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What are the best ecommerce platforms these days?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:52 am
by Luke
So I have been on the lookout for a good ecommerce application for years. In fact, with the help of several other members here, we had begun create our own, but due to lack of time, nothing much ever came of it. Well, I'm still looking. I am interested in Magento, but the problem I find with it is that it's just far too complex for most things. I wish there was just an ecommerce "framework" that was really flexible but at the same time came with a lot of functionality that would otherwise take ages.

What do y'all use?

Re: What are the best ecommerce platforms these days?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:07 pm
by Christopher
Have you looked at Magneto? I'd be interested to hear what you think of it...

Re: What are the best ecommerce platforms these days?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:18 pm
by Luke
Well I have tried Magento on several occasions, and so far it is by far the most comprehensive and likely the best designed, but there are several reasonse why I find it hard to commit to using magento. Number one being that it REQUIRES php version 5.2 or higher which eliminates a very large portion of web hosts right away. It is also (at least from my experience) pretty clunky / slow. On top of that, it has a pretty large learning curve, and the back-end is so large and feature-ful that it would scare away 90% of my clients (we work with Chamber of Commerce people... these people can barely spell their name).

What I really want is not a whole ecommerce solution, but rather an ecommerce framework somewhat like satchmo aims to be, but php because that's what most clients request (simply for peace of mind in case we fall of the planet).

EDIT: Oh and I still have never actually gotten it installed myself. I've only used demo stores. Every time I install I end up running into an extension I don't have (and won't) or that I have PHP v5.14 which is not enough. It just requires too much. I hate that.

EDIT 2: And for how easy they tried to make the backend, it's confusing as hell. As is the "theming" process.

EDIT 3: It's also possible I'm being entirely unfair to the project and simply need to spend more time with it.

Re: What are the best ecommerce platforms these days?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:54 pm
by Christopher
I usually write my own e-commerce code because it is pretty easy and my clients always seem to want something custom.

( :roll: I hate to mention it, but Skeleton has very basic e-commerce classes for shopping cart, AuthorizeNet/PayflowPro payment processing, and Fedex/UPS shipping calculations. It is not the best design and could use improvements (have I mentioned that are always looking for design input ;)), but it is lightweight and flexible. The code in the repository right now is being used on production sites. It is just classes. I add a ProductModel and OrderModel class and just code the front-end of the pages normally. There isn't an e-commerce example, but I could write an example product page, shopping cart, checkout if there is interest.)

Re: What are the best ecommerce platforms these days?

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 10:51 pm
by nincha
yea, i built my own e commerce application on my own frame work. Allows those quick customization that each customers seems to always want.

Re: What are the best ecommerce platforms these days?

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 1:34 pm
by Luke
So you guys have your own custom apps w/client-facing admin panels?

Re: What are the best ecommerce platforms these days?

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 1:49 pm
by Christopher
Yes, but they tend to have more custom functionality and less bells-and-whistles. I am currently moving someone off of a standard e-commerce package. We just walked through what they actually use on the backend. It was about 3 of the over 100 options. ;) I am adding some specific cross-sell and inventory functionality that they need.