Ecommerce CMS? Is there such a thing?

[Tabas]

I've been reading and reading about CMS products, and ecommerce development tools. Looking for a CMS that ALSO manages online sales. Actinic Developer edition might be OK but a bit higher cost (1500) than client wants.

Has to be suitable for a non-programmer, output SE-friendly pages, not require custom programming (or very, very minimal), work with Dreamweaver and Quickbooks, and offer user support. (not askin much, huh)

Really like the simplicity of iCMS (http://www.icms2.com/) but it doesn't generate friendly URLs, requires windows host, has no ecommerce support, and more. No open-source since we need support and easy-to-use for non-techies. Also no hosted-only options or custom-programmed setups.

Any suggestions? I've already looked thru CMSwatch, CMSinfo with no results. I'm thinking it just doesn't exist.

[TallTroll]

Not really. So far, there are a few apps that do ecomm really well, a few that do CMS really well, and precious few below enterprise scale (multi thousands of £/$) that even attempt such an ambitious task.

Developing an ecomm system, and a CMS system are different skillsets, requiring different core competencies. There are CMS packages with ecomm boltons, and vice versa, but of all the ones I've looked at, I've never seen one yet that can do BOTH really well.

My approach would be to split the work between 2 packages. Get a good CMS package, and marry it to a good ecomm package

>> and Quickbooks

Quickbooks is a limitation. It is not a "real" accounts package, so very few real ecomm packages have native connectivity to it

>> and offer user support

Again, a limitation. Most packaged ecomm / CMS products offer good to reasonable user support, manuals etc, but when you go open source, support becomes much more variable, from the non-existent to the frankly stellar. However, the ones with very good support networks tend to be the ones that need it (ie you have to do a lot of modding to the "out-of-the-box" software. Its the reason for and the cause of the user support systems in most cases). As you specified no open source, I guess you know most of that already ;)

>> Also no hosted-only options or custom-programmed setups

Sheesh, picky, picky. This narrows you down to EXCLUSIVELY packaged products. Oh, and ones that connect to Quickbooks. Top of my head, I can think of 2 (and one of those starts at £5k). I think you are going to end up implementing an ecommerce site, and linking it to a CMS driven front end. I don't really see any other option that fits your parameters

>> but a bit higher cost (1500) than client wants

Your client wants a pretty serious solution. He needs to either lower his expectations, or increase his budget. Companies that think £1500 is expensive don't need a world class solution. He really should think about upgrading Quickbooks too, without a bit of fiddling its unlikely to be able to handle a serious volume of traffic / orders (mostly for the analysis and management functions), and if he's not expecting to stretch it, why is he running the project?

[USMerch]

osCommerce + postNuke with a little bit of work to match css, and possibly link user tables in db..

or postNuke + one of the handfull of available pay modules for it..

[Tabas]

Thanks for the excellent reply, TallTroll. All very valid points. I should have mentioned that this is a very small, Mom and Pop type business which sells relatively high dollar products (1K-8K), increasingly from their website. Quickbooks Pro is perfect for (and integral to) their business. We are trying to find ways to simplify managing their online orders and website updates. So no huge budgets (yet) or tech skill levels.

Someone recommended a nice cart with some CMS-like features, Quickbooks plug-ins, and enough customizability for our needs AFAIKT (yourvirtualstore.net). Would be a great improvement over current methods. Not sure if it will work for us, but am going to try the demo. A couple others that I looked at but ruled out were X-Cart and Actinic. None are really CMS, but offer many useful features.

USMerch - osCommerce and PostNuke are great. *If* you are interested in open source, have scripting/programming capabilities, and fairly technical skills to accomplish major site template customization/re-design. Not a good choice for us. Hence the orginal comment on no open source. :-)

[TallTroll]

>> Quickbooks Pro is perfect for (and integral to)

I used to work for a major UK accounting software house, so I know a bit about this stuff and yes Quickbooks is alright, but it lacks high end functionality (simplististic discounting structure, lacking in analysis functionality etc). Overall, its OK for the sort of small business you describe, where its only really required to to beancounting and generate statutory reports, but it can't handle a business where the owners don't essentailly keep pretty much everything in their head anyway

>> We are trying to find ways to simplify managing their online orders and website updates.

That means investment, probably. I would encourage them to tak a long hard look at why they are doing e-commerce, and what their commitment to it is