Considering osCommerce

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supermike
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Considering osCommerce

Post by supermike »

I'm considering osCommerce, but I hear others say to use Zen Cart or PayPal's own cart. Take a look at what my client is wanting to bring online. It's something like a knock-off of:

http://www.andysautosport.com/

Says I need to bring it up super-fast for him and he's not picky initially about the design -- just wants it functional as fast as possible and then we start talking about other phases.

Which would you go with? What are the pros and cons?
supermike
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by supermike »

A buddy emailed me and said that he uses http://www.magentocommerce.com/, which is free and has just a $180 PHP/MySQL Linux installation cost if you choose to go that route. I like it because it looks more modern than osCommerce and Zen Cart. Its downside is that it uses ExtJS and Scriptaculous instead of what I prefer -- jQuery. These days, jQuery just makes plain sense and can take you farther, faster, than the other js libraries.

So, I think I may do the loss-leader thing here with my client, where I take his $500 just to make this sort of like a "paid training" thing, even if I go over 3 days and into one week, and then turnaround and use this with other clients much more rapidly.
matthijs
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by matthijs »

Might be a bit off-topic, but I have to ask: you're asking $500 for setting up an e-commerce site?
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Benjamin
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by Benjamin »

I spent 15 seconds on that site and didn't see a demo link so I closed the window. To answer your question however, osCommerce has a lot of features that would take a bit to build from scratch, but the code base is of poor quality and difficult and/or time consuming to modify.
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onion2k
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by onion2k »

OSCommerce is junk. Seriously. ZenCart is a little better but still not really up to scratch. CubeCart is alright but it relies on JS to add things to the cart which is a bit of an accessibility snag. There isn't a really good open source ecommerce app anywhere really.
matthijs
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by matthijs »

There isn't a really good open source ecommerce app anywhere really.
Each time I read this (like once a month or so) I feel bad that "our" e-commerce project hasn't gotten off the ground. If I had the skills I'd do it myself.
supermike
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by supermike »

matthijs wrote:Might be a bit off-topic, but I have to ask: you're asking $500 for setting up an e-commerce site?
Yeah, sounds pathetic, doesn't it? Are you a freelancer? I'm like getting killed this month by the competition. I decided to lower my rate a tremendous amount just to get food in my mouth for the month of April. I figured I'd just do 6x as many clients as I normally do, multiplex all the work with scheduling, and do fixed bid initially and only on trimmed expectations of the final solution. I mean, people come to me and want the world for $500, and I have to re-educate them and hand them back a different functional spec that's more reasonable. And once I get my foot in the door and the person wants more work, I'll turn around and charge my normal rate on follow-on phases. But next month, I hope to do better. I mean, February was fantastic -- I made $12K that month.

So yeah, I'll install an ecommerce package, hook it up, style it, load in the guy's stuff, and turn it over to him for $500. Might take me a week or a week and a half (not the 2 days he wants), but it'll get done. And $500 is a loss to me because normally I charge $50/hr, but I'll just consider it a training deal where I'm learning a new ecommerce package. This Magento Ecommerce package looks sensational.

Normally I wouldn't charge less than $4K for hooking up an ecommerce site.
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by nickvd »

astions wrote:I spent 15 seconds on that site and didn't see a demo link so I closed the window. To answer your question however, osCommerce has a lot of features that would take a bit to build from scratch, but the code base is of poor quality and difficult and/or time consuming to modify.
Big red button just below the fold on my 19" 1440/900 screen.. Granted, it should be well above the fold, and on a smaller screen I'd have to hunt for it much longer...

http://www.magentocommerce.com/media/tour

Correction... The live demo is here: http://demo.magentocommerce.com/ , but is linked from the above page...
matthijs
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by matthijs »

It not only sounds pathetic, it is. The problem is of course that this kind of devaluation is going on in a massive scale. Not sure if lowering our prices is the answer. Might even be the cause.

When I started for myself I used to take on those low-budget projects, just to have some work and get some experience. But nowadays, I just refuse to do it. Even if that means less food on the table. Sit on my butt all day anyway, no need for much food ;)

Maybe the bigger picture is that many people working in this business come to this business from a "hobby-ish" background. You know, you are technical, you program a bit, hey nice I could make some money building sites/web apps for people, etc. You have never learned the real value of your skills. And "clients" expect the same: everybody knows someone who has build a website (they don't know the difference between a website and a webapplication, sorry), so if they come to you they expect you to do it as a kind of hobby project. A few hours in photoshop and a few hours coding, that should be enough for that e-commerce site, shouldn't it?

I mean, any lawyer or other professional will learn what "normal" hourly rates are in school. Then, when it comes to doing business, it's all about good marketing and selling yourself, making sure you provide more value for your money then your competitors. But they don't lower their rates to $10/hr. At least I don't know any lawyers who do. But we silly web developers do.

Anyway, sorry for the interruption. If you do check out Magento, do let us know what your experiences are ok? Seems like everybody's looking for good open source e-commerce solutions but can't find them.
supermike
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by supermike »

matthijs wrote:It not only sounds pathetic, it is. The problem is of course that this kind of devaluation is going on in a massive scale. Not sure if lowering our prices is the answer. Might even be the cause.
You are right. Here's what happened to me. In February I underspecified a project by 3 weeks, which made February's project go into March. If I was too busy with two clients in March, then I don't have time for new clients. So there went March's profit out the window. Then April came and I put an ad out, and things went really dry. Okay, so I change the ad up and get really aggressive with more advertising dollars, and decide to lower my standards. Sure enough, 9 client proposals ended up in my inbox, and I receive about 1 a day right now from that. However, what I'm seeing are either contracts no one wants -- like extremely picky guys you can never satisfy and should just do the work themselves -- or I'm getting AMers* who want me to build every elaborate website for them for $500. One guy wanted me to build a search engine for him for $500 and I had to re-educate him about this here Internet tubes thing.

*AMers = Affiliate Marketers/Internet Marketers. There's like this huge influx right now of guys who hear about crazy ad revenues on the web, who want to bring up sites and gamble this ad revenue. In fact, I am one of them, but I have yet to have the time to get a site up just for myself. But we all might be too late. Lately, the CPM/CPA/PPC networks have frozen up with greed, taking too much of the pie, leaving crumbs for everyone else. Some have told me that they used to make about $4000 a month in ad revenue until Google said you can't put other links near the ads, put a daily cap on revenue, and then took too much of the percentage of the revenue away.


Luckily, every once in awhile you find more sensible people out there, who understand that it's important to get someone who knows what he's doing, who cares, who can communicate effectively in English. I found one in the UK in February and earned $7K for a browse/search vertical directory (free and sponsored vendor listings), and he was glowing with praise (and still is), and wants to have me start another project in July. I also found one in Chicago who cut a deal with me -- instead of $50/hr, he'll pay me $25/hr, but he'll pay me on retainer each month. So, if he has work for me or not, I still get paid. And it's this retainer deal that has been putting some food (although limited) on my table each month right now because of how bad the client market is right now.

So, if it weren't for the fact that April is halfway over already, and March was bone dry because I couldn't take on any more work then, I wouldn't be so desperate.
matthijs
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Re: Considering osCommerce

Post by matthijs »

Thanks for sharing those insights and experiences. Bet we can all learn from those.

There's nothing wrong with selling cheap stuff. As long as your/our business model is build around that in a sensible way. So it's fine if I sell $250 "websites", as long as I sell at least 50 of them and as long as the people buying them know in advance what they are getting (a cheap template).

But most often, we are not selling "things". We are in a service-oriented business. At least that's what I'd like to believe. And building custom-made websites/apps sure is a service. So people should expect to pay for a service. That means paying a pro to deliver professional work.

Anyway, what should we do about it? I am sure that selling ourselves out is not the solution. Educating (prospective) clients is a part of it. For some clients that works. Because many just don't know what it means to build a website. That's not their fault and I won't blame them. But if you get dozens of requests for proposals as you do, you can not spend time educating all them. Besides, in most such cases it wouldn't help anyway.

What I personally try to do is get as much work as possible through my professional network instead of via open requests. So that means trying to expand that network of people and businesses I know. At least when a real business approaches me with a question to do some work, they are serious about it and know it will cost them something. The people who have contacted me without knowing me at all are more often the ones who expect me to do some slavery work.

It's an interesting topic and I know that many webdevelopers out there deal with it. I have noticed lately that some people put a slider with their contact forms to have people give an estimate of their budget for their project. If you let that slider start at $1000, you might be able to prevent a lot of hopeless RFP's arriving in your inbox.
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