Magento, what makes it good ?

[msimplay]

Hi everyone, I always hear a lot recommendations on this forum about how good Magento is.

My question is, What exactly makes it worth the money in comparison to the other solutions out there ?

I really do want to know , my personal experiences are that I have seen some good Magento shops but not really better than anything else out there in the Enterprise realm. Also the backend got me really annoyed adding products is a major pain in comparison to other carts I have used.
I also don't understand why is the side navigation menu an extra ?
All e-commerce software usually has it as standard and to my amazement I see it available as a paid addon.

So please enlighten me all those who recommend Magento ?

 

[nickpp]

Hi everyone, I always hear a lot recommendations on this forum about how good Magento is.

My question is, What exactly makes it worth the money in comparison to the other solutions out there ?

You do not need to pay for it as it is open source it is free (community edition)

Lots of features and some nice looking standard templates!

 

[eukhost]

Magento is an enterprise level ecommerce platform which is ideally suited for established retailers and who wants advanced feature for their cart. Magento won't be an ideal solution for beginners setting up their ecommerce business.Magento is not recommended for small business. You can check the magento features list at http://tinyurl.com/kpwzak

 

[msimplay]

Magento is an enterprise level ecommerce platform which is ideally suited for established retailers and who wants advanced feature for their cart. Magento won't be an ideal solution for beginners setting up their ecommerce business.Magento is not recommended for small business. You can check the magento features list at http://tinyurl.com/kpwzak

I'm not comparing it to small business solutions. I'm comparing it to other "Enterprise" solutions.

I don't see how Magento can justify the price just by calling itself an Enterprise solution. Seems like a cop out to me.

I don't see what advanced features Magento has ?

 

[brownie]

I'm comparing it to other "Enterprise" solutions.

I don't see how Magento can justify the price just by calling itself an Enterprise solution. Seems like a cop out to me.

I don't see what advanced features Magento has ?

If you're talking about the paid for version, then having worked on many "high end" and bespoke ecommerce solutions I think they are taking the p*ss. The product is not mature enough yet to be charging that amount for a license.

I'd be interested to know how many of those licenses they have sold, not many at a guess.

 

[msimplay]

Was just thinking
Interspire geared towards ease of use and Product cart geared towards the most out of the box features of any cart I've ever seen both much better and cost a fraction of what Magento costs with regards to Enterprise software.
I did a quick search on google to see what Magento offers as an Enterprise solution be compared to the others in the same price range.

I don't see where Magento is "fully" featured I understand it's good for a free cart but Enterprise ?

 

[edmondscommerce]

what makes magento great is that it allows anyone with either the technical skill or the funds to hire someone who does to set up a powerful web store that is highly featured and future proof.

My favourite front end feature is the product attributes and layered navigation system. Brilliant and with all kinds of potential for all sorts of different business models.

Admin side I love the multi store implementation. Having done some bespoke multistore stuff I know how complex it is and I think the way they have pulled it together is intuitive and powerful.

Under the bonnet - I love the fact that its Zend Framework based and fully object oriented. I think the fact that you can very easily set it up to use a database cluster is a real enterprise level feature, but one that you can grow into as and when you need it.

Regular updates, a serious business model and some obviously lofty aspirations (its great that the enterprise edition is being charged out at that rate) mean that for me I think any ecommerce webmaster who is looking to upgrade or establish their site would be foolish to choose something else without taking a very close look at Magento.

 

[msimplay]

Thank you [FONT=arial,sans-serif]edmondscommerce [/FONT]finally a constructive reply [FONT=arial,sans-serif]
[/FONT]

 

[MWIS]

The two main reasons it is a good platform, is firstly its functionality for users of the site and secondly and most importantly it is very SEO friendly unlike zen cart etc

Have a look at something like www myla com to see what can be done with it.

 

[brownie]

Myla isn't the best advert for Magento because it appears to have not been implemented on the right platform as it exhibits the usual problem of being too slow once you dig down the categories.

 

[msimplay]

I don't know I find using the backend a chore I don't know how comes no one else see's this ?

 

[edmondscommerce]

Thank you [FONT=arial,sans-serif]edmondscommerce [/FONT]finally a constructive reply [FONT=arial,sans-serif]
[/FONT]

no problem

Myla isn't the best advert for Magento because it appears to have not been implemented on the right platform as it exhibits the usual problem of being too slow once you dig down the categories.

lightning fast for me at the moment, some quite nice pictures as well - ahem

 

[brownie]

lightning fast for me at the moment, some quite nice pictures as well - ahem

Possibly a connection issue my end.

A very pleasant site. :redface:

 

[msimplay]

lol I agree very nice site. But going back to the issue of the backend I find it annoying to use.

No one else has this issue ?

 

[edmondscommerce]

no not really

what is it you find annoying exactly?

 

[msimplay]

Adding products, a mainstay of any cart is so annoying in Magento because of the way every option is in a another tab.

 

[edmondscommerce]

hmm i think thats fine

seen how many options there are - how else would you like it laid out?

 

[msimplay]

hmm i think thats fine

seen how many options there are - how else would you like it laid out?

Well on a single page so it doesn't load every single time you click a tab ?
Ajax would be good

 

[edmondscommerce]

er - think it is using Ajax actually

Magento uses Ajax heavily

 

[msimplay]

er - think it is using Ajax actually

Magento uses Ajax heavily

I was saying in conjunction with single page rather than tabs.
I know you lot are developers pushing the Magento platform but there's got to be an easier way to add products.

I can't imagine adding 100's with the admin interface being slow and that was on localhost.

Also how comes a standard feature on most carts such as the automatically generation left navigation completely omited ?

 

[msimplay]

er - think it is using Ajax actually

Magento uses Ajax heavily

I was saying in conjunction with single page rather than tabs.
I know you lot are developers pushing the Magento platform but there's got to be an easier way to add products.

I can't imagine adding 100's with the admin interface being slow and that was on localhost.

I mean why does price have to be in it's own tab it just makes everything slow cumbersome for no reason

http://www.wam-bam.myby.co.uk/untitled.PNG

 

[brownie]

I can't imagine adding 100's with the admin interface being slow and that was on localhost.

This has already been mentioned and discussed in another thread IIRC recently, if you were adding that amount of products to any ecommerce solution you would use some form of bulk import (ie CSV), be mad to do it one by one manually.

 

[msimplay]

This has already been mentioned and discussed in another thread IIRC recently, if you were adding that amount of products to any ecommerce solution you would use some form of bulk import (ie CSV), be mad to do it one by one manually.

Lol that's a copout so basically just forget about using the admin interface altogether and upload the products using CSV / TEXT.

I don't actually recall using CSV / TEXT for any of the shopping cart's I've worked with because the interface was adaquate enough not to frustrate me to death.

Btw it's been mentioned shows that it's not just me

 

[brownie]

lol copout.

Business owners I've dealt with have far better things to do with their time than sit there manually loading 100's of products, it's about working smarter.

The ecommerce vendors would not offer these functions if they were of no use. If you have a small static product range use the admin panel, a larger amount of products that change then use bulk import. Again down to the type of business.

If a cart didn't offer a bulk import facility and the business fell into the second category I'd advise them to look for another solution.

I do not recall, although I stand to be corrected, of coming across any ecommerce solution where there wasn't a way of bulk uploading products,pricing, categories, attributes, etc. It also makes life easier when the product range need to be updated.

 

[msimplay]

lol copout.

Business owners I've dealt with have far better things to do with their time than sit there manually loading 100's of products, it's about working smarter.

The ecommerce vendors would not offer these functions if they were of no use. If you have a small static product range use the admin panel, a larger amount of products that change then use bulk import. Again down to the type of business.

If a cart didn't offer a bulk import facility and the business fell into the second category I'd advise them to look for another solution.

I do not recall, although I stand to be corrected, of coming across any ecommerce solution where there wasn't a way of bulk uploading products,pricing, categories, attributes, etc. It also makes life easier when the product range need to be updated.

I do agree bulk uploading of products is a must however that doesn't stop Magento from being slow and annoying to navigate in the backend.

 

[brownie]

I have my own opinions on Magento hence why I prefer PrestaShop however I'll keep my neutral hat on for the moment.

Surely a slow Magento backend is down to the platform Magento is running on?

 

[Chunkford]

Is prestashop derived from the magento codebase?
I swear i read that somewhere

 

[brownie]

Is prestashop derived from the magento codebase?
I swear i read that somewhere

No, there is no code shared between PrestaShop and Magento.

 

[msimplay]

I have my own opinions on Magento hence why I prefer PrestaShop however I'll keep my neutral hat on for the moment.

Surely a slow Magento backend is down to the platform Magento is running on?

Yeah that might be true however it just goes to show how bloated it is.
As every single other solution I've tried it ran at lightening speed on localhost

 

[edmondscommerce]

sheesh just don't use Magento.

if you want something really lightning fast should I recommend Actinic?

Power and speed / usability is always a trade off. Magento is awesomely powerful and still fast enough for me.

As for bulk uploading - I can push products into a Magento site at a rate of 5+ per second including custom attributes and category creation as well.

I don't know of any serious ecommerce clients (I have quite a few) who use the admin side for manually entering product information. If at all, its used for minor edits on existing products.

 

[msimplay]

sheesh just don't use Magento.

if you want something really lightning fast should I recommend Actinic?

Power and speed / usability is always a trade off. Magento is awesomely powerful and still fast enough for me.

As for bulk uploading - I can push products into a Magento site at a rate of 5+ per second including custom attributes and category creation as well.

I don't know of any serious ecommerce clients (I have quite a few) who use the admin side for manually entering product information. If at all, its used for minor edits on existing products.

It's not about lightening fast its about Magento taking up more resources for no good reason where carts less than half the price have all of the features and run at a faster rate.

So I'd like to know awesomely powerful in comparison to ?

The only thing I have seen so far is that it would make a decent free solution but never a paid one.

Actnic I'm not too keen on since it's not web based thats a personal choice

 

[edmondscommerce]

less than half the price

what price? £free

So I'd like to know awesomely powerful in comparison to ?

well everything else I have ever used and that includes:

oscommerce
CRE Loaded
Zen Cart
Intershop (ePages)
ECT
Prestashop
some others I can't remember the names of

The only thing I have seen so far is that it would make a decent free solution but never a paid one.

would not suggest for a second you pay for it

Actnic I'm not too keen on since it's not web based thats a personal choice

Actinic was a joke

 

[msimplay]

what price? £free

well everything else I have ever used and that includes:

oscommerce
CRE Loaded
Zen Cart
Intershop (ePages)
ECT
Prestashop
some others I can't remember the names of

I was primarily comparing it as an Enterprise solution not free product.
Btw Prestashop is pretty close as it has a plugin / module interface and can near enough be modified to do anything you should want it to.

Thinking about it. It probably is the best free solution

 

[Chunkford]

Actinic was a joke

Hey, that hurts, lol, I use it on a daily basis

 

[edmondscommerce]

How do you define Enterprise?

Enterprise and free are not mutually exclusive

Paid for does not mean Enterprise.

On that list, ECT and Intershop were both paid for, and out of that list they are definitely at the bottom of the pile in terms of quality.

 

[edmondscommerce]

Hey, that hurts, lol, I use it on a daily basis

no offence...

ever thought of upgrading?

 

[Chunkford]

no offence...

ever thought of upgrading?

Non taken
It's not that bad, and it does offer something different.

I have looked into it changing it, but the bloke who owns it doesn't see a problem with Actinic, and to be fair it fits his requirements.

But back on topic, have any of you guys looked into interspire?
If not i would recommend it. The coding is nicely done, interface very good, and very flexible as you can get at all the code. It says it's open source, but you need to buy a license to use it.

 

[msimplay]

How do you define Enterprise?

Enterprise and free are not mutually exclusive

Paid for does not mean Enterprise.

On that list, ECT and Intershop were both paid for, and out of that list they are definitely at the bottom of the pile in terms of quality.

I tend to define Enterprise as software that calls itself Enteprise and aimed at the market where it gives better features and better service for your money.

With a free open source solution the company does not have to listen to their customer base.
Oscommerce is a fine example and the development is slow.

Where I define an Enterprise grade product to have the best service and also the best features. Also generally a better product and be comparable to other solutions in the same league.
Also they shouldn't be usurped by software that costs less. I want to know I'm getting what I pay for hence I make the point it's not as good as either
Interspire or Productcart

 

[edmondscommerce]

ok fine.

I give up trying to persuade you of the benefits of Magento, it's obviously not for you.

Got to sign off now, I've got a bunch of Magento projects in my inbox I need to quote on. Damn popular this Magento platform....

 

[Chunkford]

And as for the money for Magento Enterprise, i think you are buying into their resources and skills on developing a site. You get Indemnification, 'world class' (as they said somewhere on their site) SLA, warranty, plus the other bells and whistles.
At the end of the day people will probably pay to have that piece of mind.

Just my 2 cents