Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Your CubeCart site is dead. REALLY dead.
Back in 2007 I was building CubeCart sites. CubeCart was (then) pretty good. I had the free version, V3, and because I am a programmer I pulled it apart, worked out what it could do, and made a ton of changes to it.
I installed it for a lot of clients. Over the next couple of years I added plenty of modifications (mods) and made it do some pretty clever stuff, if I do say so myself.
But it was slowly becoming out-of-date. CubeCart consists of hundreds of programs, mostly written using a programming language called php. Over time, php changed. Some thing that worked in the past for php no longer worked. As web hosting companies upgraded the version of php they were running, little bits of the programming in CubeCart started to fail.
By 2011, I had also been playing for a few years with a system that was still in its infancy, but was showing promise – WordPress. The problem at that time with WordPress was that the eCommerce (shopping cart) add-ons that were then available didn’t have all the functionality that CubeCart had, or that I had added to CubeCart for my clients.
But by 2012 that had changed. WooCommerce was by then well-established. WooCommerce is a shopping cart add-on for WordPress that has a huge variety of options available. And, as a programmer, I was able to write programs that would transfer the data (customers, orders, categories, products) from my clients’ old CubeCart sites to WordPress/WooCommerce.
One of the best things about WordPress is that it is built not by just one person, or even one small group of people. It is built by a huge team, and new releases are available (publicly) to be tested BEFORE they go live. The code is what is called “open source”, so that anyone with the programming skills can make changes to the version on their own computer. This means that there are a whole lot of geeks like me who love to play with this sort of thing and create add-ons for WordPress and try to “break” it (yes, I know, we are sick sick puppies).
Anyway, with CubeCart continuing to fail, and getting worse, I found I was spending more and more time basically band-aiding the CubeCart sites to try to keep them running. Those of you with older (V4 and earlier) CubeCart sites will know what I mean – strange error messages, thumbnails no longer working, editor falling apart and doing weird things – the list goes on. On top of that, the CubeCart sites had become magnets for spam registrations, admin login attempts and hack attacks.
CubeCart To WordPress Conversions
Since mid 2012, I have been gradually converting my clients’ CubeCart sites to WordPress / WooCommerce. Yes, there were a small number who decided that they didn’t want to move to WordPress with me, and so they either went to another web site builder or struggled on with their CubeCart sites. But those that did have been overwhelmingly pleased they made the move.
When will you upgrade? Are you waiting until your competitors do? Or do you need more convincing that WordPress is THE way to go? Check out this recent infographic for more information about WordPress.
Obviously, the best time to upgrade was 2 years ago, BEFORE the wheels fell off your CubeCart site. But if you still have excuses and haven’t got around to it yet, it is now time to take the plunge.
Have a look at this page about on CubeCart to WordPress conversions – it even includes a form you can fill out to get your own WordPress/WooCommerce site to try out, to be SURE this is what you want before you order.
So, update or be outdated!