So I've been making sites for all kinds of people - the problem is I've never made a store. I'm currently working with a buddy of mine to put a store together for the T-Shirt company he's starting, but after a month of just searching as hard as I could for good store software, I'm kind of stuck.
If it were my own store I'd be down with using some of the [url=http://arstechnica.com/business/2009/11/how-to-set-up-an-e-commerce-site-using-paypal-to-process/]not so user-friendly ideas I have floating around in my head[/url], but I need some software that'll be easy to use for their staff. I've looked at WooCommerce (which doesn't have any implementation with USPS), E-Commerce (seemed to break on a couple of set-ups), osCommerce, ZenShop... After lots of searching I decided to see what Facepunch thinks is the best way to go about making an online store.
As for what I need: I need user-friendliness for adding products and what not, and USPS shipping... integration. From what I understand it just uses the USPS API to calculate shipping costs.
Thanks a ton Facepunch, I hope this thread isn't a bother!
osCommerce is shit, magento is shit, zenshop isn't in the top 5 results when I google for that (unless it's a wordpress theme, in which case... No, don't do ecommerce with WP plugins) I've never heard of e-commerce but I'm going to just take a shot in the dark and say it's some really really dated PHP app, in which case don't use it, it's shit.
There's a lot of [I]really[/I] bad, [I][B]really[/B][/I] dated ecommerce solutions out there. Depending on the requirements you could look at doing Big Cartel ([url]http://bigcartel.com/[/url]) or Shopify ([url]http://www.shopify.com/[/url]) I've heard a lot of good things about both of them. If you're looking for something self hosted/open source I would recommend looking at Spree ([url]http://spreecommerce.com/[/url])
[editline]16th August 2013[/editline]
But really don't even consider osCommerce or Magento or any of those, they are incredibly junky and the time you spend fixing weird shit they do and trying to maintain them is going to end up losing you so much time you're going to want to shoot yourself in the face.
I worked on a magento site full time for 6 months and it was the low point of my dev career (the people and company were awesome but that was [B]not[/B] fun code to work with at all) and I would never wish it on anyone.
i dont use it or anything of this sort really, but i heard ZenCart([url]http://www.zen-cart.com[/url]) is decent.
I've heard zencart kind of sucks too, not as bad as some magento and oscommerce, but all these PHP ecommerce platforms that have been around for a while are pretty janky.
Use ZenCart if you want to get hacked. They literally have to release security patches weekly and having to manually install them each time is a pain.
[editline]17th August 2013[/editline]
At least they release patches I guess. It was about 2 years ago that I had to touch it, so maybe things have changed. It was good software, bad code behind it.
[QUOTE=KmartSqrl;41866257]I would recommend looking at Spree ([url]http://spreecommerce.com/[/url])[/quote]
Thanks for the post dude!
So I took a look at that and... woah. I've looked at the GitHub for it and the installation notes for it is a bit over my head. I'd say I'm fair at HTML and CSS and basic JavaScript, but I haven't messed with anything mentioned on that page - aka the only thing I've installed on my server is Textpattern and Wordpress (the first being the CMS I enjoy and the second being the CMS I'm really not a big fan of) and all I've ever had to do was drag n' drop and follow the in-browser setup wizard. Fortunately, I have some friends that probably understand how to install stuff like this and can help me out. If I can make that happen I'm up for trying this.
[editline]17th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=usa;41868479]Use ZenCart if you want to get hacked. They literally have to release security patches weekly and having to manually install them each time is a pain.
[editline]17th August 2013[/editline]
At least they release patches I guess. It was about 2 years ago that I had to touch it, so maybe things have changed. It was good software, bad code behind it.[/QUOTE]
That's what I've read on the net, and the website for the software didn't look that great - seemed like one of those scammy sites.
I have been thinking of trying out [url]http://www.opencart.com/[/url] but haven't had any experience with it, has anyone else?
[QUOTE=wauterboi;41868664]So I took a look at that and... woah. I've looked at the GitHub for it and the installation notes for it is a bit over my head.[/QUOTE]
It's a rails app so you'll want to look for info on deploying ruby on rails. It sounds more daunting at first than it really is, just take it step by step and troubleshoot errors as they come, and AFAIK spree is full featured enough that you won't really need to really do much with rails itself.
Ageing Thread but I'd thought I'd chime in as a business owner and as a web developer.
I work on Magento 4 days a week (and have done for the past 3.5 years) and honestly. Avoid it at all costs unless you have time to piss away. If you are in the UK the tax calculation system is completely flawed to the point where I wrote a module to override it and do it correctly. The VAT calculations in magento as it stands ARE NOT HMRC COMPLIANT!
It has a lot going for it, powerful layout system, excellent strict MVC pattern, heaps of resources. But it fails at being a viable eCommerce Solution. For a small business at least. One company I do work for currently has 18,000 Products in their database and it's absolutely plagued with issues that have come up over the course of upgrades. If we could jump ship, we would.
If you're willing to put up with the bugs and are a seasoned PHP developer, Magento will work for you. But it isn't a turnkey solution by any stretch of the imagination.
Now, As a business owner I run 2 online shops both on [url=http://www.prestashop.com/]PrestaShop[/url] and I'm finding it great; easy to set up and maintain. I chose it after trying all the ones listed in this thread along with some obscure payware ones that I contacted the companies for to get trials.
There aren't as many [i]Free[/i] resources for PrestaShop (Themes and such) but between the easy to understand code and the diversity of the payware modules there's enough there to get a shop up and running for just a few quid.
If it wasn't part of my income I would elect never to touch Magento again. I've grown to hate it.
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