Loaded Commerce Community

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie here. I have been researching on this CRE loaded shopping cart, and one of the feature that I like is the EZ populate for the e-commerce. I have been trying to get templates and hosting, this way I don't have to deal with installation. Do you have any suggestion? I found several including: http://www.oscommercetemplates.com/, http://www.algozone.com/, http://www.templatemonster.com/creloaded-templates.php

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Jefferey

Hi Jeffery,

Sorry, I don't have any suggestions for you really. I am looking for a host too, but not really templates. I would be interested in any ones adivce so I am bumping this topic.

-Evan

I have had excellent luck with Algozone. I have several stores and they have provided templates for all of them. When I liked a template overall, but was for a different industry than mine, they were able to customize the graphics for me in a very short time. They were good overall on communication issues with me. When we went from 6.2 to 6.3 and the template base changed from BTS to ATS templates, they were very reasonable and very fast at converting it for me. What the heck, I will tell you something else about the template change. I was charged $325.00 by Steve Seaton aka CREAce and the work was poor, the communication poor, and he basically ripped me off and didn't finish the work, not by deadline, at all. I contacted Iozzia Works and was quoted $400.00 for the same work by Richard, and was going to take a couple of weeks. Contacted Algozone and they upgraded it to ATS, AND converted from Pro to B2B compatible for just $75.00 and did it in less than three days even though they were busy. I should not have looked elsewhere.

Now, if any of you guys are looking for a template, let me know. Since working with CRE since early 2003, I have learned a thing or two to get my sites where I need them to be. I have also learned the hard way sometimes and been ripped off several times from some of the people in this community. But for the most part, there is a lot of need for the knowledge of what to do and where to go here in Central Kentucky and my wife and I have started a small side business in addition to the regular brick and mortar business I own and operate here. That business is centered around the exact questions that you guys are referring to. We are currently working with templates by both Template Monster and Algozone. I also have a developer who is very good with graphics who has already shown me several examples of template work that he is working on. This is his work, not reworking existing templates. If you have an idea of something and the two companies I can deal with do not have something that fits just right, but you know in your head what you want and can explain it well enough, he might be able to get you taken care of with your own custom design. If interested in it, just let me know.

As far as the hosting side. I am looking into some things myself right now. I have hosted with two separate accounts with CRE. I felt it was WAY overpriced for what I got in return. I have several hosting accounts now that were fine for a while but I keep running into ongoing issues that have already cost me money. Too much money to overlook anymore. So I am back in the same boat again. Hosting is just tricky. As I said, this is something that I am currently working on right now for a good solution. I have a possibility, but don't want to say the name until I feel confident that they are a good choice. I will also post this back in the other question about hosting.

Shawn @ Street Sports, Inc.

Hey Shawn, long time no see. I've taken time away since that 6.3 business a year or two ago. Time flies when you're old

If I were to shop for a template, Algo is my only choice. I've had a few issues but overall they are the best IMO. I don't shop much anymore because they all start looking the same after a while and I like to be unique so I build most of my own.

I don't know either of the gentlemen you mentioned but to be fair, Algo builds templates day in and day out. That is their specialty. Back when I turned wrenches (I see you're into cars) I specialized in automatic transmissions. GM to be exact and could easily remove, rebuild and replace one in a day. Sometimes 2 if I felt like working harder. I've built thousands of them so it was nothing but a routine. I guess my point is that each of us have a specialty and none of us are good at everything. While we can most do anything there is a tremendous learning curve for doing jobs that aren't our specialty. That learning curve comes with a price. As far as missing deadlines and lack of communication that isn't acceptable. The nature of the professional beast is that most have egos larger than life and 90% of the time underestimate the time necessary to do the job. Welcome to the world of coders and CRE professionals.

Hire many coders (I've hired hundreds) and you'll realize that's the nature of the business worldwide - sad to say. About 40% of the jobs end up in some sort of arbitration or canceled. I've learned most of what I know (about php, mysql) the hard way and only throw jobs out to bid when I'm overwhelmed in work. The majority of them I have to fix even after paying someone to get it 90% there. Just the way the business works.

Best regards and nice seeing you again,

Jody