Question Regarding setting up a test store

[tfoy]

I am interested in furthering my knowledge of shopsite and Shopsite's API as well as understanding using available programming languages to further improve our existing shopsite store.

I can experiment some now with our live store, but feel that every time I try out new ideas there are risks and some stuff just interferes with the store itself and can cause unexpected results for those customers visiting the store while I am experimenting.

I am thinking of purchasing a separate shopsite hosting package for setting up a demo store and testing with. I know Lexiconn has a area to have a demo set up, but I am not sure how long I could use it for testing or how often I could request a store set up.

My question is does anyone have any suggestions to which is the best way to do this? Is a shopsite starter account enough to play around with most of the shopsite templates and tags as well as experimenting with shopsite's API, or is it better to use a higher end package? We have the Shopsite Pro for our existing site so I don't really know if there will be limitations in using the Starter for experimenting and development.

These are the packages I am looking to chosse from unless someone has other suggestions.

http://www.lexiconn.com/ecommerce/shopsite/features.html



Thanks
Tom

[Jim]

ShopSite Starter has no interface to work with templates so it wouldn't do you much good. YOu can get test stores at: http://shopsite.com/demo.html#manage . They are good for 4 or 5 days. You will get an email when the store is about to expire and you can request an extention for a week or two more before it expires. That should give you time to work with it while you do your testing. You can only have one Pro level demo store open at a time (for a particular email address) but you can request a new one when ever you want if you don't have one.

You could also check with Lexicon and see how long they will let you use a demo store.

[tfoy]

Thanks for the input Jim.

I will try contacting Lexiconn about their demo stores although it looks like they send you to shopsite for the demo.




Thanks again,
Tom