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Too simple even for a basic cart application.
There are some basic functions missing:

- display of a products listing
- detail view of a product (as a component function)
- description field of a product (a simple text area!)
- upload of images (not simple?)

You have to install a mambot and insert code with your product id to display one(!) product page. You have to repeat this for every product you want to display! This is very inconvenient.
It would have been easy to insert the mambot code as a component function and display either the complete product listing or a detail page (the prodID as an url param given).

One bug found: if you have options and the user does not select one, the cart gets confused and simply increments the quantity of any previous added product in the cart. So preselection of an option is a must (:::selected).

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a basic cart application and are able to dive in the code and improve/debug it, this is a good starting point.

Thank you for writing this component. It is truly simple and works right out of the box. If you want to customise it, you can do this as well but most importantly it works within 5 minutes of installation. ALSO support is excellent! Well done.

If you want something simple, this is it!
(make sure you decompress it and upload the internal zips seperately). I had my site ready to go in an hour!

I choose this product because i need something very simple just to sell a few products and... i found it real good, with italian translation (easy to edit), simple to use, and exactly what i expect from it... a nice way to show your productions to others in web!!!
The only little "problem" i've found (if we call it problem...) is that i can't find the file to edit the automatic order confirmation email... that is good with the resume of the order and other informations, but that will be better for example with a sentence as: "thanks! this is the resume of your order, hope to see you soon back here!!!"
Thanks from Italy and... sorry for my english...

Brilliantly genius in its simplicity. Perfect if you have very, very few items to sell. Just a bit more back end coding and I would use it. Suggestions:
1. Put a header panel in your backend admin for easier navigation (like most components have).
2. Make adding the product a one screen operation. ie. add article creation and image upload to the product admin screen. Currently you must go to SimpleCaddy admin and create product with name and item id. Then go to Section and Category admin and create some for the product if they do not already exist. Upload images to your article image directory. Then go write an article placing the SimpleCaddy plugin code referencing what you did in step one... It takes a LONG TIME to set up each product.

This little cart is as simple as its name. It was simple to install and I had it up and running in minutes. It's easy to use.

It is best for a few simple products for sale on a web site.

I would give this cart 5 stars if shoppers were able to create accounts. There is no login. There is no user account. Shoppers using SimpleCaddy have to re-enter their shipping information every time they make an order. So, if you have returning customers, I wouldn't recommend this cart.

Let me emphasize what others have said: anyone who can write and publish a Joomla content article can easily have SimpleCaddy up and running in a few minutes.

But it's so basic that it's almost impossible not to hit one or more of its limitations almost immediately. It's only possible to have one fixed amount for shipping -- any item, any quantity. Only one possible tax rate. Only one option per item (so if you sell a clothing item, you can't choose both color and size for the same item; you'd need to make each color a separate item.)

Bottom line: it's the right tool only in a very limited, specific shopping setup.

It does what it says on the box..

A simple shop extension. For those people who do not want a "full-blown" e-commerce solution, then this is a very clear and simple to deploy system.

If you have a small number of iems or just want to link to an ordering/payment gateway/confirmation system from your own hard worked web-pages, then this for you.

Well done!

This extension will allow for a VERY SIMPLE cart setup, but there aren't many options for customizing and the product format is not standardized.

When you add a product to this cart, you will only add product number, name and price (and product options like size if needed). But there is no place for product description, product image or additional fields. You still have to manually add details like this to the product page you need to build.

And in addition to the limited functionality, the install requires an unzipping of the main package (no where mentioned in the instructions) and the help files are weak. Also, there are no products to "buy" on the demo site which makes it hard to demo.

This cart is also buggy. I have entered a product, but the cart software can't find the product. Also, I clicked the continue shopping button and it took me to an error page. Again, if you can't find anything else, this may do the trick, but if you have more than a few products or want more functionality, look elsewhere.

This is a great product for non-tech savy individual. The documentation/instructions easy to follow. Great for our small non-profit.

Only hope for improvement would be an option for promo/coupon code for discounted items. Not sure if that would be available on the advanced product options?

Hi, thanks for this product : it's simple and works easily.

But, I can't use it for one thing :

the tax (vat) is not displayed at the per article level but only at the show cart total level.

perfect for a b to b shop, but not usable for a "normal" shop (at least in france !)

maybe an option for the next release ?

anyway, thanks for the good work.

For those with a fairly small number of products without a lot of product options, this shopping cart will work very nicely. You wouldn't want to run a major storefront with it, but this extension is especially nice if you are just selling a few products on an existing Web site -- the extension doesn't get in the way.

There are several nice ideas here. For one thing, the product display is done with standard Joomla! articles; you just embed codes in the article that display the product name and price and allow adding to the cart. (Contrast this with the more common approach of dynamically building display pages.) Sure, the Simple Caddy approach is limited: for example, if you change products often you will go nuts changing the product description articles. But for a small store with a few stable products, it's really easy. And this approach allows you to do all sorts of things within the product display -- anything you can do in Joomla!

Again, there are significant limitations. The only payment option is PayPal (which does work just fine). Simple Caddy does not track payment status once it hands off an order to PayPal; if the customer fails to complete the payment, you won't know until you match up PayPal records with orders. Within products, you can have only one type of option: for clothing, you could have either size or color but not both size and color (unless you combine size and color to have choices such as "small red" and "large blue" -- not very practical in most cases).

These limitations are absolutely fatal for those who have lots of products and expect lots of orders. But for sites like mine (a non-profit that sells a few items as fund raisers a few times a year), Simple Caddy hits the mark.

By the way, we did look at Virtue Mart -- great component but much more overhead to set up and forces some changes in the way we approach dealing with our members. So don't ask whether Simple Caddy is "better" than something like Virtue Mart -- they are designed for different audiences and each is fine for its intended purpose.

We have not asked for support yet, but scanning the forum for the component shows that there is an active user base and questions are being answered quickly.

One additional note: when I tried to register for the forums on the Atlantic Intelligence Web site, the spam blocker kept rejecting my registration. I was using Firefox 3.0.3; trying the same thing in IE 7, it worked fine. Once registered, I could log on with Firefox. So if you run into that problem, maybe the IE solution will work for you.

We have to have in mind that it is a simple caddy system. So IT IS EXCELENT.

We can not manage table rates per weight.

THANK YOU FOR your work!

Mariana

My sincere thanks to Henk for this extension. I was looking for a very simple Shopping Cart, I didn't need fancy payment gateways, etc., I just wanted to add products to a cart, and then send the order by e-mail. This extension was perfect. Within 30 minutes of downloading it I had it installed, configured and my first 'Add to Cart' and 'Checkout' working. Brilliant!

Loading this up was easy and configuring it was incredibly smooth and clear.

It would be great if one of the choices for the way products are available to be purchased is for the customer to be able to enter a number for the quantity of each product they want. I think SimpleCaddy would work perfect for me on my photography website if customers didn't have to come back to the photo they want if they want multiples of each photo.

Otherwise, it would be exactly what I'm looking for. Could this possibly be something to be added to the next update?

Thanks.

Version 1.5.5 for Joomla! 1.5.x. Excellent combination of component, module and plugin. SimpleCaddy does exactly what is claims... easy set up of a simple shopping cart feature using PayPal as the merchant account. Great for sites selling only a few products who don't need (or want) the administrative overhead of Virtue Mart (another great Joomla! e-commerce solution, by the way). Took 10 minutes to install and 45 minutes to configure. Once properly configured each product takes only a couple of minutes to enter. Product descriptions and photos are entered in a content page and simple plugin code calls the "Add to Cart" button.
A few rough bumps to final configuration but most answers can be found in the developer's forum. Not very customizable but highly recommended for simple selling needs when PayPal is your payment solution.

Exactly what I was looking for! Easy to use, easy to translate, perfect for my site! Thanks guys. I'll send you my Norwegian translation.

Thanks again for this awesome software!

For selling things on a site where you do not want to have so many options to deal with, this is a fantastic way to do it. No mess, no fuss.

The developer is very helpful and extremely patient. Good stuff.

I tried SC because I needed a caddy but a simple one. SC is exactly that. It is simple in functionality and simple in use. You create some products, and then you create an article with plugin codes referring to those products - and there is a module to show what is in the cart. There is no functionality to add charges or taxes, so I suggested that as a new feature. The layout is not great but good enough. Multi-lingual support is built in but few languages are packaged. I had no problems with bugs. All in all SC is exactly what the name says and what I needed.

SimpleCaddy is on the way to becoming a very useful little component. There are some bugs to work out and some features to add, but overall it does what it is meant to go. I'm using it to charge for events in my EventList descriptions.