Ease of Use vs. Merchandise Levels??

[Vasili]

I am still rather puzzled with the Soholaunch vs. osCommerce issue.
I have a very large number of very high ticket items (loose diamonds and jewelry: over 75,000 individual items), and will prefer to use my own gateway.
I would also like to use the ease BV offers maintaining the look and feel of a dynamically updated website, done the way I wish. I have picked up on how to link/edit/organize the pages in both is using BV to create the pages or templates, but I don't think I've heard which is easier to use >> and if the number of items in my cart really dictates which one to use, no matter how to accomplish it.

Your considerate recommendations will be greatly appreciated!

(Ranking officers can view my homepage to see the non-Voda, still damaged, sites I am trying to bring in...I'll update profile quickly)

[Bethers]

Re: Ease of Use vs. Merchandise Levels??

Well, you can't use BV with Soho or OsCommerce. If you want to use BV and a shopping cart - you'll have to consider one where you add the code to the individual products- like I do and Amanda does (different carts, tho) I elected to do this because I wanted the design freedom. However, I'm not sure I would do it with the number of products you are talking about - I might then want the catalog driven shopping cart of a soho or oscommerce. Now, the biggest question will be what you need the shopping cart to do for you. The Soho shopping cart is very limited with options - so if you have any products with more than 8 (Ithink I remember options as to size, color, etc - then it's not for you. If you need to have various shipping options, it's also limited there. OsCommerce and Zen Cart would have those options available to you.

So, I suggest you look at what you need the cart to do for you - THEN decide where to build the store. I learned this the hard way, btw, and had to re-build a store I re-built in a cart that wouldn't work for me.

[Vasili]

Re: Ease of Use vs. Merchandise Levels??

Thanks, Colonel B....
I am understanding 2 things now..A. you can actually design (pages, site, etc) in osC as easily as in BV, which makes the "look and feel" totally customizable, something you don't see on most carts -- and
B. it can handle the item levels I am dealing with without being limited for category/search/identifying columns for search, which can be displayed as a dynamic php "page" to ghost content for spiders.

Almost all of the items are single line or unique, and I don't really offer different slections that you would see in apparel, for instance. So am I good to think osCom would do fine?
The main reason was if I am going to commit to a Voda site using the propreitary tools that can't even later be moved if needed, I need to be really sure there is enough flexibility in the cart to handle the inventory.
Gen. Vodahost suggested I look into Abwer for the email/"newsletter" functions that I need, since my volume currently surpasses the limits of either cart (and the Voda servers), and I appreciated that bit of advice.

Thanks once more for your considerations, Colonel!!
Any other good nudges out there?