what the best ecommerce platform?

I have used zen cart, magento and prestashop. To say really magento is the best one. But its a bit tough to handle. A beast with beauty.

vampirerocks123 said:

I have used zen cart, magento and prestashop. To say really magento is the best one. But its a bit tough to handle. A beast with beauty.

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I'm going to have to co-sign with this. I used zen-cart but it felt too outdated. Went to prestashop and loved it. I just moved to magento and I like it even more than magento. Only reason I switched is because prestashop doesn't calculate the shipping automatically and Magento offers that feature.

magento is the most robust and powerful ecommerce platform.

I personally wouldn't recommend using a free eCommerce shopping cart script unless you are well and truly prepared to dig into the code and customise everything yourself. Also, don't expect any help if you encounter a problem.

Imo yahoo stores, my it seems to have some sort of pull in google idk why and i cant quantify it but working with both volusion with perfect onpage seo and yahoo with crappy onpage seo yahoo seemed to always rank higher

I say for selling wordpress customize your own page with html/css/ and java if you know the languages or just pick out a predesigned theme and edit the site like wordpress peace of cake ... then for selling add shopp plugin all you need.

You can use joomla and for shopping you use component call it virtuemart, or others extensions shopping that you can find it at Joomla Extensions Develope (JED).

First time posting here.

Just wanted to give you a head's up.

Magento: The best platform on the planet.
Installation:
It depends who's your host. Some hosting companies provide a one click installation, but that does not mean is the right host. I recommend Simplehelix for Magento. The staff is on call almost 24/7 and they can assist with any small issues even if is your fault. Cost is about $20 per month and you can ask them to set up an automatic backup with cron or do it yourself with just a click of a button. This host is very optimize or tailor for Magento.

Customization:
This depends on what you're looking for?
Templates start from $0 to $250. You could go to the Magento Community and see for yourself.

Hire a coder:
You don't have to do this if you're starting with a budget or don't need special tricks. Most theme companies will do the install for about $50 and some will even do this for Free if you ask them nice. Although you don't need a coder is nice to have one or two in the payroll in case you get in trouble. The community is huge and finding one that's reasonably cheap is not uncommon.
If you're serious about selling online and want a platform to grow as technology evolves then Magento is your ticket.

Currently I run three stores with three different platforms.
Magento
CS-Cart: This one has many features out of the box is the closets you're going to get to Magento. I started using it about two years ago and is very SEO friendly and easy to customize.
Interspire: Nice cart also, but upgrading this one could be very expensive. The company charges a premium when is time to upgrade. Will not recommend it to anyone. Other than that it has a sweet back end and simple to customize.

If you don't already know html then I recommend start learning it cause it make doing your customization and simple layouts much easier.


Good Luck

I personally wouldn't recommend using a free e-Commerce shopping cart script unless you are well and truly prepared to dig into the code and customize everything yourself. Also, don't expect any help if you encounter a problem.

doyley said:

interspire hands down

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I agree, I really enjoy using Interspire - That said I've had issueswith Brands recently on some shops and the lack of contributions for it can sometime consume too much of your own time having to make minor changes to the php here and there.

I still use it over any other cart though <3

michael21white said:

I personally wouldn't recommend using a free e-Commerce shopping cart script unless you are well and truly prepared to dig into the code and customize everything yourself. Also, don't expect any help if you encounter a problem.

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About three years ago I spent about three months researching shopping cart before deciding. Everyone you ask will give you a different answer.

First question to ask is :
What do you want the cart to do?
Are you going to be selling 1000 plus products or just 50 or less.

What kind of competition will you be up against?
Whatever your selling I suggest go and see who's the top dog in your niche and study their site carefully. Some sites do well with just good SEO and other sites are not very SEO friendly, but they are greasing search engines like Google, Yahoo and comparison sites. They tend to be a little more higher in prices due to the huge overhead.

Most shopping carts today are ready to go out of the box with out any coding involve. Some like oscommerce (old school) are not recommended for beginners and you should stay away from this. The carts that I listed here are the best I've found and yes no coding is needed unless you want them to break-dance for you.

I've used zen cart and magento. Between those 2, i defintly liked magento better.

Just try Shopperpress. Its very easy to use. Just search it is in the download section.

Interspire, or if you want it hosted for you with support and all try bigcommerce.


Awesome coding. Very easy to edit html/css in browser.
SEO on page is easy to change anything as well

Are you guys paying 3k/year for Magento or am I missing something?

CoyoteAssassin,

There is a community version you can download and use for free.

Magento is your best bet, but it's kind of complicated to learn. Like if you're trying to modify the template, it's pretty hellish the first few times. I might try something like CS-Cart if you aren't looking for something super heavy. The learning curve and the resources magento uses are significant, both take more time and money than the other ones would take.

I wouldn't recommend u use virtuemart, from experience it isn't very good and joomla has a bunch of security holes.

Magento is the best.. It looks the smoothest out of the box.. But be prepared for a learning curve.. Once you get the hang of it, it is a snap!

Although it has great out of the box features, make sure you do your research on what functionalities you will need first. The plugins can get quite costly.

For hosting you can't use a shared host either. You need at least semi-dedicated or vps.

Most of those other ones mentioned will work, but most are seem sub-par compared to magento.. If it weren't for the learning curve, resource hog, module prices as aspect.. Magento would rock.. Only the module issue is of any matter if you know what your doing.

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