asp:review
XSE.NET
An ASP.NET Shopping Cart and Hosting Service
By Mike Riley
Writing a shopping cart application is a rite of passage
for many ASP.NET programmers, especially those who learned ASP.NET via
introductory books and tutorials featuring the shopping cart as the example
application. And yet, writing a good shopping cart is hard work, especially as
the feature list continues to expand to include customer ratings, nested
product categories, wish lists, e-mail alerts, shipping details, e-commerce
transaction monitoring, reports ... the list goes on and on.
Reviewing the generic nature of shopping carts, it s a
wonder why Microsoft opted to not include such controls in ASP.NET 2.0. Perhaps
the new login controls, role management, master pages, and profiles in the 2.0
release kept the ASP.NET team too busy to tackle shopping cart management or
maybe they decided that such a control is too quickly evolving to encase in a
component that would remain part of the ASP.NET 2.0 legacy for years to come. In
any case, the folks at IQ Services saw this omission as a perfect opportunity
to not only create a sophisticated .NET-based shopping cart application, but
also host it as well. Shopping cart data can be stored within either a
Microsoft Access or SQL Server database, and the solution can be purchased as a
single, stand-alone ASP.NET Web application, hosted by another ASP.NET provider,
or hosted and managed by IQ Services. An SDK can also be purchased separately;
this is available by request to licensed users and features a Visual Studio.NET
C# project demonstrating how to use XSE.NET s shopping bag user control, as
well as execute stored database queries (it also provides the source code to
the Authorize.net gateway class used by XSE.NET).
Figure 1: After installing the
software, the first task at hand is to set up the administrator account.
The version I reviewed for this article, 1.1.1501.9, was
only 1.x aware and may require .NET 2.0 IIS users to execute the aspnet_regiis
-i command within the \Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322 folder to
properly register the correct framework before installing and running the
software. Once running, the array of options and administrative capabilities is
impressive. The customer-facing store front delivers all the functionality
expected of a sophisticated e-commerce shopping experience today, and both the
storefront and admin backoffice pages are friendly with Internet Explorer,
Firefox, and Safari browsers. Product searches, category menus, multiple product
images/selections, cross sells, wish lists, email-a-friend , and shopping cart
management with payment options are just some of the application s highlights.
The back-end administration feature list is nearly five
times as long, with several managers supplying granular control to the store
administrator for virtually every aspect of XSE.NET. These include the Property
Manager (main settings, layouts, templates, messages, and custom properties),
Product Manager (product listings, attributes, promotion, and specs), Category
Manager (product categories/sub-categories and related icons/images/templates),
Supplier Manager (manufacturer and publisher database), Author Manager
(database consisting of author/artist/agent of the product), Promotion Manager
(for date-driven price promotions), and other modules for Discounts,
Availability, Payment, Shipping, Affiliates, Tax, Customer, and Sales
Management. Visit http://www.ecommercesoft.net/features.php
for the all details too numerous to list here.
Figure 2: The XSE.NET customer
interface is well organized and feature-rich.
The hosted approach offers several tiered service options,
including a $30/month leasing plan that is the most hands-off (code-wise)
approach while allowing XSE to deploy and manage the software at another
ASP.NET hosting partner of your choice. The next tier is leasing the software
from XSE and allowing them to host it, as well. This ranges from $49/month to
have XSE host the software and data in a Microsoft Access database, to
$69/month for the data to reside in a SQL Server database. A premium version of
this plan, with guaranteed uptime, premium technical support, and unlimited
upgrades, ranges from $89/month for the Access version to $99/month for the SQL
Server edition. Lastly, the software license and compiled bits can be purchased
for tether-free software control. Note that regardless of which option is
selected, it is still the responsibility of the store owner to configure the
supported gateways: Aurhorize.Net, DPS payment express, FirePay, PayFlo Pro,
and PayPal are XSE.NET s currently supported payment services.
In general, the installation and configuration of the
software was a breeze, the administrative portion of the storefront was
intuitive, and the features worked as expected. I did find that the default
font for the store items was a little small for my tastes, but this was easily
addressed by modifying the templates. Ultimately, the real question comes down
to which software licensing or leasing variant to choose and if the application
is worth the cost. I ve used several GNU-GPL open source e-commerce packages in
the past, with my latest favorite being the PHP-based osCommerce available at http://www.oscommerce.com. While not
ASP.NET-based, osCommerce does offer several of the key features that XSE.NET
has to offer. Oddly enough, for a company that is marketing an ASP.NET approach
to the electronic shopping cart market, IQ Services even runs its main Web site
and Web marketing materials via PHP, sending a mixed message about which Web
scripting technology they prefer to work with. In spite of this discrepancy,
and the ongoing free-versus-fee concerns of open source versus proprietary
software today, XSE.NET still offers a number of advantages compared to free
shopping cart counterparts, whether they be ASP.NET or PHP-based.
Figure 3: The administrative
interface provides a variety of functions to meet nearly every major need that
a sophisticated e-commerce site should offer.
Although I am hesitant to advocate the hosted option for
use by experienced developers and site administrators who manage their own Web
applications and sites, companies without in-house expertise might opt for the
hosted option to minimize headaches associated with version control and
configuration management. I am partial to the full version purchase, but would
prefer to have access to all the source code to customize if necessary rather
than the limited SDK that IQ Services currently provides. Even so, the
technical aspects of the product are attractive and I encourage any
organization that has standardized on ASP.NET 1.x and is currently seeking an e-commerce
solution to take a closer look at XSE.NET. A live demo of the product is
available at http://www.ecommercesoft.net/live-demo.php.
Mike
Riley is an
advanced computing professional specializing in emerging technologies and new
development trends. He also is a contributing editor for asp.netPRO. Readers may contact Mike at mailto:mike@mikeriley.com.
Rating:
Web Site: http://www.ecommercesoft.net
Price: US$579;
leasing plans start at $30/month.