1. Does the source code provided include full source code of libraries and can anything be customized by an ASP.NET developer ?
We provide all source code with all our editions except for one DLL that contains our licensing and several utility functions. You get all the UI code for the catalog and Admin. You also get all the business logic and database layer. Note that we use NetTiers as the middleware layer.

2. For ASP.NET developers which have already customized the ablecommerce shopping cart software, what do you think of the design and architecture of the application. What about the documentation, scalability and ease of customization ?
I can't comment directly on the other carts but here are some notes on where we stand:

• See help.znode.com to view our documentation then decide for yourself. This is a big improvement that we have made in this release!
• You can see our load test results at http://znode.com/znode-storefront/performance.aspx. Note that you will not get these same results on a shared hosting account just because of memory and CPU limitations. You should size your server to your requirements.
• Our application is very standard ASP.Net using Microsoft best practices. If you are familiar with ASP.Net you can generally be off and coding fairly quickly. For instance, if you want to change the UI just go into the Web/Themes folder and you will see each page there. We also use standard Master pages so changing them is just like any other ASP.Net application.

3. Can you build composed articles. For example a product custom computer where you can choose which components you want to include for CPU, memory etc with a price calculated by the sum of the components choosen ?
Yes we have "Add-Ons" for this. Each Add-On has it's own inventory level, price, and shipping but it is bundled with another product. The simple example I use is Gift Wrapping. You can track the inventory so you can make sure you have boxes in stock. You can add an additional price as well. You can also make it optional or not or have specific options pre-selected. You can have as many Add-Ons as you like per product. If the customer adds a product to the cart with Add-Ons and then removes it then the Add-Ons are also removed so you won't have the situation where someone is buying Gift Wrapping without the gift.

4. Can you handle affiliates, for example price comparison websites ?
Out of the box we don't provide feeds to things like Froogle but you have full access to the database so you can write your own feeds or exports if you like. This is something that is on our roadmap.

5. Can you handle different shipping price by weight, amount of order etc ?
You can do different shipping prices based on weight or quantity. Out of the box we don't have shipping based on total order price (as of v5.1.0) but this can be fairly easily added by modifying the shipping class.

6. Is it possible to customize the product catalog trough the administration to make some products available only for a defined customer role or do we need to implement that ?
We do allow you to show and hide shipping, payment, tiered pricing and promotion options based on customer profile but we don't show or hide products based on this. This can be fairly easily added though since the whole profile infrastructure is already there.

7. How would you compare your solution to ablecommerce or dotshoppingcart
Our main strength is that we try to be as standards based as possible. If you know ASP.Net then you can get into our code fairly easily. For instance you can customize the UI with standard off the shelf controls if you like. This ease of use is carried through to the UI as well. Many people comment that the Admin is very clean and uncluttered.

Znode Administrator
email: support@znode.com
url: www.znode.com