I have been asked to quote a potential new client, who are right on my doorstep, to produce a new e-commerce site with CMS functionality. (To replace existing that is looking very old)
They sell lots of products and want the option to edit and add prodcuts, make changes for themselves.
I would like to be able to take this on, but use freeway as much as possible.
So lots of advise needed please on options on how to proceed.
I have done e-commerce sites in freeway before but not with CMS.
Some lightweight CMS offer e-commerce plugins/addons like FoxyCart for Perch for example, and I’m sure the Big Boy CMS like Drupal, Joomla, EE have their own integrated systems. Obviously the benefit is deeper CMS integration which is, I think, what you’re looking for, but your options may be somewhat limited or the CMS may be overkill. So the question is what level of CMS do you need?
Mike, I may be embarking on something similar for an existing client. I’m strongly considering Joomla. Please keep us posted on what platform you decide to go with.
Do you have a link to the existing site so we can see what kind of functionality you need?
I still have 2 sites that uses Mals and FW but the sales are very very low and each site only has 5 or 6 products.
After trying to crowbar various carts into FW I now only use Shopify - http://www.shopify.com
Top Shopify benefits for me:
Easy to customize (with some basic knowledge of CSS and HTML)
Responsive templates
SSL Certificate included
Hosted, so you never have to worry about updating to the latest version
Integrated payments - Shopify just launched their own merchant service
Very keen to learn Joomla myself, one of my other clients that use me for design and print employ a web guy full time and I have been speaking with him today about this.
He is going to set me up a fake site on Joomla so I can have a play with to get some understanding.
Feel very frustrated at time because of my lack of skills when it comes to the web. I come from a traditional print and design background, I now wish I had got into this earlier.
Take a look in the hosting control panel. You can quickly install and test any or all of the following shopping carts…
Zen Cart
OsCommerce
Open Cart
Agora Cart
PrestaShop
Tomato Cart
Open Cart is pretty good looking ‘pretty’ by default compared to the rest. If nothing else it would widen your arsenal for client options by experiencing first hand how these shops work.
David Owen
On 19 Aug 2013, at 20:18, “Mike Thornley” email@hidden wrote:
Again, install Joomla from the scripts available. Install it in a folder of your choice direct from your hosting account scripts - one click any your off.
Don’t like the script? Delete the folder and then the database.
Many forget these scripts are available and so easy to install so forgive me going on
Play around learn and enjoy.
David Owen
On 19 Aug 2013, at 20:22, “Mike Thornley” email@hidden wrote:
He is going to set me up a fake site on Joomla so I can have a play with to get some understanding
As the resident MODX http://modx.com advocate around here you may want to look into that option as well. It doesn’t offer much in the way of native e-commerce plugins but you can certainly use any of the other carts I, Marcel and David mentioned. You can even use FW to design the templates.
But I cannot go quoting on work if I cannot deliver a proper commercially acceptable solution.
You will definitely be able to do that with Shopify - here’s one rebuilt in Shopify - used to be OpenCart Registrant WHOIS contact information verification | Namecheap.com
Might be a longer shot to do that with Joomla, especially if you have no experience with it.
Zen Cart OsCommerce Open Cart Agora Cart PrestaShop Tomato Cart. Open Cart is pretty good looking ‘pretty’ by default compared to the rest.
Opencart was very easy to customize and use, the user community is also quite helpful. The trouble was when you have used a plugin and the developer of that particular plugin is not current with his plugin you’re screwed. I had a site with a blog module and the developer was a few versions behind. Sometimes the developers make massive changes in the architecture and maintaining the upgrades can become problematic especially if you have tweaked a lot of code when customizing your site template.
Marcel, nice job with Shopify. I hadn’t heard of that. Perhaps a FWP/Shopify combination is the way to go. How long did it take you to get up to speed. Is a Freeway action required to make this work?
Thank you for some good ideas! I’m a newbie in web design and I got interested in website builders. I have found on http://www.webbuildersguide.com/ information about BigCommerce Web Site Builder. What can you say about this tool? Can I use it to create a site for a small company that sells books? Thanks in advance.
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