I currently use the Volusion shopping cart system but am looking into Magento's free version.

Those of you with experience (please post why you chose them), are they better in terms of seo, or what makes them so great?

I am just really curious because my current cart is not doing what I want or need...

Originally Posted by FinishLineSport

Those of you with experience (please post why you chose them), are they better in terms of seo, or what makes them so great?

they? them? what are you refering to in the plural sense?
Are you talking about Magento versions - Community/Professional/Enterprise?

Community is the free one and really the only version you would be interested in if you are a small business.

Magento has good SEO built in and nice backend features.
But its a BIG program and if you need something custom coded its gonna cost you a lot of cash.

Magento is not suitable for small businesses - period; not even the community version.
It's like using a formula 1 racing car for a golf cart. If you decide to use Magento, do your server neighbours a favour and get vps or dedicated hosting because magento will chew all available resources.

Originally Posted by metho

Magento is not suitable for small businesses - period; not even the community version.
It's like using a formula 1 racing car for a golf cart. If you decide to use Magento, do your server neighbours a favour and get vps or dedicated hosting because magento will chew all available resources.

Just curious, how many SKUs do you think a shop needs to have before they should think about Magento?

And which open source ecommerce do you recommend for less than that threshhold? At the moment I am very interested in finding out more about PrestaShop. If you run some searches through Google Insights, PrestaShop and Magento seem to be the two "hot" platforms right now.

Its not a simple as a matter of SKUs that determines suitability. It's product, custom attributes, images, customers, newsletters, the whole shebang. And of course there's gross turnover.

Magento is sufficiently complex to make an ecommerce site a lot more expensive to deliver and maintain just because it's magento. That makes it an uneconomical platform for small traders.

By the same token, Magento can choke on large sites too. So much for all that hi-end development. I have one site that has 120000SKU, 60000 customers, and 2 weekly emails. A medium large site. The front end operates ok, but the back end is a total, buggy pig.

Magento's sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.

Thanks for the feedback.
So what do you recommend as a better open source ecommerce platform for small business who dont justify Magento?

Opensource? None. Every client I've had on an opensource platform have had complaints about usability, unwanted functionality, or gradient curve. Let's face it, you get what you pay for.

So what do you use then?
Interspire? CS-Cart? Or something you've developed yourself?

BTW what do you mean by gradient curve (learning curve?)

Gradient curve = lurning curve, yes.

For new clients without any experience, v2Media has it's own eCommerce/catalogue platform. If they're savvy with operating web apps, are too small for magento, on a tight budget, and don't require systems integration, then zen cart.

Why zen cart? Because my company gets a lot of zen cart redesign/customisation/seo jobs and has 1000's of hours racked up developing for it. It has nothing to do with personal preference - it's just the way the market is in my neck of the woods.

Clients that require systems integration or proprietary systems, a feature comparison is done with the commercial carts to find the best candidate. Bottom line is, I can't recommend any cart as an off-the-shelf solution because the solution is matched to the client's needs; and EVERY clients' needs are different.

Thanks for the insights.

I am looking for a more lightweight alternative to Magento for client's on a tight budget.

I am still interested in PrestaShop but based on your comments will also take another look at Zen Cart.

Surprisingly many online merchants simply do not know/have never heard of the PCI-DSS deadline despite of all the talks on all the forums. Perhaps PCI council did bad informing?

Or everyone waits for next SAQ troubles?

Don't forget that CE Magento is not PA-DSS compliant!

They are not going to make it PA-DSS compliant, neither they are going to offer some kind of PA-DSS plugin for CE. So if you are to accept credit cards on your web-site you are to pay $3K a year at least for Professional Edition or use a payment method like Google Checkout or 2Checkout (i.e. send customers to enter credit cards off your site).

Chances are good to be like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxY7ZjroIYM on next SAQ

So if you are to accept credit cards on your web-site

ONLY if YOU process the transaction or the credit card details.

IF you use a merchant or a processing gateway such as Paypal, Worldpay, Authorise, 2Checkout, Google Checkout etc you do NOT need to be PCI compliant, the PROCESSOR does.