Joomla! Discussion Forums

Hi Everyone

I’ve been looking for an alternative solution to VirtueMart (VM), and it was great to come across this thread. I’ve spent a while reading everyone’s comments, and it seems that not many people had positive experiences with Joomla shopping cart extensions, and my understanding is that the majority of you are more inclined towards stand along shopping cart products. I’ve recently come across a list of Joomla shopping cart extensions and am interested to hear about different experiences with the following carts:

• jStore
• Mighty Commerce
• DigiStore

As for myself, I’ve been using Joomla for commercial projects just over a year and have experience installing VirtueMart 1.1.1+ for Joomla 1.5. After four installs I’ve decided that VM was not a right choice, despite great reviews and it being considered to be #1 Joomla extension on JED. I’ve used other stand alone shopping cart products both commercial and open source, and in my opinion VM has a long way to go before it should be considered for commercial projects.

I’ve found VM has quite a lot of bugs and new updates are slow to come out and not very well tested. (eg upgrading VM from v1.1.2 to 1.1.3 (current version) has introduced more problems for my clients than we had with 1.1.2.) There are a few good objective reviews of problems that VM has and the most common of them are:

• Poor support and updates
• Spaghetti code, which is a challenge to troubleshoot and/or modify
• The framework is written with a mixed use of classes and procedural flow and MVC pattern is disregarded completely (some of HTML code is produced by the core system, which makes it hard to work with VM templates).
• Lack of man power

Don’t get me wrong, VM is the most feature-rich shopping cart extension for Joomla and there are valid reasons behind its problems; however, when it comes to using Joomla as a commercial solution, I want an extension that is easy to use, well documented, reasonably easy to modify and is being actively developed and supported. It does not have to be free.

Zen Cart all the way!

Your list of issues rings very true for me.. This an much more is why I walked away from VM never to look back..

I totally agree with the highlighted statement.. My one and ONLY VM cart was a NIGHTMARE for me and my client. Eventually I converted her to Zen Cart for free because she had endured my TOTALLY wrong choice of e-commerce solutions, and she had already paid enough in downtime and lost sales.. I have NO problem paying for a good solution or good coding.. I need to be able to support my clients, and VM made that VIRTUALLY impossible for me to do confidently..

Here's a list of Joomla Shopping Cart extensions I have found:

VirtueMart
IXXO Cart
iJoomla DigiStore
JooZen
jStore
Might Commerce
RokQuickCart
Freeway

I've only used VirtueMart but JooZen looks promising for people that like Zencart.

Virtuemart is tested and is great. You might want to check it out!

Avactis shopping cart is the best for Joomla.
I can fast integrate it into an existing Joomla website, any blog or website design.

[ text removed by turnkey ]
[ thank you Brad, I will check the rules! ]

turnkeye, please read the forum rules and refrain from breaking them with self promotion posts like that.

We provide plenty of resources for you to 'market' your products, like: http://extensions.joomla.org as well as http://resources.joomla.org please use them, and not this forum.

This is an enlightening thread - a very good read...

I'm currently an osCommerce user and am in the midst of moving hosts from a managed windows server to a shared linux host. I set up my shop over a year ago and made a lot of customizations to osC. Now in the middle of my move I'm realizing that it's not going to be an easy transfer. I'm going to have to go back and most likely edit a lot of my site and I'm not certain I want to stick with osC if I'm going to have to spend a lot of time in the code again.

I feel my requirements are relatively simple, I need integration for:
- PayPal Website Payments Standard
- Google Checkout
- FedEx Shipping Calculator
- USPS Shipping Calculator
- Google Base
- Product Attributes

I REALLY want to leverage Joomla for CMS and want a seamless option between content and ecommerce. I'm willing to leave osC behind, so I've been looking at VirtueMart and JooZen. I'm interested in hearing others suggestions and thoughts on my current situation.

Does anyone know of an e-commerce solution that has multi-vendor capability, allowing users to sell digital files? I know IXXO Cart is one, but am not sure of the reliability based on previous posts.

Check http://www.interspire.com/ it's a non Joomla commercial solution that supports both multi-vendor and digital content.

Alright anyone that has used VirtueMart could you please explain to me the problems you had with it? I am trying to make a site, so this would be helpful before I establish a shopping cart for my site. Indepth answers would be appreciated so I can grasp problems before hand.

If you look back through this thread, I've posted twice my experience and opinion of VM..

I was hoping you might go into more depth about the program problems, I should've clarified that more in my post. I read through the forum, and the specific VM problems a few times to fully understand what issues I may deal with in the future.

Like I said if you read back through this thread I believe I did list some of the program problems I had..

This was not enough information?? I guess I'm not sure what more you want me to elaborate on.. Are you looking for a list every single error message I got?? If so they are too numerous to list, and now that I'm no longer using the program I certainly don't have them committed to memory..

If you want to see examples of unanswered questions on the VM forum, search for "notify.php" See how many questions for the SAME problem have been posted.. See how many go unanswered.. For the ones that are answered, see how helpful the responses are.. Lookup my user name there (Pixiepie) see how many questions I asked, and see the quality of the responses I received..

Read the VirtueMart reviews posted in the JED.. My old review is still there (from approx Sep/Oct 2006).. In fact the lead developer (Soren) tried to call me out on the VM forum about my review because he didn't agree with it.. He accused me of having unrealistic expectations.. Apparently expecting support from the SUPPORT forum is an unpopular concept in the VM world..

Now here's what I noticed looking at recent reviews (last few weeks).. It's three years and at least 4 or 5 versions later, and I see all of the SAME issue still being reported (including the issues with PayPal notify.php script)

Anything else you need me to elaborate on??

Besides for the things you listed out, were there any other benefits you found in Zen Cart that weren't present in VirtueMart?

* Working USPS shipping
* Working UPS shipping
* Working FedEx Shipping
* Working PayPal IPN and PayPal Express modules
* Working Authorize.net support
And when I say WORKING I mean working in that I don't have to hack away at the code endlessly to get it to work..
* Support forum where both the developers and the community SUPPORT the application and the add-ons, and more importantly both the community and the developers KNOW that's how it's supposed to be. (Apparently the VM community and it's developers do not feel the same)
* Improved inventory management
* Improved product attribute management

Let me put it this way.. For TWO YEARS my client had DAILY issues with VM. Orders not processing, processing incompletely, abandoned carts due to errors, etc. Since switching to ZenCart (10 months ago) I've heard from her exactly ONCE and that was to help her with a client who did not know how to use PayPal..

And before anyone brings up the new version of VM, the new version is plagued with some of the same problems VM has always had.. Nicer looking Admin though.. I HOPE VM gets better.. It certainly has potential, but even if the app improves, the attitudes of the developers and that community with regards to support will always make this app undesirable to me..

Questions on the VM forum go routinely unanswered or the answers are vague or the answers are un-necessarily snarky (and not so helpful..) The general community feeling is “too bad too sad”. AND the community at large seems to feel that the developers have NO obligation to provide ANY support for the app they wrote and released.

Love this thread, lots of opinion that is helpful.

I didn't see any reference to http://www.kryptronic.com/ and their http://www.kryptronic.com/Shopping-Cart-Software software. I've seen references to it on Rockettheme, but wondered if anyone here had an opinion.

Thanks!

Thank you for all the input DivaVocals, I really appreciate it! Additionally, I had yet another question for you. How did you integrate your ZenCart with Joomla? That is one of the issues I consistently keep encountering. I found bridges so you membership data is the same, but I wanted to be able to place the actual items on Joomla as virtuemart does without having to use a wrapper.

For one site I built using Joomla and Zen Cart I used a Zen Cart template to "visually" make the two "integrate".
See: Using Joomla with ZenCart - My solution

Now there are modules and components which will integrate Joomla with Zen Cart systematically. There is a thread which discusses these options more in depth. See: Integrate Zen Cart into Joomla

If you need a shopping cart that is a bridge to your accounting package, have a look at CARTwebERP integrated with webERP. It is in Bridges-ecommerce under Joomla! Extensions. My first client did 10,000 orders in 6 months. When you have high volume you need a strong back end, like an accounting package.

virtuemart all the way baby

Agree with Alextampa. Virtuemart is a great choice if you're going to be using Joomla. Some run into some problems, but for plenty of others, even a lot of total beginners, it's just plug and play. It's a complex app and it could be built better to be more bullet proof for beginners and all of their many options and hosting setups... but if you know what you're doing or are willing to learn (you don't have to be a major PHP nerd, I'm not) it's a GREAT tool. Sure Magento has more features, but unless you truly have the need for an advanced store Joomla and VM are a joy to template for a designer. You get Joomla's extensions, menu and module systems, and can have create hybid ecommerce, social networking and information sites... stuff that both people and seach engines love.



DivaVocals, I've had quite a different experience then you. I've never had trouble getting either Authorize.net or paypal to work. Not everyone even needs live shipping quotes, but I have got UPS working with a simple hack (I do wish they'd fix that if they haven't already). Don't know about Fedex or USPS, but others on the forum seem to be getting it to work.

Product types? Two easy solutions. Have you seen: http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=53087.0? There's a free addon to remedy the situation. Also jseblod, a new all-purpose CCK extension integrates w/Virtuemart.

Accounting/inventory: besides CSV Improved, there are various accounting solutions (most commercial) including several flavors of Quickbooks sync available. Inventory is basic, but with CSV improved it's simple to make large scale adjustments from a spreadsheet. My guess is that most smaller sites don't even use an online inventory function much anyway.

As for support... that's the perennial beef about VM. The way I see it... is with all the money you save... if you need support, than hire someone. There are a ton of VM experts willing to help. I will never understand how anyone can expect something out of someone else's free time!

I'm not some kind of Virtuemart fanboy, but it's truely a decent software that is often underestimated and under appreciated. Just wanted to add that here, since the false reports were adding up.