Thinking of using Magento

but still looking for opinions

[BobMane]

one thing about magneto...the forums are not too hot (at least on the consumer end...and that's me...a store owner)

but I have been taking the plunge....

hired someone to theme a mage installation

learning as much as possible about how to maintain/fulfill

even given all this, im still torn as to if i should use mage or not...

any opinions/alternatives?

[enigma1]

There are many shopping carts available you could check sourceforge.net, an open source repository.

Now as a merchant you want to maximize the potential of a shopping cart. You want every client to be able to browse and buy products.

Some carts like the one you mentioned has restrictions for instance only operates with scripts enabled. A client who has scripts off for security purposes, may go to your competitors to buy because he cannot use your site. Same goes for cookies, shared ssl, etc.

So whatever your choice is do not limit the use of your shopping cart. Also check the payment and shipping options for your customers. Provide alternatives for payment gateways to support credit cards and online accounts. Popular shopping carts have a variety of addons and a large community to learn the basics.

[BobMane]

good info...i guess at least I will have to provide alternative gateways!

[vetofunk]

I have been using Magento for a new site of mine for about 5 months now and love it. Very easy to use and lots of options for everything I need to do. Your right, the forums for Magento are pretty poor and not too many add-ons yet...but the developer I have is able to pretty much do anything I want. He is changing over an older site from Zen-Cart to Magento right now...can't wait!

[BobMane]

yes, I have a semi working site in a testing environment that looks great and seems like it will be OK....my biggest concern is getting into the day to day fulfillment and customer data management without tons or resources because there is so few info about that online..

i even thought about starting a "magneto store owners" type website but dont know if I'd have the resources to manage it single handed...

[card_demon]

Magento is a fine shopping cart system and heavilty designed and since the releases addressing the performance problems it is now viable for most mid size to large online stores.

However, Magento has a very steep learning curve. It is not designed for the shop owner who has no time for such learning.

For those that are starting online or simply do not have the time to learn and customize Magento, PrestaShop is where it is at.

PrestaShop is AJAX like Magento, but has less strict hosting installation requirements and also is much easier to configure.

I predict that in a short time PrestaShop will take over as the cart for most new stores for those who are not programmers or do not have a programmer team to do it and support it.

(Already many of the merchants I advise are moving from osCommerce to it. Of course if you have a very heavily modded osC shop you are not likely to move there for now -- more likely to Zen Cart but still for sure AJAX shopping carts are the future.)