New shop features are coming.

On 19 March, Opensolution, the maker of Quick.Cart and Quick.Cms, announced to its partners that work has begun on expanding the shop features in Quick.Cms. Ext. This is good news for anyone who has been waiting for the company to make a move towards evolving the Quick.Cart scripts.
The scripts on which we have been building online shops since 2010 celebrate 15 years on the market this year. At the annual partner meetings we repeatedly asked about the future of these solutions. Right after the big leap in 2015 from Quick.Cms 5.x, based on flat files, to 6.0, which uses SQLite, voices emerged suggesting that this could be the direction for Quick.Cart. However, it was only after three years of experience with functional changes in Quick.Cms.Ext 6.1–6.6 that we received a clear message about plans to develop shop functionality.

Assuming, hypothetically, that a version of Quick.Cms.Ext with shop features offering a full alternative to Quick.Cart could appear later this year, let us consider:

What does this mean for those already using the Quick.Cart scripts?

1. Switching from a flat-file database to SQLite is a huge leap in terms of the shop's expandability and the volume of data it can handle.
2. Greater database stability and, hypothetically, easier integration with warehouse systems.
3. Since the authors of these scripts are constantly thinking about simplification – and in our view there is not much left to simplify – the quality of documentation, application performance and the number of add-ons will certainly not get worse.
4. Migrating from the old Quick.Cart scripts to Quick.Cms will be fairly difficult at first. Not wanting to delay the release of version 6.7, Opensolution plans to address migration from Quick.Cart.Ext after its publication.
5. As for implementing shop projects, we expect implementation hours to increase rather than decrease. In future, though, they can certainly be optimised thanks to better documentation, solutions based on so-called additional parameters, widgets and the many ready-made modification examples prepared by Opensolution.
6. More stable shop operation with larger amounts of data – but let us not exaggerate. It will still not be a system into which you can load thousands of products without slowing the site down.) Stability will certainly improve for administrators working in parallel.
7. The ability to build more advanced websites with purchasing options.

What do we definitely not know?

1. How much the new scripts will cost. Until now Quick.Cart.Ext cost PLN 899 net and the full version of Quick.Cms.Ext PLN 599 net. How much will expanding the latter increase its price?
2. How long implementation will take. We will find out after the first shop website implementation.
3. Nor do we know what the future holds for the good old Quick.Cart.Ext. Will version 6.7 turn out to be the last?

So where do we stand?

Almost 10 years ago we began our adventure of implementing our projects in Quick.Cart and Quick.Cms. Over that time, thanks in part to the maker's approach, we became convinced that these scripts have a future and are a strong part of our offer. We also asked ourselves how far we could go with implementations based on these scripts. Despite a refreshed admin panel and numerous improvements introduced after consultations with partners, the latest version of Quick.Cart.Ext was still limiting in many respects, not least in terms of integration with other applications. Quick.Cms.Ext, on the other hand, is free of those limitations. From the very beginning this system was very attractive, both in terms of implementation possibilities and Opensolution's approach to its distribution, though it was intended mainly for building small and medium-sized websites. Will it become, after these changes, the shop-building tool we have been waiting for for several years? We will probably find out soon.

We are rooting for the Opensolution team to deliver a full version with the necessary features as soon as possible, opening a new chapter for Quick.Cms in the e-commerce market. We will keep you posted on progress as far as we can, and we can't wait for the first implementation of such a version.

In the meantime, take a look at the feature list of Quick.Cms.Ext 6.6, which, in addition to a shopping basket, includes more and more functionality that serves as a substitute for Quick.Cart.