The Core

Why We Are Here => Web Development => Topic started by: Rooftop on June 06, 2012, 01:23:00 PM

Title: Commerce platforms
Post by: Rooftop on June 06, 2012, 01:23:00 PM
Rather than hijacking the magento / woocommerce thread, I thought I'd start a fresh one.

I've been looking quite closely at drupal commerce as an option of late. I've been running with an inhouse solution based on osCommerce for some time, but it's reaching end of life. Magento was very tempting (particularly as it's built on zend framework in MVC - which annoys loads of people but is music to our ears). However I had reservations.

Drupal commerce looks really promising. Not done a live store with it yet, but have turned out some development ones that are quite satisfactory.

For those looking for a fast solution then there are the commerce kickstart and martplug distributions that give you out of the box stores. However it is the platform's limitless potential for custom building that really attracts me.

It's a bit different to other solutions. It feels a lot like they forgot to write most of it, but it's impressive how many features you can build from the framework they have provided.  I really like the approach.  To me another big advantage is not being wordpress.

Interesting one to take a look at anyway.

Title: Re: Commerce platforms
Post by: Gurtie on June 06, 2012, 06:39:58 PM
my new guy loves shopify. This is not from any highly technical or development viewpoint, he just says as a user managing a shop it was a dream of a CMS to work with. Might be worth a look if anyone wants simple e-commerce.
Title: Re: Commerce platforms
Post by: ergophobe on June 07, 2012, 04:36:45 AM
I run a Drupal Ubercart store. Basically like it, but I think Drupal Commerce would be better. Way back when I used and contributed to osCommerce... I learned a lot of bad coding habits from that!

The downside of Drupal is, of course, the module could get abandoned. I don't think so in that case though. The upside is Fields and Views. I don't know any other off-the-shelf system that offers that power.
Title: Re: Commerce platforms
Post by: Rooftop on June 07, 2012, 08:12:09 AM
QuoteWay back when I used and contributed to osCommerce... I learned a lot of bad coding habits from that!

Oh that made me laugh! Bit close to home for me :)

QuoteThe upside is Fields and Views. I don't know any other off-the-shelf system that offers that power.

Rules seems to be a Killer feature now as well. Whilst I've be playing with test stores I've been surprised by how much you can accomplish with rules.  I'm now trying to get in the habit of thinking "can this be done with rules / custom content / views?" before looking for a module.

Quotemy new guy loves shopify
Hope that you didn't recruit him! ;)
Actually I've not used it.  I just really don't like SAAS as a model for online stores. Too restrictive and your business ends up too reliant on another company.   Back in the late nineties we switched our focus to one of the early SAAS stores solutions and became one of the partners on that.  Wasn't a good experience for us and actually pushed us far more firmly in to the open source arena. 

I can definitely see the appear for Mom/Pop set-ups looking to get trading for minimal investment.  That's just not our market.
Title: Re: Commerce platforms
Post by: Chunkford on June 07, 2012, 09:02:12 AM
Yes I know I'm old school and I do prefer online carts like opencart, but i feel Actinic is a great solution for a noobie in the ecommere arena (I wait for the abuse)
It feels so much more business orientated as compared to other carts.

Might have to look at the drupal offering though :)

Anyone have any experience with lemonstand? Looks OK but I haven't got the time to play with it yet.
Title: Re: Commerce platforms
Post by: Rooftop on June 07, 2012, 10:02:21 AM
Quotei feel Actinic is a great solution for a noobie in the ecommere arena (I wait for the abuse)

Is you are using Actinic I think you've got the abuse front covered yourself.

A few people have mentioned lemonstand to me of late. One to add to my list of platforms to try.
Title: Re: Commerce platforms
Post by: Chunkford on June 07, 2012, 10:52:14 AM
Quote from: Rooftop on June 07, 2012, 10:02:21 AM
Is you are using Actinic I think you've got the abuse front covered yourself.

Yea, I have a rubber mallet next to me when I have to hack it to make it do things :p