Ecommerce platforms..thoughts?

tonymontana

tonymontana

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Oct 31, 2011
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I'll be starting a medium sized ecommerce store, and am looking for suggestions about what platform to use. I read around quite a bit, and as of now, Magento is off my list. Primarily because it is far too advanced for what I want to do.

I've installed PrestaShop and had a look through the admin panel..seems like a fairly clean and easy to use interface. Just wanted to see if there were any things I should know about Prestashop (good or bad)?

Any other platforms that you would recommend?

I was also looking at OpenCart, but read that it had some security issues and many people stopped using it because of that.
 


I use Yahoo and absolutely love it, but my awesome developer probably has more to do with this than anything else. However, I've never see anyone here recommend it, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I've seen Shopify recommended regularly. Magneto is popular, but I demoed it and thought it was too clunky.

I propose that you find an awesome designer/developer and work with their favorite cart. I had the best luck with this approach.
 
Every platform available has it's pros and cons. Provide some specifics of what you are looking to do - # of products, inventory tracking, shipping options, recurring billing, guest checkout, one page checkout, methods of payment, ability to customize and edit template pages css, etc etc. Then perhaps some of us can make some recommendations. There is no one superior platform for all ecomm sites, it all depends on what you are going for.
 
Broland said:
Every platform available has it's pros and cons. Provide some specifics of what you are looking to do - # of products, inventory tracking, shipping options, recurring billing, guest checkout, one page checkout, methods of payment, ability to customize and edit template pages css, etc etc. Then perhaps some of us can make some recommendations. There is no one superior platform for all ecomm sites, it all depends on what you are going for.
Click to expand...

My mistake for not providing that info in my original post. To start off, the site might have between 50-100 products, but will likely expand over time into more.

Shipping options - Not sure what you mean exactly, but I will be selling to Canada and the US only.

Recurring billing - No need, as I'm selling a product, not a service or anything.

Guest checkout/One page checkout - What exactly is this?

One page checkout - Elaborate please haha

Methods of payment - Credit card, PayPal, whatever else is industry standard


In terms of customization and such, I'm looking to go with a platform that has a lot of themes available to buy. For example, once reason PrestaShop has caught my eye is that it has a handful of ready made themes for a fairly reasonable price. I'm working with a fairly small budget here, so as of now, I won't be hiring anyone to make any major customization's and such.
 
I use opencart for my clients. I have found it quite easy to use. There are also quite a lot of modules available at a pretty decent price compared to ones that are being sold for prestashop.

Also themeforest now have an opencart section and the themes are all pretty decent. For about $35 you could have a shop up and running in no time.

OpenCart | ThemeForest

Couldn't answer your question on security issues. I have 7 sites using opencart and have not had issues yet!
 
I've used ZenCart in the past.

My favorite is wordpress when there is a need for a ecommerece site. It's simple, user friendly, checkout process doesn't give you a headache and the ready available themes are good looking & easy to modify.

That said features dictate the platform. Make sure you consider attribute pricing needs, inventory, checkout option, shipping option, payment option, reporting capability needs before making a choice.
 
tonymontana said:
Guest checkout/One page checkout - What exactly is this?

One page checkout - Elaborate please haha
Click to expand...

Guest checkout means a simple order form, without being required to create an account before placing the order. For example, my order form: xMarkPro - Ultimate Blog Network Management. That's guest checkout. Anyone from the public can just submit one simple form, and their order is processed.

Or, you could go the other route, and require new customers to create an account before being able to checkout. For example, Amazon requires this (I think). After you create your account, then you can go place your order. Helps for customer retention, tracking, returning customers, etc.
 
I am also going to setup a local e commerce site to sell cell phones & tab pc & also wondering what platform will be easy to use & looks professional.
 
small size = opencart , big size = magento , Poor = opencart , rich = magento, 3k budget = opencart , 10k budget = magento. 500 item = opencart, 10k item = magento
 
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