Open Source E-Commerce Holy Grail Quest
December 10, 2008 (40 Responses)
I’VE BEEN on a long running quest for the Open Source e-commerce holy grail: Multi Store, Multi Vendor functionality, and now it seems many others have joined the quest too.
One of the most popular items on my website in recent years has been an article entitled The elusive Opensource E-Commerce Holy Grail: Multi-Site, Multi-Store, which is probably worth a read if you’re in the market for an open source e-commerce solution and trying to decide which one is for you. The comment trail alone makes for great reading as quite a few contributors have included their opinions and thoughts about various products.
Given that the article was written back in 2007 I decided it might be time for an update, and also because so many other (new) products and potential solutions have been mentioned in the comment trail I think it’s a good time to widen the scope of the article as well.
So here is what I’ve decided to do. I’m going to build up a functionality matrix – in other words desired functionality in the perfect solution – and then contact all of the product developers in the list for a view on what their solutions are currently capable of doing, as well as what future enhancements they have planned. Depending on the response I’ll publish each item in isolation as well as the full updated list – hell I may even dedicate an area of the website to it.
So – if you’re interested in participating in this quest, or if you just have some specific functional requirements that you believe should be included in the review – then please get in touch with me and let me know. Alternatively if you can think of any product or solution that you wish included in the scope of my reviews – just let me know that too. Keep in mind the functional list I’m looking for is not what’s available today, or what bog-standard e-commerce solutions can deliver, it’s quite opposite actually. I’m looking for that list of functionality that we can’t get today and therefore are hoping for in an upcoming or in-development solution, or at the very least if it’s possible to get this functionality included in the developer roadmap for any product it would suffice. I’ll try all the angles.
You can either leave comments here on this article or contact me seperately. Either way I’ll publish a consolidated list and then go do the reviews of the various products out there on the market to see what the state of play us now days, almost 18 months since the original article. I will try to make this as thorough as possible, utilising a common approach to all vendors and their solutions and grading/marking them appropriately.
It might also help to let potential developers out there know just how many people are waiting on this type of functionality, so feel free to link back to this or any other related articles on my website and publish your own thoughts on the subject matter. Hell – maybe we should start up a petition site 
[...] post: Open Source E-Commerce Holy Grail Quest | Avalon5 Posted under Uncategorized by admin on Wednesday 10 December 2008 at 1:20 [...]
I’m in, doing the research and will contribute with my updates.
liz
Have so fact contacted:
- Etsy.com
- GetShopped.com
- OSCommerce
- Joomla
- VirtueMart
Will attempt to contact the main players first and then the niche vendors to see if there has been any progress, or if any functionality like this is planned.
No response from anyone yet; will continue to pursue the list above before moving to the smaller outfits.
See response below from VirtueMart developer (Soren Eberhardt-Biermann):-
“The VirtueMart Project knows this topic for a long time. Although basics of
a multi-vendor system are already implemented, it’s not usable currently.
VirtueMart 1.2 (which is to be out in Feb 2009) will support multiple
vendors. Each vendor will be able to manage his own products and
categories. It won’t be possible to have a separate store for each vendor.
All products will be in one and the same store.
ciao, Sören”
I’ve followed up looking for more details to specific questions so we’ll see what they come back with, but so far Soren is the only one to respond. Then again I suppose it is the silly season so this might stretch into the new year. Anyway – will keep trying…
Hey Coyote …
I’m on talks with Viart.com and they seem to be responding well to my queries … but since you are the lead in this discussion … i would highly appreciate if you could talk to them and check on the possibility of it fitting out needs.
On a second thought … as there are many of us looking for the same solution … is it possible for us to share the cost and have some of these players customize as to our standard need. Just a thought !!
Coyote … I look forward to your comments on each of the leading players so we all do not waste time individually evaluating them.
Regards >> Ketan
Ketan,
I’m sad to say that I’ve only had one response so far and even then I followed up with more questions and have yet to get a second reply. I emailed all of the vendors on that list above but the only one that responded was VirtueMart, but even they have gone quiet again.
I like the idea of pooling our resources and actually ‘getting the functionality developed’ by sharing the cost. Perhaps a more appropriate mechanism for this would be open a forum debate on the required functionality, build concensus on a list of requirements and then approach the vendors for costed effort proposal to deliver on the requirement… hmm.. I do happen to have some forums on Avalon5 that could be used
As for your conversations with Viart – take them as far as you can and if there is any way I can help just let me know. I think I’ll go look at my forums now and create a few new ones
Please see the following post (link below) for information on the creation of forums specific to this topic which I hope will help advance the discussions in a more efficient and user frieldly way.
http://www.avalon5.com/science-and-technology/technology/multi-vendor-multi-store-e-commerce-forums-now-open/
tried this?
http://drupal.org/project/ubercart_marketplace
I think a lot of the examples that are being given are great, but I would really like if these were download-able, and self-hosted versus a hosting contract.
I would love to get my hands on a system like foxycart.com but its not likely to happen.As it stands, Magento is the best commerce solution out there.Thanks for the update.
Keep on with this plan, don’t give up, I am very interested in your finds.
Does anyone know if there are OS systems similar to http://www.congocart.com or http://www.hyenacart.com as these are the type of system I am interested in.
I am just not sure if I am searching in the right places to find OS systems.
Great threads and I have signed in for updates.
Missing from the discussion for me so far are the ideas of “vendor trust” and “vendor development”.
My consulting is an after hours thing and I run across a high number of small craftspeople who could benefit from a site but have no idea of the complications that can hit them when they go “web live”. At the same time, there are numerous individuals out there who want me to do vendor sites for them that I wouldn’t trust to hold a scrap of bread let alone affiliate with in terms of any code development efforts I would do.
Given that I want to allow vendors to sign up to be a part of any online mall I create, how do we create a trusted environment other than with the ratings systems that essentially duplicate Amazon/Ebay et. al. It seems to me that software that doesn’t disallow shysters on either end of the sales transaction from wrecking a mall is not complete.
Thoughts?
I have used ZenCart and Virtuemart in the past and find them both easily customizable and quick to set up. The respective open source forums are very helpful and documentation is relatively straight forward and to the point.
“I have used ZenCart”
I have used it too and is really easy and quick to set-up, recommended!
Another vote for Virtuemart. Works rather well and comes bundled with a nice open source application. The support site is pretty good, though sometimes you can wait days for an answer if you post a problem.
We have some experience with zencart on past websites. We were able to set it up pretty quickly but the admin interface can be confusing with the abundance of options and have to dig into folders and directories of back end links.
I have used OS commerce in the past and it has done what i need to do…zen cart is also pretty much what the user above mentioned…can do what you need it to do but you have to really dig to get everything you want just right.
Maybe there can be a federation or some kind of an organization acting like an umbrella organization that can work on and procure customized products which can be shared by benefiting firms or individuals…?
thanks you very much
I wouldn’t trust to hold a scrap of bread let alone affiliate with in terms of any code development efforts I would do.
From my lessons learnt with Zen, if you are working on a new shopping cart, may I suggest that you:
1) Add simple WordPress integration – so many clients want it, but it’s always awkward.
2) Get a designer to sort out the backend – Zen Cart is incredibly ugly. The demo store actually puts people off, even though the technical end of it is impressive.
3) When the sites are set up, make everything to run the store WYSIWYG – most shops are run by people who don’t even know basic html.
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Do you think the new scrip agr iya has builded is something closer to what you are hoping for? NO i dont work for them, saw it couple of days ago and then crashed your articles here about the “holy grail”. Any other software you have discovered lately maybe?
Very good post. Made me realize I was totally wrong about this issue. I figure that one learns something new everyday. Mrs Right learned her lesson! Nice, informative website by the way.
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