Photocart To Sytist - What To Expect?

I'm about to embark on a huge project for another photographer who has hundreds of thousands of records in photocart. We are upgrading to Sytist because photocart is getting to be too difficult to use on mobile and becoming outdated. It is vital that customer information translates from one app to the other, but it would be so great if more information from photocart could be used by sytist.

I've read the articles on the picturespro website regarding the switch but I'd love some real world experiences other users have had :

What are some of the challenges you've encounter when changing your CRM from photocart to Sytist. What does and doesn't translate? Do the databases line up?

If anyone reading this has some advice or warnings for me about their experience upgrading I would truly appreciate it. I'd like to be prepared for any hiccups that might occur during this upgrade.

Thank you!
Wendy Reed

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Be patient and take time to set it up right. Sytist is a much more robust system. There are tons of great threads in this forum to help you. Use the search box,

Priorities. This is a great time to cut down how many images are on the site. Concentrate on creating new galleries for the most important images. Maybe there are images no longer needed too.

First thing is to create sections client section is likely the one you’ll use most for sales galleries. Make a couple test galleries with a small amount of photos to help select your theme etc. explore page designer too. Keep things simple and small in the beginning. Don't be afraid to completely change things.

The price system is very different. In Sytist you create a product then add it to as many price lists as you wish, the price can change for each.

So much more to say but I’ll leave for other users. Good luck.

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One thing to note is the only data that can be transferred from Photo Cart to Sytist are the customers. This is the customer information only and no galleries, pricing, etc … can be transferred.

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Tim, will the customer's order history transfer to sytist? Or is it just names and contact info?

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Just the customer information (name, email, password, address, etc...). No orders, favorites, photos, galleries, etc....

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I did make the transition over a year ago, reluctantly, for exactly the same reasons you are looking at.

I have run Photocart for many years (at least 10) and have millions of images and hundreds of events/galleries

As Tim has pointed out, you can only export the Customer Account info, no sales history, favorites, previous orders, etc come across, which is disappointing, and frustrating for customers that have used Photocart for purchasing for years.

There also no migration system to bring galleries over from Photocart, so I have left Photocart running in parrallel. which is a pest,and adds confusion for customer that have a long history, as I do this accross two different domains.

Sytist is a great system, and better in most, but not all respects.

The uploading to Sytist is very slow compared t using Photocart with Dave's Uploader, which if you are processing a large amount of images per event, is a frustration, as the only way to speed up the process is to manually resize everything on your local machine first. I have a very fast dedicated server and this in my opinion is a major drawback with Sytist at the moment.

The flexibility on Mobile devices will generate more sales for you, as people more increasingly use their phone to order, in this respect Sytist blows Photocart away. Overall Sytist has more usuable features, with more coming all the time as Tim does updates.

I just wish more integration would have been built in for transitioning from Photocart to Sytist, as its simply not possible to re upload ten ears worth of galleries into Sytist.

Edited Tue Jan 28, 20 1:53 AM by Derek O'Leary

I too thought that not having Dave's Uploader would make things slower and was hesitant to switch....But.

I learned some tricks.
From Bridge or Lightroom select all your images and run through Image Processor to resize.( I do 1200 on the long edge) This will put them in a folder that you FTP into Sytist. When your ready to place the images in your gallery you simply select and Process the folder. EZ-PZ

Yes it is not as automatic as Dave's but it is a simple solution that works for me.

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Can I keep the same URL on Sytist that I have on photo cart?

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