Recommendation for Online Store Software

2 pointsby segfault18년 전2 comments

My friend's parents own a (physical, actual building) adult clothing store[lingerie/costumes]. It's extremely profitable.

They asked me (10+ years programming on Linux, mastery of C; familiar enough to hack x86 assembly / GPU / ruby / python / haskell code; can read php / javascript / actionscript) for assistance with building an online store.

They already have an artistically talented graphic designer. The question is, what software to use for:

1) running the backend of the online store 2) processing credit card / payments 3) automatically sending orders for shipment 4) logging everything [for data mining & finding consumer patterns]

Given background knowledge of: 1) I have worked through parts of the Ruby on Rails 3rd edition book for fun and 2) They aren't 'innovating' in building a better online store / better web2.0 website; the goal is just to sell online what they're already selling in the physical store

I believe the right solution is to:

1) find some existing open source / commercial ( < $100 / month) software that handles all this 2) throw the store online, see how profitable selling this online is 3) rewrite everything [server, credit card processing, shipment] if the commercial solution's over head (inefficiency, or transaction costs) is a big deal (i.e. when volume is high)

The questions are:

1) does the analysis for using pre-existing online software instead of rolling our own sound right?

2) if so, what existing solutions [open source or commercial] do you suggest

3) if not, why? and what should I read up on / learn?

Thanks!

2 comments

wheels18년 전

Sometimes a related articles widget comes in handy -- came across this when looking at the page for osCommerce (probably the most widely used OSS shopping cart):

http://pedia.directededge.com/article/Comparison_of_shopping...

Actually, some of the other related articles are more useful. Magento looks cool.

http://pedia.directededge.com/article/Magento

normchow18년 전

Use Drupal - it has several ecommerce modules, and you can plug in paypal, Google Checkout or Authorize.net shopping carts and be up-and-running in no time.