E-commerce preferences from the best – Interview
on July 18th, 2009 | E-commerce, Interview
“Which E-commerce should I go with?” is often a hot topic in any post related to E-commerce. There are so many strong opinions with all of the E-commerce solutions. There are also so many options, just to name a few: Übercart, FoxyCart, osCommerce, Prestacart, WP e-Commerce, X-Cart, Magento, Zen Cart, CubeCart, CRE, aMember, Shopify, Pinnacle Cart, eJunkie, and you get the point.
This is Kennedy’s Garage first interview. I hope everyone will enjoy this post and learn something from it. I want to thank the people that responded back to me with their answers. I have asked the designers that I look up to, what their opinions and preferences are. Here is what they had to say:
Name: Ben Johnson
Website: elegantseagulls.com
Twitter: @elegantseagulls
Promoting: http://benblogged.com
Location: Marquette, MI
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: Magento or Foxycart
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: Magento is a great e-commerce solution because it is, free, open source, easy to install, and very robust
FoxyCart is nice simply because it is so easy to set up and integrate into any design
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: Zen Cart and Cube Cart
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: It seems like creating and editing templates is far more involved and difficult comparably.
Name: Adii Rockstar
Website: adii.co.za
Twitter: @adii
Promoting: woothemes.com
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: We use a custom-built system at WooThemes, which is compromised of WordPress and aMember. Our current payment processor is 2Checkout.com.
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: When we set up WooThemes, we wanted to use what we knew; so that’s why we’re using WordPress for the content-side of the website. At that stage, aMember was the most robust system (which supported WordPress integration as well) in terms of setting up an E-commerce website for digital products, so that’s what we went for.
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: None to be honest. Our options were kinda limited when we setup WooThemes, since we wanted to use WordPress firstly and then with digital products, there weren’t many “specialist” options available to us.
If I had to go back now, I’d probably have considered Magento (even though we’d have to tweak it to support recurring billing / subscriptions) or even a GoodBarry account. I’m not suggesting we’d choose either of these two in favour of our current, customized setup, but those are the two alternatives I would’ve considered and research in-depth.
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: Yes and no. No, because it is our system and we’ve adapted it to suit our needs. But yes, because every system (that is not built from scratch) will pose some limitations in terms of functionality and features.
Name: Chris Spooner
Website: blog.spoongraphics.co.uk
Twitter: @chrisspooner
Latest Project: A redesign of my portfolio site over at spoongraphics.co.uk
Location: Sheffield, UK
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: It has been a while since I’ve experimented with any E-commerce solutions. The last I used was a cart plugin for WordPress, however I’m looking forward to giving Shopify a try on any future projects.
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: Shopify is a solution that makes it easy to create an E-commerce system – No complicated development, plus it can be tweaked and changed through their templating system.
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: In the past I’ve given OScommerce, Zencart, Virtuemart and the odd WordPress plugin a try on various websites over the years.
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: One thing that might be an issue is that it is a hosted solution, however this does also have its benefits in that bandwidth and security is all taken care of.
Name: Chris Coyier
Website: css-tricks.com
Twitter: @chriscoyier
Promoting: aremysitesup.com
Location: Chicago, IL
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: My go-to has been FoxyCart.
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: The bottom line with eCommerce software is that you need something that can process transactions for you. All that credit card handling stuff would be a major burden to write and there is probably no reason to.
The weird thing about eCommerce software is that almost every single one of them is ALSO a CMS. That might be great for some folks, but I like to use my own choice of CMS, whatever I have chosen to power the rest of the site already. That way I’m totally in my element, not running/maintaining double CMS’s and not dealing with the bloated feature sets of many eCommerce CMS’s.
FoxyCart can easily integrate with any CMS, and doesn’t require any elaborate setups or back end product maintenance. Products are built ‘on-the-fly’ as you add them to the cart. Basically you start a new store, customize the different parts (the pop-up cart, the checkout page, the email receipts…) and you are on your way.
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: Quite a few… Magento, CubeCart, Pinnacle Cart, eJunkie off the top of my head. Those are things I’ve used in production. Tried several others in a testing/mockup capacity. Of those, eJunkie is closest to FoxyCart in how it works, but with them you need to add/edit your products through their backend which is cumbersome. Magento is kind of slow with a pretty huge learning curve for designing around it, but the feature set it rich and it has a large community. CubeCart has a free version as well which is nice, and a decent community of “mods” to adjust functionality. Pinnacle Cart is kind of a dinosaur with it’s table-based layouts, but it has some nice features not found in several others (e.g. Buy X, get Y free).
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: There are definitely things I wish FoxyCart could do that it can’t right now. Complex shipping scenarios for one. Another nice thing would be to offer users a choice between paying by credit card and paying via PayPal, that would be nice. I wouldn’t say anything about FoxyCart is particular “difficult”, although it may take some adjustment in thinking. For example, how the templates for things are stored on their servers, not yours.
Name: Dustin Ward
Website: wardwebwerks.com
Twitter: @duward
Latest Project: earthfirst.com
Location: Oklahoma City, OK
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: My preferred E-commerce solution right now is Magento.
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: It was built on open-source technology that allows you flexibility and control over the design, content and functionality of your store.
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: One of the main E-commerce solutions that I’ve used in the past was osCommerce. It is an older solution but it is known to be a dependable E-commerce solution. It comes with a wide range of features out of the box and has a large community of developers that are actively creating new add-ons. osCommerce is still a leading solution in the E-Commerce market.
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: To use Magento you will need a web host that supports all of the system requirements. They provide a link to compatible web hosts.
Name: Jacob Gube
Website: http://sixrevisions.com
Twitter: @sixrevisions
Location: Bloomington, IN
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: Shopify is the best in the market for sure, but if you need a self-hosted solution:Magento.
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: Shopify’s interface is intuitive, and you can get your stuff up online in a matter of minutes. For Magento, the only two reasons is that it’s free and the open source options is slim pickings.
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: Zen Cart and OsCommerce.
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: With regards to Shopify, just like most SaaS solutions, there are limitations to what you can do. For Magento, the thing’s a beast and I question its capabilities in terms of stability in a large-scale deployment.
Name: Sean Geng
Website: designspasm.net
Be sure to follow me on Twitter: @seangeng
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: Having used many popular E-commerce solutions, I would have to say that one of my favorite and more preferred ones is osCommerce. If you are looking for a more community oriented solution, try Drupal with the ecommerce module.
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: OS Commerce is a flexible out of the box solution. Having been around since 2000, they have a well established community that contributes a wide range of plugins and modules that you can use to customize and fine tailor your site to your needs. It’s also highly compatible with payment gateways and shipment couriers. If you are ever in need of support or assistance, the community is very helpful.
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: I’ve used everything from Magento, Zencart, ecommerce solutions for Drupal and Joomla, as well as many more.
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: One thing that OS Commerce lacks is the ability to theme it as easily as I want to. Although it is difficult to theme, if you know your way around, themeing it will not be a problem. Remember that you should always test the waters and try many different ecommerce solutions before making a decision on one. Good luck on choosing a e-commerce solution that is right for you.
Name: Elliot Jay Stocks
Website: elliotjaystocks.com
Twitter: @elliotjaystocks
Latest Project: sourhaze.com/ep1
Location: Cheshire, England
Q: What is your preferred E-commerce solution?
A: E-Junkie, using their PayPal integration
Q: What makes “that” E-commerce stand out from the rest?
A: Ease of use and flexibility. The price is great, too.
Q: What other E-commerce have you tried?
A: ZenCart and OScommerce, which were utterly horrible, and ridiculously over-complicated. PayPal ‘buy now’ buttons work pretty well out of the box, but E-Junkie has great integration for selling and managing downloadable products. I hear great things about Big Cartel.
Q: In order to use “that” E-commerce is there anything that makes it difficult to use?
A: No.
I appreciate everyone’s answers. If you want to answers these same questions please make a comment. If you would like to be a part of future interviews with Kennedy’s Garage please let me know.
Martyn 
Kris 
Should anyone have any questions of CS-Cart, please, feel free to contact our sales at any time. I’d also add that we have a two-month trial which can be used at no restrictions.
Wow! This is good! Have the opinion of experienced developers! Thanks!