Need some Magento/e-commerce advice

18 replies
Hi all,

I'm looking to get into the e-commerce field in a big way by the end of 2010. I've done my market research and know I can do well in Canada (to start with) if all the pieces fall into place.

I've been reading about Magento recently and want to know what the best option is for me. Enterprise Edition, Professional Edition, or Community edition.

The site will grow to have a large amount of products and I would like it to have the usability and functionality as sites like Overstock and Newegg have.

Also, I like some of the features associated with the Enterprise edition such as private sales, reward points, advanced admin panel, and support. Can this be coded in to the community edition with the right programmer?....except support obviously.

Basically, I like the features of the Enterprise, but if I could do it for less than $13,000 a year and get the same functionality that would be great.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin
#advice #magento or ecommerce
  • Profile picture of the author Chunks
    Your best option would be to use the community version. You can add the extra functionality to it by using existing modules out there. I have build quite a few magento carts now and there has always been a module to suit the needs of each individual store.

    Do your research on what features you need to have. There is one feature I can help you out with and that's the rewards points system. Checkout this site Sweet Tooth Reward Points for Magento. They have a really nice integrated system (I'm not affiliated with these people in anyway), I'm not sure how it compares to the enterprise rewards point system and to tell the truth I have never used Sweet Tooth on my sites but I have seen it in use on others, and besides that it's a whole lot cheaper than the enterprise edition.

    I hope this helps a bit. I'm happy to share what I know about Magento, if you need any help setting it up just let me know.

    I can't post a link for Sweet Tooth because I haven't posted 15 times yet... so just Google them.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Perry
      Thanks alot! This is starting to shed some light on the situation. That's great about the rewards system, because that's one of the things I really liked.

      What about the admin options with the Enterprise edition? Things like advanced analytics, multiple sites from one admin panel, log admin actions, seo tools, email reminders, private sales, etc....Can these admin options be created with the community edition?

      Thanks for answering. I was worried that no one had an answer for this.

      Kevin

      Originally Posted by Chunks View Post

      Your best option would be to use the community version. You can add the extra functionality to it by using existing modules out there. I have build quite a few magento carts now and there has always been a module to suit the needs of each individual store.

      Do your research on what features you need to have. There is one feature I can help you out with and that's the rewards points system. Checkout this site Sweet Tooth Reward Points for Magento. They have a really nice integrated system (I'm not affiliated with these people in anyway), I'm not sure how it compares to the enterprise rewards point system and to tell the truth I have never used Sweet Tooth on my sites but I have seen it in use on others, and besides that it's a whole lot cheaper than the enterprise edition.

      I hope this helps a bit. I'm happy to share what I know about Magento, if you need any help setting it up just let me know.

      I can't post a link for Sweet Tooth because I haven't posted 15 times yet... so just Google them.
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      • Profile picture of the author Chunks
        Advance Analytics: The community edition integrates with Google Analytics straight out of the box, just type in your Analytics ID and your good to go. There is also a free Analytics module to extend that a little further again. search for "Fooman Google Analytics"

        Multi-Websites/Stores: Again out-of-the-box Magento Community can be set-up for multi-websites and mutli-stores all with different domains and so on. There are some good websites out there that explain the set-up. I have a link to a blog post that I refer to constantly to double check how it's done exactly. I can PM the link if your keen.

        Advanced User Permissions: I use a module made by Aitoc called "Advanced Permissions". It's very good, allows me to create users and restrict what they can access, right down to one website or multi websites. This costs $69.00 which I think is cheap for that kind of functionality.

        SEO Tools: As for SEO, there is a module called "SEO Suite" from Mageworx that I use. Its also good and I use it with momentz (dot) com (dot) au. Is it worth the money? I'm not sure... I think the module is based around the "Yoast" modules, again do a search for these. Yoast makes two free modules which improve the SEO performance of magento called "canonical url" and "META/Robots". All this said Magento is very very good for SEO, you can change title, description and META tags all from within the CMS and the URL's are SEO friendly.

        EMAIL Reminders: Yet again out-of-the-box Magento has a very good email system. All email templates can be edited and customised on a per website basis. When you say "reminders" do you mean "notifications"? You can set up various notification options for sales and so on... There are a few email modules out there to help make email communication a little easier.

        Private sales: I haven't looked into this exactly, but I do know that the Enterprise edition has this feature covered well. In the comunity edition you can have customer groups and then you can limited access to certain products and websites based on the group they belong to (this is not available out-of-the-box but it can be added). I have only done brief research on this but I know it can be done, again with modules that are available.

        Like I said in my first post, you need to have a clear direction in mind and the features you want. You can then usually find the solution. Sorry for no direct links. Just Google them. Again I have no commercial interest with these websites only that I have used some of their modules.

        More than happy to offer you more help if you need it. All the best with this start.
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  • Profile picture of the author aandersen
    magento is pretty awesome. I have not found any other non-enterprises software that can do all that magento can do.

    however, i have 1 really big problem with it. they way attributes/customized products is really bad if you deal with highly customizable products. This is because you have to create new simple products for every single attribute combination.

    if you have simple configuration or no configurations this is no big deal. for example a t-shirt that comes in 3 sizes and 4 colors is only 12 products that you must create.

    BUT what if you are selling a bikini that lets you choose the size and fabric for the top and bottom separate and you offer 5 sizes and 10 colors now you must create 100 products. then you offer a new style that has binded edges and you can pick any of the 10 colors for the binding... so to list this one product with 5 configurable felids you must go in to magento and create 1000 simple products.

    then you decide that you want to offer the same style bikini but a version with tie sides, a ring, or a buckle. yep time to make 3000 more products.

    This is a big problem and is why i do not use magento for my main ecommerce site. IT SUCKS for me because everything else about magento is perfect IMO

    the developers do not seem to see this as an issue but as "by design" claiming that they would not be able to keep proper track of inventory/statistics if it was done different. but that is BS, other SC systems do not do things this way and enterprise products that i have used in the past (working for catalog/ecommerce companies) never did thigs this way.

    honesty i think it is a little too much pride admit a crucial flaw in their system. and the fact that no wants to recode it.


    any way not trying to steer you away but if you use configurable products a lot you may want to consider other platforms
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    • Profile picture of the author theultimate1
      Originally Posted by aandersen View Post

      This is a big problem and is why i do not use magento for my main ecommerce site. IT SUCKS for me because everything else about magento is perfect IMO
      What do you use instead, for your main site? Thanks for letting us know...
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  • Profile picture of the author aandersen
    i have tried a lot of solutions and settled on using prestashop with the attribute wizard pro plugin.

    the problem with all these apps is that each has stuff that th other doesn't. there really is not a perfect app. i compared paid solutions too, not only free software. while some where good at some things they lacked others.

    for example : interspire looked promising, it is nice and zippy, easy to use, nice attribute system, looks good... but no pack/bundle/grouped products option... WOW, supposed to be the pefect shopping cart but no bundled products... so scratch that

    i found prestashop + attribute builder to be the best for my needs. but this has it's own problems too. there is no multistore capabilities. this will eventually cause me a problem

    but i think everyone's needs are unique. so you really have to dig for what is right for you
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  • Profile picture of the author aandersen
    im gong to post 1 more time. i just re though my math on my previous post and it was wrong because magento will not allow bundles of configurable products. so you could not create the top and bottom as seperate products and combine. you wold have to configure this as 1 big configurable product

    you got 5 top sizes X 10 top colors (50) X 10 top bindings (500) X 5 bottom sizes (2500) X 10 bottom colors (25000) X 10 bottom bindings = 250,000 combinations would have to be created

    then you do that 3 more times for you other 3 styles (as different products) and you created 1 million product combinations just for 4 listings (of the same base product)
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Perry
    @Chunks - Thank you again for your post. This makes me think that I can start the business with the community edition + added plugins and customizations and opt for the Enterprise Edition should the business develop largely. As you said, I need to come up with a sitemap and a features list that I want on my site before I get to technical. You've been a great help so far and i'm sure I will have more questions for you in the future.

    @aanderson - most of the products that I will be dealing with are not customizable to that extent. I do plan on having a lot of products, so maybe hiring a data entry person seems like the way to go after your explanation. Thanks,

    Kevin
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  • Profile picture of the author aandersen
    if your products are not customizable then there is not an issue at all. other than this one problem i found magento to be great. I would also agree with Chunks about using the community edition. There are extensions available do just about anything you can think of. you will save thousands of dollars.

    with the money you save by using the community edition you can easily afford to hire freelance coders, designers, magento experts, data entry, etc... and you would still come out spending less money this way.

    the only reason i could justify purchasing the enterprise edition would be if i found my company completely dependant on it and rapidly growing and just needed the support to ensure my site never has a hiccup. honestly though, by the time i was in that position (being able to justify 13k/yr) i would be most likely be close to outgrowing magento and needing something more ERP-like.


    anyway, on another note. if you are going to dive in to magento i suggest reading this thread in it's entirety
    Magento - Methods To Speed Up Magento - A Guide To Making Magento Faster - 'How do I' Questions - eCommerce Software for Growth
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Perry
      Yeah, i'll definitely be getting someone to do the coding for me. This thread has given me some things to think about, but I think i'm leaning towards the community edition based on the comments here. Even if it costs me $5000 to $10,000 to get someone to code it, it would be worth it instead of paying over $13,000 a year.

      Thanks again,

      Kevin

      Originally Posted by aandersen View Post

      if your products are not customizable then there is not an issue at all. other than this one problem i found magento to be great. I would also agree with Chunks about using the community edition. There are extensions available do just about anything you can think of. you will save thousands of dollars.

      with the money you save by using the community edition you can easily afford to hire freelance coders, designers, magento experts, data entry, etc... and you would still come out spending less money this way.

      the only reason i could justify purchasing the enterprise edition would be if i found my company completely dependant on it and rapidly growing and just needed the support to ensure my site never has a hiccup. honestly though, by the time i was in that position (being able to justify 13k/yr) i would be most likely be close to outgrowing magento and needing something more ERP-like.


      anyway, on another note. if you are going to dive in to magento i suggest reading this thread in it's entirety
      Magento - Methods To Speed Up Magento - A Guide To Making Magento Faster - 'How do I' Questions - eCommerce Software for Growth
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Bronson
    @The Godfather - I think the community edition is a good move as well - due to the number of available extensions out there. Be sure to line up several companies you can call for "on-demand' support ahead of time. Another company that has some great extensions (a lot of "trigger based email systems) is Aheadworks.

    I am planning a move of my 5+ year old ecommerce site onto Magento by January 2011 which is a huge chore.... but the multi-store/website functionality is too good to pass up.

    Having spoken with some companies, it seems you may only need to upgrade to the NEWEST version of Magento once a year - being sure your extensions vendors have their products updated also.... Good luck

    PM me if you have any questions about stuff, as I'm into researching all needed extensions (order management (Quickbooks and Endicia), drop shipping automation, hosting, support, coders, etc.....)
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Perry
      @Lux_Arcana - thanks for posting. You and the other posters in this thread have shed a lot of light on the situation.

      Right now, i'm working on the website layout then i'll be working on functionality. Once that's complete, I should be ready to contact a developer to make my vision a reality. All the posters in this thread will most likely be contacted.

      Thanks,

      Kevin
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Perry
    I've started a new thread looking for quotes for my e-commerce site. Feel free to check it out and send me a message:

    http://www.warriorforum.com/programm...ite-quote.html
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  • Profile picture of the author wrbeckett
    what about magento go
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  • Profile picture of the author Joan03
    Magento community is pretty awesome. There is hardly anything that you can't achieve with magento. I've been using it since its release. I must warn you that if you don't have some knowledge prepare yourself to spend a few bucks to sort out errors, especially after upgrades, extension installations, etc. New versions released pretty quick so you have to upgrade a few times in a year.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    I think the regular version is going to be well enough for you. Keep in mind, if you bought the enterprise version you will still need someone to set things up for you most likely unless you have experience with magento and are a strong coder, so that 13K ends up being about 20-25k.

    Anyway, community version is solid, right out of the box. Great platform, and great for ecommerce. Many of the different features, you don't need, and if you do need them they can somewhat easily be added.
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    • Profile picture of the author bobmane
      "Private sales: I haven't looked into this exactly, but I do know that the Enterprise edition has this feature covered well. In the comunity edition you can have customer groups and then you can limited access to certain products and websites based on the group they belong to (this is not available out-of-the-box but it can be added). I have only done brief research on this but I know it can be done, again with modules that are available."


      well i dont want Private sales per say but i do want exactly like this: kelbytraining

      which is wordpress. mage can NOT do this. nor can it come close to doing what all the wp membership plugs do.

      i have been using mage for over 4 years and know every plugin + many devs have passed at even trying half of the jobs i have had. (a common problem with mage). you get agency's in the states and uk that say "oh sure we can do it" and they try to rope you into some "team" bs at high $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ all the while not even understanding the job. then you go to the freelance sites and get every tom dick and harry claiming to be gurus who usually fail as well.

      bottom line, if you go with mage you better get ready to learn how to dive into the xml , php and phtml etc...yourself otherwise you will get burned and sink.

      show me the plug in that does real memberships like the wp ones !!!!
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      • Profile picture of the author Magento modules
        Magento community is pretty awesome. There is hardly anything that you can't achieve with magento. I've been using it since its release. Magento is best..
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