Ecommerce site and CMS

Do you use CMS with your ecommerce site?

[karim0028]

Hi Guys,

I am planning on starting a new ecommerce site (main purpose is to sell product, not an affiliate). I was thinking of having it so that the homepage is based on a CMS and when you click on a product it goes to the shopping cart.

My reasoning is that it would be easier to alter the layout and design of the site as well as make it look nice with articles and such.

Is my reasoning correct? Would it make the site easier to administer? In terms of layout and new featured products, articles, etc..? Does anyone else do this? Or should i just go with the shopping cart to do this? My main concern is that i dont want to have to keep going in to alter the CSS manually for every little change i do.

I would love to hear thoughts from the more experienced users. If you use CMS, but not for what i am alluding to, then please share what it is you use it for on your ecomm site?

karim

[kay_s]

Hi,
I think CMS with limited control can be much annoying. I would suggest you should extend the control. Do consider that you are able to change and edit your key words, Alt text etc (though their role in SEO is decreasing).

[kay_s]

are you planning to launch a product catalogue site?

[karim0028]

i'm not quite getting what you mean by product catalogue site? I want a typical ecomm site (perhaps yes, a product catalogue) but i want an easy way to handle the site. The main purpose is selling my widgets. I am under the impression that it would be easier to manage the way the homepage looks if i use a CMS.

I was thinking of using Joomla; but i am not sure how well they integrate with a shopping cart. Anyone have any idea what works well.

One of the reasons i want to have a CMS is that i plan to have articles and such and i want to be able to display them in a professional manner, with teasers, etc... Am i going about this wrong?

Do people use the CMS for this purpose or are they mostly used for blogging or content sites?

Thanks

[sun818]

I am thinking of integrating a Wiki with the ecommerce site. A wiki seems like a simple way to add content by using links. I have not investigated how search engine friendly MediaWiki or another open source product is.