I've been trying to always use the E-commerce Module for clients that need it...when using SilverStripe for my projects. But, I was wondering what others might use if you don't use the module. There's Magento and ZenCart, but what others are there out there?

I'd like to tally it up and test the top three. I have a client that only wants to sell tshirts...I know there's etsy, etc...so I don't want to use anything more than a E-commerce solution.

Hi Terry

I tried PrestaShop, because of it's rapidly growing popularity, and almost got as far as going live, but gave up on it. I found it difficult to work with and debug. Probably no more difficult than SilverStripe but at least I know SilverStripe. If you want to use it 'out-of-the-box' it's fine, but the more you try to customise it the harder it gets. If you look at the 'showcase', all the sites look the same. Also, the CMS module hardly justifies the name (one template, one content field). And there are myriad admin & config pages & menus - it's all over the place and hard for non-techy merchants to find their way around, although you can cut them down and reorgansie them to some extent. It uses Smarty, so if you're familiar with that, you'd have a head start.

A friend recommended wp-ecommerce for Wordpress, but the strange documentation, limited features and forums full of unanswered posts put me off.

A colleague evaluated Magento, but said he would not use it for a site with a turnover under $1m as it requires a full-time dev team. Industrial strength software but at a cost.

I've always avoided the SilverStripe ecommerce module because it's not supported, but thinking of giving it a go out of desperation.

Why was support & development of the ecommerce module dropped by SilverStripe? I can't find any discussion of this online - am I missing something? Is there any point using it?

Thanks, Jules

Jules,

Thanks for the reply.

The SS E-commerce Module was at one point supported by SS. It was explained to me that just because they are not on the 'Supported' list doesn't mean they are not good or not dependable modules. SS as a company use a core set of Modules for their Development crew. They (SilverStripe employees) work on and keep 'supported' modules updated so that they work with new releases. They are not responsible for modules that are not 'supported' to work with new releases of SS.

So, as a company, SS decided to stop support for the E-commerce Module because they didn't use it enough, didn't have enough demand for it. Now they either use it and modify it or they write a solution from scratch.

There is, however, a push for a new and better Module. They've already made it much better...I would recommend following the progress here: silverstripe-ecommerce on google code. There are some great developers that are supporting this effort to make the module your end-all need for ecommerce and silverstripe.

I've downloaded the latest trunk and it's wonderful! my only wish is that they moved from the tree structure to the DOM.

As for the ones mentioned, I am installing and trying these on my local machine: Magento, OpenCart, PrestaShop, ZenCart, and the plugin WP-Ecommerce for Wordpress. I'll update with my findings later.

> I'll update with my findings later.

Please do.

You might find this useful: http://webtecker.com/2008/04/22/8-best-open-source-shopping-cart-solutions/

What are your selection criteria?

If you want genuinely open source that narrows things down considerably.. Many carts have free (lite) and pay versions. With Magento, the pay version is largely about support. There are some premium features, but they are top-end stuff from what I gather.

If you want php, that cuts down the list a bit too.

Re SilverStripe, I found this...
http://www.silverstripe.org/e-commerce-module-forum/show/8268
"...the 0.5.2 code base is not be considered stable enough..."

Given that, it's difficult to justify sellign this to clients unless newer versions are thoroughly tested. I wonder if there's an automated test
runner?

> I've downloaded the latest trunk and it's wonderful!

Thanks, I'll take a look.

I just looked at 0.7.0 so far. Apart from the catalog manager, the backend seems to be just a ModelAdmin. Is that it? No refunds, tracking, delivery options etc? Actually I don't mind putting most of the the store options in _config.php as users a) don't need them b) get confused by them c) would probably break it if they changed them.

ModelAdmin is fine for maintaining reference data e.g. lists of counties, sizes, colours etc. But store owners should expect more than ModelAdmin to manager orders.

Very interesting discussion. This subject (E-commerce) keeps coming back every once in a while. My experiences are basically the same ; I pretty much hate everything that is out there at the moment. Zencart / OsCommerce / Magento / WP / Lemonstand (although the latter one has a lot of potential I think), I thought they were waaaaay over-engineered, technically inelegant or just too friggin' complicated.

It seems the same niche (or is it a gaping hole?) Silverstripe is in when it comes to CMS'es also exists in "e-commerce land" ......

Very good to hear the commerce module is coming along, last time around (this was in the time of commerce 0.5) we were forced to use Magento instead of Silverstripe and man, that was a painful experience, I can tell you that.

Very keen on learning what your experiences are !

Re: Magento

It being free and out of the box and with all it's options I have to thank the open source community, but if you are used to MVC and well written code in SS, get ready for a world of hurt (IMHO). I've done a project on it and it was tough to provide the same customisations as in SS without hacking far too much code.

[url=http://www.gingerleprechaun.com/magento/magento-menu-silverstripe-integration]http://www.gingerleprechaun.com/magento/magento-menu-silverstripe-integration

That's a pretty interesting link...with Magento/SS integration. I am sure there are other solutions too...but I think so far I am going to hold out and still use the E-commerce Module. It's not hard at all to add any additional functionality that isn't currently there. Everything is so extensible with SS now...all you have to do is use a decorator and know a little php and you can add refunds, addition shipping criteria, etc.

I just started working with SilverStripe and was hoping that the eCommerce module would be stable and well featured, but as it stands I will continue to offer my clients eCommerce through ZenCart instead, problems being that it's not supported (Updates) bunch of questions on the support forum unanswered and some general confusion.

I'd love to see this module updated with useful functions and paygates to PayPal and Google (If it doesn't already) but for now I'll stick to ZenCart for my customers eCommerce..

Someone prove me wrong? Should I step over to eCommerce module of SS?