tolachi - 10:16 pm on Jun 16, 2005 (gmt 0)

Flexibility is definitely key. The problem with modifying an open source solution extensively is that then you have to redo all of your mods for each upgrade or get stuck with whatever version you originally modded forever. That is just a huge PITA.

My site looks, works, and is structured exactly the way I want it to. You might not think that is important, but it is if you want to grow. Our sales have grown faster than our traffic growth, and that is mostly due to improving our site. There is no way that zen cart would have let us do a lot of what we want to do.

I would add a further step to mattb's process after roll your own which would be going with one of the big ecommerce engines like ATG, Venda, or Demandware.