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My client needed a little shop solution on his site for approx. 20+ products. The SimpleCaddy made the deal and because there are just the features you really need for a simple shop, I was able to set up the entire shop and instruct the client within a short time.
The shop has a few issues, but those could be sorted out with the quick and helpful support of the author.
I think the idea of having a plugin that snaps products to articles is very efficient and a very reliable way to integrate the shop into an existing content structure. Very well done.

it would be helpful to list what to install first what last. It really bothers me that open source programs are like "assume what we meant othewise you're not one of us" attitude. Documentation? What documentation?! Classic.

Had a few problems with this but it was all my fault, hadn't read the instructions!
Works great, support is excellent, install on 1.5.10 went like a dream. Don't bother with other ones, this is the one!

Right. This is a freebie. The guy who wrote this does not expect "This doesn't work" or "Couldn't get it working" and then give it a crap rating.

Well for me, it does what it says on the tin.

I am no Joomla guru but know a bit about SQL and had v1.6(ish) installed.

Removed v1.6 but couldn't install the plug in. Went into MySQL and deleted the entry from the plugin table .

Installed OK in the end.

Then had issues with the custom forms..Because my text length was too long. Change from Varchar to text in MySQL and voila.

How did I know this? By looking in the forum regarding SimpleCaddy.

Don't just come on here and say it doesn't work! It does. I have one or two problems but these are some sort of css/php problem but on the whole, the product does what it says on the tim.

Doing some M$ exams a while ago I received some good advice - Read the f+++ing Instructions - RTFQ!!! Those words are still true today.

Many thanks for this product from the UK!

Well it seems nice and easy but it does not work! Looking forward the find a fix for Joomla 1.5.10.

This is a lightweight shopping cart solution, especially for its "sell products in Joomla content" feature.

However, the language file is not complete yet so that I can't make a full translation for it.

Hope the author will add those lost strings into the language files.

Thanks.

Simple Caddy is brilliant in its simplicity.

I took me not more than a hour and component was translated and my shop up and running.

It really helps to keep my site lightweight and fast, despite the fact that i´d like to have one more option box, i´m more than pleased.

Keep up the good work!

Great Component with the least Config imaginable,
Took Sometime for me to learn how to set it up (Less than an hour)and the shop is up ;-)

Thanks for this simple component

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.