: Which ecommerce framework is fast and easy to customize? Possible Duplicate: Which Ecommerce Script Should I Use? I'm working on a project where I have to put online an ecommerce

@XinRu657

Posted in: #Ecommerce #ShoppingCart

Possible Duplicate:
Which Ecommerce Script Should I Use?




I'm working on a project where I have to put online an ecommerce system which will require some good amount of custom features. I'm therefore looking for a framework which makes customization easy enough (from an experienced developer's perspective, I mean). Language shoul be PHP and time is a constraint, I don't have months to learn.

Additionally, the ecommerce will have to handle around 200.000 products from day one, which will increase over time, hence performance is also important.

So far I examined the following:


Magento - Complicated and, as far as I could read, slow when database contains many
products. It's also resource intensive, and we can't afford a dedicated VPS from the beginning.
OpenCart - Rough at best, documentation is extremely poor. Also, it's
"free" to start, but each feature is implemented via 3rd party
commercial modules.
OSCommerce - Buggy, inefficient, outdated.
ZenCart - Derived from OSCommerce, doesn't seem much better.
Prestashop - It looks like it has many incompatibilities. Also, most
of its modules are commercial, which increases the cost.


In short, I'm still quite undecided, as none of the above seems to satisfy the requirements. I'm open to evaluate closed source frameworks too, if they are any better, but my knowledge about them is limited, therefore I'll welcome any suggestion.

Thanks for all replies.

Update 1
- Project is for one of my customers, therefore I don't "call the shots" on most things.
- There is no time, nor budget to write a completely custom system, nor the resources to maintain it once it's up and running.
- I managed to write off most of the required customisations, as they would not be mission-critical. Two of them are still required, though:
- Import data from external systems. Interfacing with an internal system to import products. I'd have to write an interface to import the data into the ecommerce on a regular basis. This functionality must be available on the ecommerce Admin Dashboard, as they may have to upload files manually from time to time, therefore I need to be able to plug it in the framework. I therefore need such framework to be easy to extend, as I don't want to start hacking it, or bypassing it and writing straight into the database.
- "Publish basket" function for Sales Agents. Agents will need a way to prepare and "publish" a shopping basket. Such "public basket" will then be picked by customers, who will get the products in their own basket. Commission will be awarded to the Agents if customer will buy all the products that were in the original "public" basket.

Example
- Agent prepares a basket with Prod1, Prod2 and Prod3 (quantity 1 for all).
- Agent publishes a link to the basket.
- Customer clicks the link and sees the basket. He likes it, and "takes it" into its own basket.
- Three things can happen now:
1- Customer buys the basket straight away. Agent gets the commission calculated on the basket he prepared.
2- Customer adds stuff to the basket, in addition to the original products. Agents get the commission as in case 1.
3- Customer removes one or more of the items that were in the original basket, then he may add something else. Agent does not get a commission.

It's a fairly simple system from a logical perspective, but implementation can become difficult, depending on framework's structure and limitations.

Update 2
I'm still looking around, and I found two more frameworks:


CubeCart
OXID


Any opinions about them? Thanks.

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