu....

I really think you could improve a lot your website with a little of help 🙂

Most people thik design is a question of the tech behind but it is not true the 90% of times is the pictures and design basics (margins, pictures sizes, colors, ...)

[30knees]

tb can look beautiful! You just need someone good to work on it. 🙂

2 hours ago, undecided said:

That is one reason why we tend to switch to PS 1.7 in case the TB project does not get a future and a fresh design and have dismissed opencart as well as modified which we were considering as an alternative.

We are really hoping that the new guys at TB will get back on track and might find the time to fresh up the design (not only the visible shop, but also the admin area).

 

[AndyC]

41 minutes ago, rubben1985 said:

 For example the logo is pixeled, the product font i would say is not the best because it look old... And llittle bit of ux id also needed: left colum in mobile version should be called menu....

Most people thik design is a question of the tech behind but it is not true the 90% of times is the pictures and design basics (margins, pictures sizes, colors, ...)

I would love help, it's just hard to find  and I welcome criticism as it can only improve things  ... But yes I agree the logo is rubbish.. It was made 9 years ago when I first started and it's 1 of the things on the cards to do but not sure what I want to do with it.

I have already changed the text and put a bit of colour in ... I'll look at it again  ... Thanks

[veganline]

28 minutes ago, AndyC said:

 the logo

I've tried taking-out as much as I can, including logo and the header section.
Maybe the "Quick View" text isn't necessary if you have a magnifying glass symbol.

[undecided]

1 hour ago, 30knees said:

tb can look beautiful! You just need someone good to work on it. 🙂

 

Never said it does not look beautiful. I personally like the look of the default theme (niara), but compared to other default themes like Spree or PS 1.7, it looks old fashioned, but yes, you can handle that with some work on it.

What I have more in mind is the admin area which I am very used to, but the design of the 1.7 admin area (even though it's completely finished) makes work a bit easier.

As for now, I stay with PS 1.6 and really hope on the new team to bring TB back on track (at least with the basic system of improvements and updates, the design is secondary). Since I have learned a lot about the structure of PS 1.6 it's much more easy for me to make changes there or in TB than in the new Symfony framework of PS 1.7 or even a complete new shop system.

[felipegt]

On 12/30/2020 at 10:27 AM, Sigi said:

whats about https://saleor.io

 

It does look nice. I have yet to set up my site and thirtybees is the best fit for me so far but I will give saleor a look. Personally, I would rather be working in Python anyway.

[The Pellet Guy]

On 1/1/2021 at 11:00 AM, veganline said:

I've tried taking-out as much as I can, including logo and the header section.
Maybe the "Quick View" text isn't necessary if you have a magnifying glass symbol.

I like your minimalist look, there is just enough its quick, and educational I never knew such products existed, and you have a pair of slippers I like  🙂