I am putting together a small e-commerce site for selling downloaded video game codes. I got sick of messing around with VirtueMart and, based on unanimous praise from Joomla users, have narrowed my choices down to two options: Tienda and HikaShop. They're both great, and the presentation and styling on my JSN Epic PRO template in both Carts are much better than VM. I much prefer HikaShop's checkout to Tienda's but I have a couple of questions before I decide on which one to use:
1. I have read all over the 'net that HikaShop free version DOES NOT allow non-registered guests to make purchases. I have downloaded the free version and erased the first couple of steps in the checkout workflow. Everything seems to work OK. I even put the site live briefly and tried it from another computer (just to make sure HikaShop wasn't accepting me automatically for being the admin) and was able to get to the PayPal login screen without registering. Of course I am still putting the site together so I didn't go through with the purchase. Am I just confused, or is allowing guests to make purchases as simple as modifying the checkout workflow? I don't want to run into any nasty surprises when I really go live. And would the the same method work in the commercial version?
2. Can products be cloned? This is essential for me and is available in Tienda.
I hope guest purchasing as well as product cloning is available in HikaShop because you guys will have made my day and also the rest of my developing life easier if I can do these things with HikaShop. What a great extension (so far) and, whether I use Tienda or HikaShop, I would like you to know that VirtueMart isn't bad, but it's clunky, ugly, bloated and over-worshipped. Here's to the new breed of e-commerce extensions.
Thank you for your help
Steve K.