Hi Anthony,

The Vivid eCommerce addon is still very new, I believe it's been released as more of a demo/work in progress, hence why it's free. I can't speak for Vivid though, that's simply my impression.

They've very different kinds of shops, the vivid shop is all in one system, where the Snipcart add-on really just provides the blocks and the integration with the Snipcart service (meaning that the package is much simpler). Snipcart takes care of the cart, ordering, payment and backend processes.

My Snipcart add-on is all up to date and working for 5.7 - it was written for 5.7 and there isn't even a 5.6 version of it available. I'm using it myself on one of our client's websites, and they're finding it a great fit -https://www.mclarenvaleflorist.com.au/...
As it's a finished product, it's all ready to go and we're finding it all works as expected.

Keep in mind that it's not really intended for large shops, it's perhaps better used where you are creating add-hoc products, or you have smaller numbers of categories and products. It's not trying to pretend to be a big shop system, it's really just an easy way to quickly get some sales up and running.

I do agree that the additional 2% purchase fee is an issue. What is important to consider is the time/cost to set up and configure a traditional shop (like 5.6's eCommerce), versus Snipcart. We're only talking a few hours to install, adjust, style and test Snipcart, whereas it can be days (or even weeks) to get something more stand-alone happening.
If you put a cost against that dev and compare it to the 2% percentage, depending on the product sold it can be a long time, or even never before you'll be worse off. Just say the cost difference in development time is $1000. That's $50000 worth of sales before you are worse of with Snipcart. So where I think Snipcart is attractive is that it's a low cost, low time way to get a shop up and running, perhaps something to view as a market test. That's my thinking at least!

This kind of system isn't something that can be detatched from Snipcart, it's directly based on it. I would have to develop all the components that Snipcart provides, like the cart, processing, currency manipulation, payment processing, order processing, emailing, discounts, etc, etc.

That being said, I am helping Vivid where I can with the development of their shop (as it's open source), with the aim to make that shop very complete and heavily featured.
I have toyed with the idea of writing my own 'Snipcart' style backend, using the Snipcart frontend blocks I've developed, but it's potentially months of work.

If you have any questions about how the Snipcart package works just let me know.
-Ryan

Thank you Ryan for the very detailed and speedy response, really appreciate it during these 5.7 early days. I've been considering moving my new e-commerce customers to 5.6 rather than put them on 5.7, but you make some interesting points about Snipcart.

I've even been looking at Wordpress but that only lasted for 10 minutes until I missed C5!

Lots to think about, but I'll be in touch if I think of anything else.

Thanks again and thank you for given us 5.7 options.
Anthony