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By flawlesswebsites on
Hello folks,
I created a website for Neneng - owner of http://www.premiumslings.com/babysling. They sell baby slings and
baby wraps.
The project hisrtory:
I initially built the website using plain html and manually coding php/mysql. About a month ago she decided to go with Joomla! and OScommerce! I didn't like the idea mainly because I didn't want to loose those hard work I have put up for her initial website. But, in the end - I didn't really care since she is paying me hourly anyway. So I went ahead with the project. I am getting too burned out of Joomla for various reasons. Oscommerce sucks big time so I convinced her to go with Magento! it went flawlessly but then when I came to integrate her Paypal and Google checkout, it won't work in Magento! You can see the example of how messed up it is when you go to www.premiumslings.com/babysling then try putting something in the cart and click checkout. You can see the google check out link smaller than a snut! I have spent countless hours researching on how to fix this and get it going so I could get her off my back with no such luck!
The question:
Is it worthwhile migrating to using drupal and ubercart as a pair?
Will ubercart be as pain in the rear as magento?
Will I have the same problem?
I have not played with ubercart before but like Drupal alot.
Thanks in advance.
Comments
.
I haven't used ubercart myself but I have heard lots of good things about it. Make sure you check out their site, too. http://www.ubercart.org . You will probably have more luck getting answers to specific ubercart questions in their forums since it's populated by folks who are using it. Not that no one here uses it, of course, but the percentage is lower. :)
Michelle
Ubercart
Hey,
[rant]
I haven't used Magento myself at all, just browsed the code base and looked trough it on one of our projects. I think everyone should stay clear from Magento, it's all hoops and looks really nice, has a nice ajaxy-interface etc. But it's coded like crap.
We had one customer where we literally had to manually change Magentos code because it wasn't working properly with some basic product settings but instead creating freakishy big SQL queries.
[/rant]
[rant]
Considering Ubercart, it's a hassle, like everything with Drupal. If you're already familiar with Drupal then by all means, i think Drupal + Übercart will be the thing people will use in a few years once someone builds a proper installation profile (D7, yay) and so forth. But for now, if you haven't used Drupal at all youre in a world of pain to get trough all the loops and hoops to just get to know how Drupal works.
[/rant]
On the plus side, I think I used 5h to configure übercart + paypal on Drupalcamp Finland, so it's really easy to configure if you know the drupal way, and i hadn't used übercart ever before. Taking into consideration your problem, a small icon, i doubt it's worth the trouble if you can identify the problem. And no, i doubt youl have the same problem with Drupal + übercart.
Migrating to Drupal and Ubercart
If you need to migrate a working (or half working!) e-commerce site from something like OScommerce or Joomla, then a move to a Drupal site running the Ubercart e-commerce system is worthy of serious consideration. Ubercart has all the bells and whistles you could wish for, but as you are looking to migrate from something else, what will really get you excited is that Ubercart can perform product data import in bulk via industry standard CSV plain text file. So if you've already got 10,000 product descriptions with images, shipping data, etc in your store's database, all you need to do is export the data as a csv file into Ubercart at Home > Administer > Content Management > Import Content instead of spending the next 6 months re-typing everything again. The Import Content feature is well designed and breaks down the tricky business of data transfer into eight smaller, more manageable steps.
However, it is vitally important to approach Drupal and Ubercart with the respect they deserve. These are fully-fledged, comprehensive, power packed systems and as such, they are both capable of biting your hand off at the shoulder if you don't take the trouble to learn them properly.
Raising this Convo from the dead
I'm sure there has been a new solution implemented already however I wanted to comment for those whom find this post on Google and have the same question.
1) I've been coding e-Commerce solutions for 16 years
2) I've used everything out there. Presta, VirtueMart, osCommerce, UberCart, Magento, you name it, I've used it.
3) If you don't understand OOP and do not have any concepts of coding architecture, then you have no business knocking any solution.
My view
For several years I avoided Magento because I hard rants like the previous poster had posted. While no solution is perfect, and no solution fits 100% of users needs, I think it's important to keep in mind that each solution targets different customers.
Magento for instance is a much better solution for developers like my self whom want a great base package, and we're looking to write extensions to create some custom functionality for our clients. Trying to do this in UbertCart, VirtueMart, ZenCart, osCommerce etc is by far sloppier and less intuitive. The model used by Magento takes advantage of many great design concepts built ontop the ZendFramework which makes it a real OOP developers dream.
osCommerce and ZenCart has been around a long time and does boast a lot of features that seem to work well with little bugs, but at the end of the day, the interface is clunky, the themes are ugly and options are a pain. It's a great system for smaller shops, but as a developer, I personally hate developing anything for it.. Oh yea, and their community is weak, and their security patches always seem to far after massive flaws are already exploited online. I've fixed to many customer's hacked installs of both solutions.
VirtueMart - don't get me started, hate this solution, the only plausible reason to use this solution is because you're already using Joomla lol... Even then I would be tempted to use Magento and create a bridge for Joomla.
Presta - This is a much "put together" project then other eCommerce solutions and I generally enjoyed working with this solution, but still I don't feel like it's ready for massive enterprise clients. This would be my second choice for non-magento customers.
UberCart - RUN AWAY.. I've used just about every single feature of Ubercart and many addons and this setup is BUGGYY.. People complain about fixing magento bugs, but I have by and large spent more time troubleshooting Ubercart bugs then anything else. Not to mention there is no D7 support yet. This is a horrible solution the last customer I have on this platform I am switching to Magento this month, Good riddance UberCart.
There are other a hundres or more options out there, but these most of the major solutions, I would suggest those whom didn't like Magento 3-4 years ago, give it a shot now, it's a dream solution, and if the solution confuses you THEN READ A BOOK! There are so many resources on the web and in the book stores to help you understand REAL programming data patterns, without this knowledge Magento will always be confusing. If you do not understand OOP then you will always struggle trying to figure out how to use Magento.