CubeCart Development UK: Mods, Upgrades and Migrations

CubeCart was our first shop platform

Before OpenCart, WooCommerce or Shopify were common choices, CubeCart was where dijitul started building ecommerce. We wrote mods for it, supported shops running on it, and built migration tools in both directions: osCommerce to CubeCart for shops moving onto it, and CubeCart to OpenCart for shops that later outgrew it.

That history means we know the platform's quirks, from older versions through to CubeCart 6. If you have a CubeCart store that works and you would like it kept working, we are a safe pair of hands. If you think it is time to move on, we can do that too, without losing what you have built up.

CubeCart 6 today

CubeCart 6 is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence, with its code published on GitHub at cubecart/v6. It is still maintained, with regular point releases. A few facts that shape development work on it:

• PHP 8. According to the CubeCart forums, version 6.4.6 introduced PHP 8 and 8.1 support. Stores on earlier 6.x releases, or on CubeCart 4 or 5, generally need upgrading before they will run on a supported PHP version.
• Skins are built with Smarty templates, so storefront changes can be made in the skin without touching core PHP.
• Plugins extend CubeCart through its hook system, which lets custom code run at defined points in the core without editing core files. CubeCart also supports admin-managed code snippets for small changes.

We build in that grain: changes go into a plugin or the skin, never into core files, so you can apply CubeCart updates without losing your customisations.

Typical CubeCart work

• Upgrades: moving an old CubeCart 3, 4 or 5 store onto the latest CubeCart 6 release, migrating products, customers and orders and rebuilding any mods that did not carry over.
• PHP fixes: making custom code and third-party plugins run cleanly on PHP 8.3 or 8.4.
• Custom plugins: trade pricing, delivery rules, product options with price and weight changes, custom reports, and checkout changes such as UK postcode lookup.
• Integrations: sending orders and customers to Xero, Sage, QuickBooks or KashFlow, syncing stock from a warehouse system, and creating courier labels.
• Imports: loading supplier catalogues and updating stock and prices on a schedule.

Leaving CubeCart without losing anything

Sometimes a store has simply outgrown CubeCart, or the business wants a platform with a bigger extension market. We have built CubeCart migration tools before, and the approach is the same now as then:

1. Export products, categories, options, images, customers, orders and reviews from the CubeCart database.
2. Map them to the new platform's structure, whether WooCommerce, Shopify, OpenCart or a custom build.
3. Map every old URL, including CubeCart's SEO-friendly URLs, to its new equivalent and set 301 redirects.
4. Check counts and totals match, run test orders, then switch over at a quiet time.

Customer passwords usually cannot be moved between platforms because of different hashing methods, so we plan a friendly password reset email for returning customers. See ecommerce migration for more detail.

Keeping a CubeCart store healthy

Plenty of CubeCart stores have traded quietly for a decade or more. The ones that keep going share a few habits, and we help owners put them in place:

• Stay on the current 6.x release. Point releases carry security fixes, so we apply them on a staging copy first, check custom plugins still behave and then update live.
• Keep custom code out of core. Any old mod that edits core files gets rebuilt as a plugin or moved into the skin, so the next update does not overwrite it.
• Run a supported PHP version. We aim for PHP 8.3 or 8.4 and fix anything that throws warnings along the way.
• Back up the database and files on a schedule, and test that a restore actually works.
• Use HTTPS everywhere and a payment gateway that keeps card data off your server entirely.

Starting a CubeCart project

Send us your store address and tell us what you want: keep it running safely, add a feature, connect it to another system or move it elsewhere. We will look at the CubeCart version, PHP version, plugins and customisations, then give you an honest recommendation. After a free chat you get a fixed-price quote for an agreed scope. Get in touch.

What we deliver

• CubeCart 6 plugins and skin changes that use hooks and survive upgrades
• Upgrades from older CubeCart versions to the current CubeCart 6 release
• PHP 8 fixes for custom code and third-party plugins
• Accounting, stock and courier integrations
• Migration from CubeCart to WooCommerce, Shopify, OpenCart or a custom build, with redirects
• Migration onto CubeCart from older platforms

How it works and what it costs

Every project gets a fixed-price quote after a free initial chat and a short scoping stage. You own the code and the data.

1. Free chat

   Tell us the problem in plain English: what you do now, what goes wrong and what "better" looks like. No charge, no obligation.

2. Scoping

   We map the processes, systems and data involved, agree what is in and out, and write it down so there are no surprises.

3. Fixed-price quote

   You get a fixed price for the agreed scope, or a phased plan for bigger builds, so you can start small and prove it works.

4. Build and test

   We build in short stages you can see and try, test against real data, then go live carefully with a rollback plan.

5. Hand over and look after

   You own the code and the data. We can host it, support it and keep improving it, or hand it to your own team.

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