Magento

[mrsmcy]

After the great advice we have had on this site we have found Megento can do everything we need for our website. However we are finding 2 issues:
1) Magento designers seem really expensive!
2) The reviews for it are poor?

The reviews all say its hard to use for non techi people, its clunky (not sure what they mean by this!) and its a nightmare to get your head around.

If we have a designer create the right look and layout for us do you think it will still be too hard to manage. I've downloaded the trial and the backend system looks ok. If we need to make any changes to the layout will it be a nightmare?

 

[Josh_Farmer]

After the great advice we have had on this site we have found Megento can do everything we need for our website. However we are finding 2 issues:
1) Magento designers seem really expensive!
2) The reviews for it are poor?

The reviews all say its hard to use for non techi people, its clunky (not sure what they mean by this!) and its a nightmare to get your head around.

If we have a designer create the right look and layout for us do you think it will still be too hard to manage. I've downloaded the trial and the backend system looks ok. If we need to make any changes to the layout will it be a nightmare?

As long as you get a good design and server, the backend is okay to use after a while.

It does take some getting used to be once your used to it its really good and powerful.

 

[iboxsecurity]

First off - I would say Magento is no longer as clunky as it once was - in the really early versions it was very heavy and resource intensive. For the most its improved a lot. Designers are expensive or not expensive - not necessarily dependent on being for Magento or not.

Find a small development/design agency that can do a design and integrate it into Magento for you - there are plenty available on this forum.

As for the reviews - I would again say most of these are probably referring to the older versions. Its a great system and well built for SEO and extensibility later on for additional modules.

 

[Chris Fickling Design]

Maybe some of the reviews you were reading are out of date.

Magento is improving in leaps and bounds all the time. It can be expensive to implement depending on your approach. My approach is always to put the product first - make sure there is nothing that will stand in the way of someone buying from your site - and that is what Magento is good for.

The other point is that one person's expensive is another person's reasonable. If you have a good product and are confident you can get your site found then a very simple design in Magento will do the trick. If you are flexible about your design requirements but care greatly about the buyer experience then working a design around a basic Magento install will help you keep development costs down. You can also get more 'fancy' further down the line if your business takes off.

 

[mrsmcy]

Thanks for the replies, I've downloaded the free trial on Magento and am finding it ok to add products and make simple changes, so its not as scary as the reviews led me to believe! I would struggle with changing the templates enough to fit in with our business so am thinking along the lines of getting a developer to create the site.

My only concern is i've read several blogs/reviews who say when Magento release updates it can cause problems with custom templates that are already up and running. Would i need to expect to have to keep using the developer each time an update was released to ensure it works with our site? That's ok but it will make a big difference as to whether we chose someone who can do a one off build or whether we need someone who hosts and offers on going support.

 

[clfd]

I've been using Magento for around 3 years now ( i changed from oscommerce) and I don't look back at all. You learn the back end pretty quick ( I wasn't brilliant with pc's myself) As for the themes there are lots to choose form out there that don't cost the earth.

I would say that when choosing a host make sure that they support the whole package as in the shopping cart and hosting. This way you only have the one person to go through if any problems do arise.

Lisa x
C&L Floral Designs

 

[Chris Fickling Design]

Without getting overly technical, provided your customised templates and files are kept in their own directory then upgrades are not a massive problem but (a big but) if you are using many extensions and your site is highly customised then you have to be very careful.

Personally I would get the site up and running, enjoy using it and get on with running my business. Only upgrade if you have to. Your Magento Installation will tick along nicely for years to come without any upgrades.

Using a really good host is paramount - my preferred hosts provide one click installation and plenty of tips to keep my sites running smoothly.

 

[mrsmcy]

Oh I thought you had to do the upgrades. That's fine then. I've sent you a message via your website to see if you could quote us?
Thanks for your help

 

[kulture]

Oh I thought you had to do the upgrades. That's fine then. I've sent you a message via your website to see if you could quote us?
Thanks for your help

You do not have to do the upgrades, but I prefer to do them. Perhaps once a year I bring the cart up to date. It is always easier to do upgrades in small steps rather than a huge leap after several years of not updating.

 

[Chris Fickling Design]

mrsmcy - I have sent you a private message

 

[j600com]

Oh I thought you had to do the upgrades. That's fine then. I've sent you a message via your website to see if you could quote us?
Thanks for your help

You should try to keep on top of updates, they can include things like security patches - but as already mentioned make sure to do it with caution (and with a developer with a proven track record of magento).

 

[jungletom]

At Deal Jungle we tried Magento a year ago - unless you are a techincal genius its impossible to get it 100% right (and its those problems that come back to haunt you) In the end we paid someone to develop the site properly. It works perfectly now!

 

[jamie1183]

Magento is certainly a great system, most people who give bad reviews of this system are either in-experienced developers or people who have had a site created by an in-experienced developer.

One thing many people do is search out cheap Magento developers and this is where the bad experiences come in.

For updating the site, layouts, blocks etc if the site is built correctly you should be able to manage most elements from the website admin.

Advertising blocks etc can all be run from Static Blocks, Page contents all run from CMS Pages.

Magento has plenty of capability for updating if its built well.

As far as upgrades this is simple enough providing you don't have alot of extensions, however we find alot that most clients are happy once on a stable fast running system not to go through the upgrades, many ask us to just keep the version they setup on maintained.

When we do Magento developement we usually offer the full package, design, development, hosting and ongoing free support for technical issues.

 

[edmondscommerce]

Yearly upgrading is definitely a sensible schedule.

Generally the more often you upgrade, the less problematic each upgrade is.

Agree that Magento has come on leaps and bounds. Also the official user guide is now free which is great, I 100% recommend every Magento site admin should have a copy on their desktop for quick reference.

http://www.magentocommerce.com/resources/magento-user-guide

 

[Proconnect]

Magento is still clunky compared to say Wordpress, however it isn't impossible to configure with limited knowledge and the backend once setup is pretty good. Part of the reason developers are more expensive for Magento is that there a fewer developers out there for Magento and also configuring Magento from scratch is time consuming and frustrating at times.

Having said this the beauty with Magento is it's scalability to handle things like ebay integration and mass editing of products.

We recently developed a site called Cover This for a friend of Proconnect using magento and it has ebay stock synchronisation - Google it and take a look.

 

[david.duncan]

Magento is leaps and bounds ahead of OS commerce. You have to add everything with extra modules since the core of it is 8 years old. Magento is so powerful and has so many features in its core which makes it more stable from the start.

 

[bluecloud_networks]

A friend of mine asked me work on creating an electronics store for him about a year ago, looking around at the various options, and being a startup we decided on Magento. At the time was running version 1.4.

What I would say about the system is that it has absolutely everything that you will need to get going, it seems as though the developers said at the start 'we will make the best ecommerce software around, it will have everything - we will worry about speed later' it's true you can pretty much do anything with it.

A year on I've just got version 1.6 for him up and running and the speed increase has been excellent, the site responsive and all of the little errors we used to have seem to have all been resolved. Custom modules can be a pain when upgrading but not impossible to rectify.

So I would definitely recommend using this, you can purchase custom templates that will give you an idea of the potential it can have.

 

[stevenmaico]

According to me, Magento is an open source ecommerce platform and we can create the best E commerce websites with the best design also. Magento is being great today because of its easiest features.

 

[Tweasel]

Without getting overly technical, provided your customised templates and files are kept in their own directory then upgrades are not a massive problem but (a big but) if you are using many extensions and your site is highly customised then you have to be very careful.

Personally I would get the site up and running, enjoy using it and get on with running my business. Only upgrade if you have to. Your Magento Installation will tick along nicely for years to come without any upgrades.

Using a really good host is paramount - my preferred hosts provide one click installation and plenty of tips to keep my sites running smoothly.

There is some truth in not upgrading Magento to save the ball-ache of having to upgrade themes and extensions to suit, but I'd say it should be upgraded at least every 1.x release when compatible versions of extensions and themes are also released. Varien don't upgrade Magento for their health, usually there are bug fixes and the (very) occassional security issue fixed - as well as the handy new features.