Phoenix Cart Forum

Whether you've been here since the osC days or installed Phoenix yesterday, we'd love to hear how you ended up here. We'll also be reading every reply to help decide where Phoenix goes next, so the more you feel you can answer, the better. Don't be scared of saying anything!

About you

1. How did you find Phoenix?
Did you come from osCommerce, another cart, or start from scratch?
What led you here?

2. What were you using before, and why did you leave?
What was the last straw?

3. What are you selling (or building)?
A shop of your own, client sites, a niche marketplace?
Roughly how big is it: a handful of products, hundreds, thousands?

Why you stay

4. What made you stay?
What keeps you on Phoenix rather than moving to something else?

5. What's your favourite thing about it?
A feature, a design decision, the price, the community, anything.

How you use it

6. How do you customise it?
Hooks, custom modules, template changes, or mostly out of the box?
Any tricks you're proud of?

7. What do you use that isn't built in?
Add-ons, payment or shipping modules, third-party services, custom code.
What did you have to add or build yourself to make Your Phoenix?

Where it should go

8. What's been your biggest headache?
Something that nearly made you quit, or that you work around every time.

9. What's the one thing you'd add or change?
If you could have one feature or improvement in a future release, what would it be?

10. What have you nearly left Phoenix over, or considered switching for?
What would another platform have to offer to tempt you away?

11. What would you tell someone thinking of trying Phoenix?
The one piece of advice you wish you'd had on day one.

12. Where do you see yourself with Phoenix in a year?
Growing the shop, taking on more client work, contributing back, or keeping things ticking over?

--

There are no wrong answers, and no story is too small. Tell us yours.

OK - I'll kick this one off.....

1. How did you find Phoenix?
Was on OSC since 2010, RC2a through to 2.3.4 + Mini Template system. Suddenly decided that I was on borrowed time running on php 5.6 and had better get my act together looking for a way to update. So googled something like "how to update OSC 2.3.4 to run on php 8.2+" and one of the options suggested was Phoenix Cart. I had already dabbled with OSC 4 but hated it - wayyyy too complex. So downloaded Phoenix to give it a go on a test server.

2. What were you using before, and why did you leave?
As above - longstanding OSC user. Wasn't really a last straw, perhaps the move of the platform to new owners changed things for the worse and the old users were abandoned.

3. What are you selling (or building)?
My own shops, mainly agricultural and livestock equipment + things like generators, power washers etc. Probably in the region of 1000 products.

4. What made you stay?
Quite simply - I like phoenix, its very similar to OSC but wayyy better - modifications without replacing snippets of code or running sql commands, then wondering why it didn't work. The site is fast and the code is not bloated. Plus I have now spent countless hours producing and testing addons so I think I will stick around awhile.

5. What's your favourite thing about it?
I think it has to be how easy it is to customise and increase its features so that it works how I want it to work.

6. How do you customise it? and 7. What do you use that isn't built in?
Firstly trawled the addons area to see if any of the mods I needed were already there - if they were I installed them and tested. Secondly, from my OSC days I had kept all the modification files that I had embodied - I trawled through these to see which were essential - then started updating them to run on Phoenix. When they were running on my test site I uploaded them to the addons, I guess they are ok, as nobody has complained about any of them. - All in all there are probably 40 or so changes to get me to where I wanted to be.

8. What's been your biggest headache?
None really - maybe lack of volunteers to test things (everyone is busy). and what the hell is a pi module?

9. What's the one thing you'd add or change?
Difficult question - I guess in the native phoenix get rid of the three pages to add a product (I wrote an addon to achieve this)

10. What have you nearly left Phoenix over, or considered switching for?
I haven't - Your stuck with me now!

11. What would you tell someone thinking of trying Phoenix?
I would tell them - Don't Hesitate - you wont be sorry, for someone moving from OSC or a new ecommerce website, phoenix is the ideal solution.

12. Where do you see yourself with Phoenix in a year?
Hopefully both my sites running on the latest version of phoenix and php and filling in my spare time creating "enhancements".

I will break the ice on this one lol

About Me

1. How did you find Phoenix?
Did you come from osCommerce, another cart, or start from scratch?
What led you here?

Many moons ago in 2006 I started using OSC (after being disillusioned by fleabay) and launched my very first store in the mobile phone industry (you know back in the day when you could put a star wars cover on your Nokia 3310 lol) The store was pure dropshipping and made quite a bit of money as everything was so cheap from china

2. What were you using before, and why did you leave?
What was the last straw?

I think the last straw with OSC for me was the lack of development and innovation which finally ground everything to a halt. And then eventually the thought of using V4 was causing me stress as it and still is from what I can see utter pants lol

3. What are you selling (or building)?
A shop of your own, client sites, a niche marketplace?
Roughly how big is it: a handful of products, hundreds, thousands?

Apart from being a certified developer for Phoenix (thanks Gary ) these days I run a couple of stores which I should put more time into but I don't I just let them tick along nicely. One store has approximately 13k products which I have written 3 importer scripts for that keep the stock updated at a push of a button.

Why you stay

4. What made you stay?
What keeps you on Phoenix rather than moving to something else?

Tough one to answer, I just love it
Over the years I have looked at other carts, opencart, prestashop etc but they just do not give me a feeling of being part of a community and found them cold

5. What's your favourite thing about it?
A feature, a design decision, the price, the community, anything.

My favourite thing about Phoenix Cart is that I can mess around and if I break it it is easily fixed. The code base is not hidden in layer upon layer of folders like some of the bloated carts out there.

How you use it


6. How do you customise it?
Hooks, custom modules, template changes, or mostly out of the box?
Any tricks you're proud of?


All of the above. I love tinkering with designs and layouts as the stock layout maybe basic but it has a great base to build from

7. What do you use that isn't built in?
Add-ons, payment or shipping modules, third-party services, custom code.
What did you have to add or build yourself to make Your Phoenix?


Up until now (and on my live sites still do) use addons from @BrockleyJohn and @raiwa and of course the PC Guru @burt as well a lot of my own custom addons.

Where it should go


8. What's been your biggest headache?
Something that nearly made you quit, or that you work around every time.

I do not think I have ever come to that point. I do see some of the new users struggling with certain things such as @cerberus but the advice they have been offered is second to none. I remember how difficult things were back when there was no spare money to have what you want.

9. What's the one thing you'd add or change?
If you could have one feature or improvement in a future release, what would it be?

Not something I have put a lot of thought into but if I had to it would be the out of the box template and maybe also an admin face lift to make it more modern.

10. What have you nearly left Phoenix over, or considered switching for?
What would another platform have to offer to tempt you away?

Tried the rest and stuck with the best (well for me anyway)

11. What would you tell someone thinking of trying Phoenix?
The one piece of advice you wish you'd had on day one.

Read, learn, listen and just give it a go you have nothing to lose!

12. Where do you see yourself with Phoenix in a year?
Growing the shop, taking on more client work, contributing back, or keeping things ticking over?
Hopefully all of the above.

About you

1. How did you find Phoenix?
Originally back in 2008 I was looking for an ecommerce package that allowed me to sell free and paid for downloads and OSC did that at no cost. That was it. It was a lot of work to set things up, and still is, but the store has developed over the years, and even though the downloads are still there, they are not as important as they once were.

What led you here?
At the time that development in OSC ground to a halt, and the community version was created. I could see the potential of where it was going and over the years invested lots of time and money getting my store the way it is today and thanks must go to Gary for being so patient over the years. Lots of those ideas are now part of core, or were available as PRO addons so I think I have done my bit in the beginning.

2. What were you using before, and why did you leave?
Just generally went with the flow when the community version left OSC and became Phoenix

What was the last straw?
Nothing really as love this software.

3. What are you selling (or building)?
A shop of your own, client sites, a niche marketplace?
Roughly how big is it: a handful of products, hundreds, thousands?
I sell virtual and physical products from our own website. At the very start there was only one other business doing this in the UK. In the beginning we sold on eBay, Etsy and many more and slowly used those sites to promote and grow our own website which now lists over 4,000 specialist products aimed at the model railway hobby, whilst we only have at the most 10 listings on ebay.

Why you stay

4. What made you stay?
What keeps you on Phoenix rather than moving to something else?
Had a look at others over the years and still stick with Phoenix. I guess its what I know and I cannot be bothered to learn something new.

5. What's your favourite thing about it?
A feature, a design decision, the price, the community, anything.
I guess this is tricky because Phoenix has its good and bad points. For years now its been accepted that the Attributes system needs a make over but time has been spent elsewhere, and whilst the current system works, it could be improved. I like the ease of updating, the ease of adding features as its all so modular and the way that modules can be moved and repositioned almost at will to change the look of the site. I like that all the css is in one place which makes it easy to find things, and also to add bits. We have recently added in lots of help guides which was about as easy as it could have been.

How you use it

6. How do you customise it?
Hooks, custom modules, template changes, or mostly out of the box?
Any tricks you're proud of?
Now we have our site as we want it, and how we are used to doing things, its a case of generally just updating modules as they break or we think of something that should be added. We now spend ages with different AI getting things to work, which is bad for the developers as we no longer need to use them in the same way that we did, but we still use them occasionally. We have created lots of features that suit our way of working and I wish we had the time to release them as addons for others, but having to check and constantly update them keep us out of the addons area.

7. What do you use that isn't built in?
Add-ons, payment or shipping modules, third-party services, custom code.
What did you have to add or build yourself to make Your Phoenix?
We have recently made a hook that shows a T&C selector on the checkout pages when there are virtual products in the basket. Its part of EU regulations. We created a Withdrawal system to allow customers to easily cancel orders just to see if it could be done. The biggest changes we have made is a way to export customers, and orders, to allow us to easily upload customers to our accounts package, and orders into RM click and drop. We had Gary create us shipping modules that allow us to set shipping by minimum and maximum weight and minimum and maximum order value which allows us to manage what we send and what services are used. We currently have over 12 shipping options that show at different stages depending on order value and order weight making postage easy. The best one is a simple way, created by Gary again, for a system to save product images into different folders within the images folder. So simple and if I remember correctly one hook file and a language file.

Where it should go

8. What's been your biggest headache?
Something that nearly made you quit, or that you work around every time.
Not really had a headache as such. My biggest problem is understanding the code. As a shop owner I have no idea, and don't really want to learn too much coding, so the simpler something is makes it better for me, and no doubt other shop owners. We don't want to be coding all day and just uploading and turning on a module is something that I think everyone can do.

9. What's the one thing you'd add or change?
If you could have one feature or improvement in a future release, what would it be?
Easy this, simple to use and an easy way to add and create attributes. The other thing is to improve the Phoenix main website so its doing its job the best it can - getting new users. Spend the time on the website, not the forum, as if the product is good, there should be no need for a forum. The other thing I would do is to create a second demo store that is fully loaded so new users can see the potential. The code demo store is about as boring as it can get and does not really show off Phoenix to its best.

10. What have you nearly left Phoenix over, or considered switching for?
What would another platform have to offer to tempt you away?
At my age I cannot be bothered to learn something new so will probable never leave. I was hooked in 2008 so you are stuck with me.

11. What would you tell someone thinking of trying Phoenix?
The one piece of advice you wish you'd had on day one.
We had this just the other day when I was called by a customer asking questions about the website. They are fed up with AKM and want to try something new. Told them why I love Phoenix and that they should find the test site and have a look and play in the front end and admin and if they have any questions to come back and ask.

12. Where do you see yourself with Phoenix in a year?
Growing the shop, taking on more client work, contributing back, or keeping things ticking over?
Hopefully starting to wind the business down ready for an enjoyable retirement, or to change the current business model to allow me to retire slowly but still enjoy what I currently do.

It will be interesting to see if its just the usual handful of people who will reply to this tread

About you

1. How did you find Phoenix?
Started with osCommerce in 2002(?) for a new business idea I had ... Knowledge of websites - basic coding - html (what?) - server (ehhhhh??) - php (what is that??) .. etc ... ?? ZERO ... litterally ZERO .. I remember nice Q&A's on the forum (Joop) about "but what does tep_ mean" .. step learning curve .. I believe it took me about 4 months to go live ....

2. What were you using before, and why did you leave?
Allways OSC .... at some point when osc was lacking development we tried / tested whatever popped up ... Magento - Prestashop - OSC3.0 (looked promising ) - etc - etc ... but in the meantime the business kind of exploded and I had like 10+ employees .. we extended OSC so much (accounting - erp etc) .. so we never did take the step to production for eg Magento because it needed too much development to fulfiil our needs .... And I immediately had all the "under the hood" problems of which Magento is known .. you didn't have a clue what was happening when you clicked Update ... so I learned the hard way -> controlling every part of a website is crucial.... A so called "ready product" looks nice but gives all kind of problems ...

3. What are you selling (or building)?
I won't disclose exactly what business we are in - but we sell "comparable goods" - so I allways call it the "dumb" version of e-commerce .. sending out packages has no scalibilty for your business ...
We have over 200K+ customers - and 400K+ orders fulfilled .. all categories of customers ... Personal - Business - Government - small - recurring - big .. whatever you can think of ... over 50K+ products ... at this moment ... but will go up to 100K+ ... at least that is what I forsee after we have finished the Phoenix development...

Why you stay

4. What made you stay?
See above - the maintainiblity - controlibilty - the perfect skelleton "slim" codebase - I have never seen a comparable Shopping Cart product (but also really usable for Blogging etc. Who still needs Wordpress or Woocommerce ??)


5. What's your favourite thing about it?
Not hooks .. .. (IMHO no good - easy for beginners - but not for serious business) .. but the good part - you don't need to use them ... Overall the modularity is the key! ... so we developed (analogy of content modules) about 60 Admin Components as modules ... and kind of totally split admin from shop ... admin still runs on CORE off course .... so in general extendibility is endless - both Admin and Shop

How you use it

6. How do you customise it?
Totally - all bits of shop and admin - litterally every element - every flow - every whatever you can think of ... just one tiny Bridge Hook (we will get rid off later) which defines a new runtime .... NOT a single adoption of CORE (except for application_top in admin. Just because it is not yet on par with shop. So yeah .. really proud of this runtime architecture.

7. What do you use that isn't built in?
See above - all custom .. but when you know - you know

Where it should go

8. What's been your biggest headache?
Nothing!

9. What's the one thing you'd add or change?
Bring admin up to par the way shop is!


10. What have you nearly left Phoenix over, or considered switching for?
Nothing! ... Okay - I can read code and understand what it will do without trying it in a test environment ... That's God's gift ... so when @burt Gary and @ecartz Matt where doing their Github development I followed every commit on Github and saw what they were heading for ... Lean and mean CORE ... so I had no other option then wait for the ready product .. in the meantime trying to keep the OSC sites afloat ... which was and is not easy I can tell you ... so again - we did some tests with different carts ... especialy Shoppify .. IMHO useless ... so we kept OSC afloat ... up to this day ... started with Phoenix to develop around V1.1.0.1 (?) and waited a little longer ... and now full in the game! So never considered switching! And to clarify - then came AI - ChatGPT vibecoding around the corner (massive thanks to @frankl for pointing it out in the forum). Vibecoding fills in my lack of real programming knowledge ... so now the combination of Phoenix and AI is unbelievably powerfull. It kinds of opens up a box of Pandora but if you can keep yourself controlled it gives a whole new experience! Much quicker development is possible - we release about 2 admin programs on a day - just besides our normal work


11. What would you tell someone thinking of trying Phoenix?
Do it - play with it! Espacially when you are a software guy / developer ... you will immediately be surprised by the possibilities ... So my take is ... OSC was for hobby - but the extendibility of Phoenix is the best for professional software guys! And that is a whole new ballgame!

12. Where do you see yourself with Phoenix in a year?
Don't know - I do now AI - vibecoding will change the whole landscape ... for shoppingcarts - e-commerce but even more for software agencies - software professionals - consultants etc etc ... you better learn a real craft - bricklaying or something

Regards! A

How did you find Phoenix?

Softaculous installer, there are a few shopping carts on the Softaculous installer, as I know nothing about any of them it was a bit hit and miss what one I installed, all I knew was I was going to use paypal for payments so I wanted a cart with a free paypal module. On the Softaculous installer there were also a few carts that said they have not been updated for ages so I left them alone, also the ones that did not have a free paypal module. The first cart I installed was Prestashop, but at the time I was experimenting on free website space, and even though prestashop installed ok when I tried to test it the free webspace could not handle it, used up all resources or something like that. Then I installed Phoenix cart.


What were you using before, and why did you leave?

Nothing, Phoenix cart is my first.


What are you selling (or building)?

The cart is for my brother, he will be selling hand made items and anything else he can get cheap and resell in Ireland.


What made you stay?

Cant really say as its all new to me, I do know I would of been lost without the help I have from the forum, so I will go with that for a reason to stay


What's your favourite thing about it?

Help from the forum, the price (free),


How do you customise it?

Fairly basic customisation as I am a new user and this is a steep learning curve for me. I do install free modules, but only the simple ones, too many files to upload and I just may get a bit mixed up. also lots of help from the forum to help with the customisation.


What do you use that isn't built in?

Websites that can help with editing either for code snippets etc or image editing, also any other websites to help me understand things like htaccess etc.


What's been your biggest headache?

As a new user I would say editing the site, almost every other word I have to look up to help me understand, its like a new language to me, but with help from the forum I manage fine (just about):) and a lot of other websites can help with understanding certain aspects.


What's the one thing you'd add or change?

I cannot say, I have nothing to compare it to.


What have you nearly left Phoenix over, or considered switching for?

Again as I have nothing to compare it to so I don't have a opinium about that, so I will stick with what I know best (that is very little), that is phoenix cart.


What would you tell someone thinking of trying Phoenix?

The same as I would say to anyone you starts out on this journey with any cart not just Phoenix, patience is needed, the ability not to give up even when you fail or make mistakes, as a learner you will make many (the blood has drained from my face many times)


Where do you see yourself with Phoenix in a year?

I have no ideas about that, one day at a time, besides that this cart is for my brother when it is finished 9but I know I will have thing to do on the odd occasion after it is finished)

TY for your Story @Mort_Lemur

Mort_Lemur wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2026 6:38 pm and what the hell is a pi module?

What is now known as a Layout Module.

The original name `pi module` is a portmanteau of "product info" and "module", as I introduced the concept only on the product_info page. That was a long time ago on the osCommerce forum, so likely 2018 or so? As the concept for pi modules got more established over the years, it was extended out to other pages, hence the needed "rename" to Layout Modules.

Layout Modules are simply "Sub Modules" of a standard Content Module.
In effect, the Content Module defines the Slots, the Layout Modules get placed in a Slot.

Mort_Lemur wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2026 6:38 pm get rid of the three pages to add a product (I wrote an addon to achieve this)

Do you mean the three Tabs on the product adding/editing page ?

@burt

Well that now explains it nicely, I was wondering what 3.14159265359...... had to do with Phoenix........

Do you mean the three Tabs on the product adding/editing page ?

Yes, (in my view) no need to split it into 3 tabs, makes adding a product more time consuming and difficult to "cast your eye over" before submitting the product.

Thanks

TY @14Steve14 for the Story

14Steve14 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 29, 2026 9:02 am 9. What's the one thing you'd add or change?
If you could have one feature or improvement in a future release, what would it be?
Easy this, simple to use and an easy way to add and create attributes. The other thing is to improve the Phoenix main website so its doing its job the best it can - getting new users. Spend the time on the website, not the forum, as if the product is good, there should be no need for a forum. The other thing I would do is to create a second demo store that is fully loaded so new users can see the potential. The code demo store is about as boring as it can get and does not really show off Phoenix to its best.

A few things to unpack there, TY!

Attributes
Quite some work went into the new Variants system this year.
Very little appetite/interest from most of the community meant it got put onto the back burner.
That's no-one's fault - it's how it is. At some point it'll be discussed again and maybe taken forward.

Main Website
The new Website is certainly more modern and appealing I think.
If you have time could you point out any areas you feel could be changed
Here's the original feedback thread.

Forum
I wouldn't want to not have some type of Community Interaction. At present this is done mostly by this Forum.
Part of the "nice bit" of Phoenix is, IMO, the Forum and Members thereof.
Without that, Phoenix (the ecosphere) would be quite dull and sterile.

Loaded Demo
Part of the reason for the Recommended Addons thread was to try to get a crowd-sourced idea of the addons that are wanted enough to actually put into a such a demo. You've been in that discussion TY, 99% of the community unfortunately missed it. Would be much better to position it as a `crowdsourced` loaded rather than a `push all of burts addons` into a loaded.

About you
Been using OSc for years and now Phoenix. I'm a history nerd and sell mainly US historical flags, novelty and custom designs (if anyone needs a flag or banner!)

1. How did you find Phoenix?
Started with OSc but webhost upgraded the server until it wouldn't work and was easier to upgrade to Phoenix

2. What were you using before, and why did you leave?
See 1.

3. What are you selling (or building)?
Flags, mainly reproductions of American civil war units, some novelty and custom designs.

4. What made you stay?
Familiar with OSc and available payment add-on

5. What's your favourite thing about it?
It's free (for the most part) and easy to use with a great support community

How you use it

6. How do you customise it?
Just add-ons

7. What do you use that isn't built in?
Add-on for Square payments, front page message, capcha

Where it should go

8. What's been your biggest headache?
Getting used to finding where things are

9. What's the one thing you'd add or change?
Built in Square payment

10. What have you nearly left Phoenix over, or considered switching for?
Nothing

11. What would you tell someone thinking of trying Phoenix?
Do it!

12. Where do you see yourself with Phoenix in a year?
Still pluggin' along