Magento shopping cart

Hey all,

Anyone ever use the Magento shopping cart? Pluses, minuses,
opinions? I have a client that is pretty adamant about using
it, but I've found over just about any I've used I can do a
better service to the client by writing them from scratch.
It's easy and they always get exactly what they want.

I see they seem to have a lot of plug ins, but I think someone
just told him it is the best cart to use so he's sort of
fixated on it.

Like I said, I typically find I can custom write one with
better results. I found xCart, for example, to contain some of
the worst code I had ever seen and it turned me off to third
party carts.

Skip

--
====================================
Skip Evans
PenguinSites.com, LLC
503 S Baldwin St, #1
Madison WI 53703
608.250.2720
http://penguinsites.com
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Re: Magento shopping cart

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On Mon, 2010-02-01 at 15:02 -0600, Skip Evans wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> Anyone ever use the Magento shopping cart? Pluses, minuses,
> opinions? I have a client that is pretty adamant about using
> it, but I've found over just about any I've used I can do a
> better service to the client by writing them from scratch.
> It's easy and they always get exactly what they want.
>
> I see they seem to have a lot of plug ins, but I think someone
> just told him it is the best cart to use so he's sort of
> fixated on it.
>
> Like I said, I typically find I can custom write one with
> better results. I found xCart, for example, to contain some of
> the worst code I had ever seen and it turned me off to third
> party carts.
>
> Skip
>
> --
> ====================================
> Skip Evans
> PenguinSites.com, LLC
> 503 S Baldwin St, #1
> Madison WI 53703
> 608.250.2720
> http://penguinsites.com
> ------------------------------------
> Those of you who believe in
> telekinesis, raise my hand.
> -- Kurt Vonnegut
>


I've not used it myself, but I know people who have. The main problems
you'll face if you write it from scratch is that of going up against
tried and tested code. Magento has a large user base behind it, with
feedback that improves it's feature list and security features. Why
spend ages reinventing the wheel?

As far as I'm aware as well, Magento is still in active development, so
you know you will be safe using it for quite a while.

Thanks,
Ash
http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk



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Re: Magento shopping cart

Ashley Sheridan wrote:
> Why spend ages reinventing the wheel?
>

I've come across so many clients using third party carts who
have been unhappy with the final results. I hear so often "It
does eighty percent of what we need, but we do things like
this [insert idiosyncratic business practice here]."

And then getting a third party cart to do what they wanted was
often either incredibly frustrating/time consuming, or often
just not doable.

Yes, writing a cart takes time, but I've found I can whip them
out pretty easily, and I have a lot of code I reuse all the
time. I pretty much have a complete basic cart stored away,
but I intentionally keep its functionality to a minimum so
that I can expand on it to their specifications.

To date the results have been pretty good.

Skip
--
====================================
Skip Evans
PenguinSites.com, LLC
503 S Baldwin St, #1
Madison WI 53703
608.250.2720
http://penguinsites.com
------------------------------------
Those of you who believe in
telekinesis, raise my hand.
-- Kurt Vonnegut

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Re: Magento shopping cart

Is the client not receptive to that explanation?

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 10:25 PM, Skip Evans wrote:
> Ashley Sheridan wrote:
>>
>> Why spend ages reinventing the wheel?
>>
>
> I've come across so many clients using third party carts who have been
> unhappy with the final results. I hear so often "It does eighty percent of
> what we need, but we do things like this [insert idiosyncratic business
> practice here]."
>
> And then getting a third party cart to do what they wanted was often either
> incredibly frustrating/time consuming, or often just not doable.
>
> Yes, writing a cart takes time, but I've found I can whip them out pretty
> easily, and I have a lot of code I reuse all the time. I pretty much have a
> complete basic cart stored away, but I intentionally keep its functionality
> to a minimum so that I can expand on it to their specifications.
>
> To date the results have been pretty good.
>

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Re: Magento shopping cart

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On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Skip Evans wrote:

> Ashley Sheridan wrote:
>
>> Why spend ages reinventing the wheel?
>>
>
i whole heartedly agree.


> I've come across so many clients using third party carts who have been
> unhappy with the final results. I hear so often "It does eighty percent of
> what we need, but we do things like this [insert idiosyncratic business
> practice here]."
>

thats why a lot of the modern incarnations have embraced the concept of
modularization, eg. plugins / skins etc. etc.

just look back a os-commerce / zen-cart; the notion of skins they had was
horrific, basically since the ui was intertwined w/ logic, skins were tied
to revs of the application - ouch! the community has matured a lot since
then from what i gather.


> And then getting a third party cart to do what they wanted was often either
> incredibly frustrating/time consuming, or often just not doable.
>

i think in most cases, anymore, youre mainly looking at ramp-up time on how
to use / customize / extend an existing third party system. while that can
be sucky, you should really weigh the trade-off between that and getting
beaten over the head w/ requests to develop the most common place
look-and-feel customization crap / features. ive started to lean towards
the former in my personal career, having come from zealous devotion to the
later in my initial years in the industry.


> Yes, writing a cart takes time, but I've found I can whip them out pretty
> easily, and I have a lot of code I reuse all the time. I pretty much have a
> complete basic cart stored away, but I intentionally keep its functionality
> to a minimum so that I can expand on it to their specifications.
>

ok, well, when your custom cart has all the features of magento / [your fav
e-commerce platform here] let me know. ill have finished up the proprietary
plugins that make my site unique and have forgotten pretty much everything
about silly crap id never want to write - like custom look at feel, crm,
reports etc etc.

o and also, when you have as many users / devs hitting your codebase as some
of the popular platforms, im interested in hearing about that as well, lol.

-nathan

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Re: Magento shopping cart

I'm not totally opposed to using Magento, though I can see my
comments, especially if it's what the client wants.

I have been looking over the site and it does have a lot of
features so I can see it saving some serious time, especially
given the extras he wants.

So Nathan, having used it, do you have any tips for a Magento
newbie when it comes to integrating it with a custom site?

I haven't found any integration documentation for programmers yet.

Skip

Nathan Nobbe wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Skip Evans > > wrote:
>
> Ashley Sheridan wrote:
>
> Why spend ages reinventing the wheel?
>
>
> i whole heartedly agree.
>
>
> I've come across so many clients using third party carts who have
> been unhappy with the final results. I hear so often "It does eighty
> percent of what we need, but we do things like this [insert
> idiosyncratic business practice here]."
>
>
> thats why a lot of the modern incarnations have embraced the concept of
> modularization, eg. plugins / skins etc. etc.
>
> just look back a os-commerce / zen-cart; the notion of skins they had
> was horrific, basically since the ui was intertwined w/ logic, skins
> were tied to revs of the application - ouch! the community has matured
> a lot since then from what i gather.
>
>
> And then getting a third party cart to do what they wanted was often
> either incredibly frustrating/time consuming, or often just not doable.
>
>
> i think in most cases, anymore, youre mainly looking at ramp-up time on
> how to use / customize / extend an existing third party system. while
> that can be sucky, you should really weigh the trade-off between that
> and getting beaten over the head w/ requests to develop the most common
> place look-and-feel customization crap / features. ive started to lean
> towards the former in my personal career, having come from zealous
> devotion to the later in my initial years in the industry.
>
>
> Yes, writing a cart takes time, but I've found I can whip them out
> pretty easily, and I have a lot of code I reuse all the time. I
> pretty much have a complete basic cart stored away, but I
> intentionally keep its functionality to a minimum so that I can
> expand on it to their specifications.
>
>
> ok, well, when your custom cart has all the features of magento / [your
> fav e-commerce platform here] let me know. ill have finished up the
> proprietary plugins that make my site unique and have forgotten pretty
> much everything about silly crap id never want to write - like custom
> look at feel, crm, reports etc etc.
>
> o and also, when you have as many users / devs hitting your codebase as
> some of the popular platforms, im interested in hearing about that as
> well, lol.
>
> -nathan

--
====================================
Skip Evans
PenguinSites.com, LLC
503 S Baldwin St, #1
Madison WI 53703
608.250.2720
http://penguinsites.com
------------------------------------
Those of you who believe in
telekinesis, raise my hand.
-- Kurt Vonnegut

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Re: Magento shopping cart

Skip Evans wrote on 01/02/2010 22:02:
> Hey all,
>
> Anyone ever use the Magento shopping cart? Pluses, minuses, opinions? I
> have a client that is pretty adamant about using it, but I've found over
> just about any I've used I can do a better service to the client by
> writing them from scratch. It's easy and they always get exactly what
> they want.

I just installed it a couple of days ago, took me an hour and 5 minutes
incl. installing danish and make different kind of troubleshooting
during the installation. Make sure your database user has at least
(haven't had the time to investigave yet) ALTER privileges otherwise
the install fails and it's rather wierd to continue the installation
after giving the DB user the righs privileges.

> I see they seem to have a lot of plug ins, but I think someone just told
> him it is the best cart to use so he's sort of fixated on it.

It sure looks cool, that I must say.

> Like I said, I typically find I can custom write one with better
> results. I found xCart, for example, to contain some of the worst code I
> had ever seen and it turned me off to third party carts.

I sort of have the same opinion, but this was a fast install and there's
lots of admin features.

However as you write elsewhere in this thread, knowing your own code
makes it easy to make changes. This is definetly going to take longer
with Magento since you don't know the code. Make sure you customer
understands this.

A good example: the "search" button is an image, so this is not
translated into danish, that could be a potential design problem, if in
thai search it translated to "rapapupapikiwikital" :-)

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Re: Magento shopping cart

I hear good things about magento, neve used it though. Xcart stinks.
I've had to hack that before. It was painful.

Bastien

Sent from my iPod

On Feb 1, 2010, at 4:02 PM, Skip Evans wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> Anyone ever use the Magento shopping cart? Pluses, minuses,
> opinions? I have a client that is pretty adamant about using it, but
> I've found over just about any I've used I can do a better service
> to the client by writing them from scratch. It's easy and they
> always get exactly what they want.
>
> I see they seem to have a lot of plug ins, but I think someone just
> told him it is the best cart to use so he's sort of fixated on it.
>
> Like I said, I typically find I can custom write one with better
> results. I found xCart, for example, to contain some of the worst
> code I had ever seen and it turned me off to third party carts.
>
> Skip
>
> --
> ====================================
> Skip Evans
> PenguinSites.com, LLC
> 503 S Baldwin St, #1
> Madison WI 53703
> 608.250.2720
> http://penguinsites.com
> ------------------------------------
> Those of you who believe in
> telekinesis, raise my hand.
> -- Kurt Vonnegut
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>

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Re: Magento shopping cart

Op 2/1/10 10:02 PM, Skip Evans schreef:
> Hey all,
>
> Anyone ever use the Magento shopping cart? Pluses, minuses, opinions? I
> have a client that is pretty adamant about using it, but I've found over
> just about any I've used I can do a better service to the client by
> writing them from scratch. It's easy and they always get exactly what
> they want.
>
> I see they seem to have a lot of plug ins, but I think someone just told
> him it is the best cart to use so he's sort of fixated on it.
>
> Like I said, I typically find I can custom write one with better
> results. I found xCart, for example, to contain some of the worst code I
> had ever seen and it turned me off to third party carts.

I find the only time a custom solution is suitable is when there is a large
budget and very specific requirements, which usually translates into atleast:

1. specialized discounting mechanisms
2. tight integration with a 'big' backend system (e.g. SAP, Siebel, etc)
3. custom data-related workflows

I just spent some time looking at XCart for someone - seeing the frontend I figured
the requested changes would be a piece fo cake, the reality is that making those
changes was practically impossible and definitely not ecomonically viable. the XCart
code is complete pants.

I also took a dive into the Magento codebase, a quick perusal shows a well defined
structure, tidy code, well commented, modular. looks very good really - learning
curve is a bit steep but that's down to the fact that it's a very complete and
sophicated package ... additionally there is a big, well organized community behind
it ... I would hazard a guess and say that it's a very good bet.

> Skip
>


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Re: Magento shopping cart

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On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Skip Evans wrote:

> I'm not totally opposed to using Magento, though I can see my comments,
> especially if it's what the client wants.
>
> I have been looking over the site and it does have a lot of features so I
> can see it saving some serious time, especially given the extras he wants.
>
> So Nathan, having used it, do you have any tips for a Magento newbie when
> it comes to integrating it with a custom site?
>

I havent used it yet, but we are considering using it as a second-gen
platform at my new place of biz. initial glimpses are promising, but it
appears to be a somewhat complex offering compared to say wordpress w/ an
e-commerce plugin.

i imagine there may be other tradeoffs as well, like a number of general
purpose plugins and probly more look & feel options in wordpress than
magento.


> I haven't found any integration documentation for programmers yet.
>

google for magento extension and it looks like you may have to hit the
appropriate mailing list for more details.

fwiw, afaik, x-cart is one of those older e-commerce platforms circa
os-commerce / zencart days. the code is ass, but frankly that damn thing
has installations up all over the net (or did once upon a time, lol).

-nathan

--000e0cd2e002fb0143047e92febc--

Re: Magento shopping cart

Hey all,

So I'm more comfortable all the time with using Magento, more
I read, and Ryan said, "Its great, I have been using it for
over 2 years very flexible platform very easy to manipulate,
and the end user admin is second to none mate." ... "Mate?"...

Are there Aussies on this list? ;)

Anyway, what about skinning this animal. If I install it will
our designer be able to put the site's custom look and feel
into it?

Ryan, what do you think?

Skip

Nathan Nobbe wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Skip Evans wrote:
>
>> I'm not totally opposed to using Magento, though I can see my comments,
>> especially if it's what the client wants.
>>
>> I have been looking over the site and it does have a lot of features so I
>> can see it saving some serious time, especially given the extras he wants.
>>
>> So Nathan, having used it, do you have any tips for a Magento newbie when
>> it comes to integrating it with a custom site?
>>
>
> I havent used it yet, but we are considering using it as a second-gen
> platform at my new place of biz. initial glimpses are promising, but it
> appears to be a somewhat complex offering compared to say wordpress w/ an
> e-commerce plugin.
>
> i imagine there may be other tradeoffs as well, like a number of general
> purpose plugins and probly more look & feel options in wordpress than
> magento.
>
>
>> I haven't found any integration documentation for programmers yet.
>>
>
> google for magento extension and it looks like you may have to hit the
> appropriate mailing list for more details.
>
> fwiw, afaik, x-cart is one of those older e-commerce platforms circa
> os-commerce / zencart days. the code is ass, but frankly that damn thing
> has installations up all over the net (or did once upon a time, lol).
>
> -nathan
>

--
====================================
Skip Evans
PenguinSites.com, LLC
503 S Baldwin St, #1
Madison WI 53703
608.250.2720
http://penguinsites.com
------------------------------------
Those of you who believe in
telekinesis, raise my hand.
-- Kurt Vonnegut

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Re: Magento shopping cart

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Your designer will definitely be able to skin it, it has multi template and
skin system, is easy to customize css, images, and html code for each block

However, for changing the layout (position of each block), it will require
your designer have a little knowledge on Mage's xml layout system (magento
had published a book for designer), or you can leave this job to your
developer...

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Skip Evans wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> So I'm more comfortable all the time with using Magento, more I read, and
> Ryan said, "Its great, I have been using it for over 2 years very flexible
> platform very easy to manipulate, and the end user admin is second to none
> mate." ... "Mate?"...
>
> Are there Aussies on this list? ;)
>
> Anyway, what about skinning this animal. If I install it will our designer
> be able to put the site's custom look and feel into it?
>
> Ryan, what do you think?
>
> Skip
>
>
> Nathan Nobbe wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Skip Evans
>> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not totally opposed to using Magento, though I can see my comments,
>>> especially if it's what the client wants.
>>>
>>> I have been looking over the site and it does have a lot of features so I
>>> can see it saving some serious time, especially given the extras he
>>> wants.
>>>
>>> So Nathan, having used it, do you have any tips for a Magento newbie when
>>> it comes to integrating it with a custom site?
>>>
>>>
>> I havent used it yet, but we are considering using it as a second-gen
>> platform at my new place of biz. initial glimpses are promising, but it
>> appears to be a somewhat complex offering compared to say wordpress w/ an
>> e-commerce plugin.
>>
>> i imagine there may be other tradeoffs as well, like a number of general
>> purpose plugins and probly more look & feel options in wordpress than
>> magento.
>>
>>
>> I haven't found any integration documentation for programmers yet.
>>>
>>>
>> google for magento extension and it looks like you may have to hit the
>> appropriate mailing list for more details.
>>
>> fwiw, afaik, x-cart is one of those older e-commerce platforms circa
>> os-commerce / zencart days. the code is ass, but frankly that damn thing
>> has installations up all over the net (or did once upon a time, lol).
>>
>> -nathan
>>
>>
> --
> ====================================
> Skip Evans
> PenguinSites.com, LLC
> 503 S Baldwin St, #1
> Madison WI 53703
> 608.250.2720
> http://penguinsites.com
> ------------------------------------
> Those of you who believe in
> telekinesis, raise my hand.
> -- Kurt Vonnegut
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
>

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