Comments on: WordPress or Magento: The Fringe Benefits of Working as a Web Designer

By: Johan

Johan — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 06:08:11 +0000

Hi Alec

Thanks. That’s what I expected you to tell me ;-)

But it does not make my task easier yet. I need to motivate this to our board and I have nothing but my own bias towards wordpress. And some impressive growth figurs for Magento vs oscommerce (nothing like this for wordpress as there’s no common category to compare) http://blog.templatemonster.com/2010/04/12/magento-beats-oscommerce-comparison-research/

By: alec

alec — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:13:16 +0000

Hi Johan,

I can’t see any reason why WordPress couldn’t run the largest possible deal site. Probably lighter weight than any Magento configuration at scale, when coded properly.

Changing the look and adding new features will certainly be easier.

Making the web work for you, Alec

By: Johan

Johan — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:41:56 +0000

Hi Alec

I am specing a site Private Sales or Flash Sales site where will have plus 100 000 members. We need a lot of customisation, fast cart given that 1% may buy at the time any deal open. I have come across al the work being done via Magneto Entreprise at $12000 per year. (The cost is not the issue). I have also done research on http://groupbuyingsite.com They have a well recommended wordpress theme & plugins.

Personally I prefer wordpress as I am very familiar with it.

My question; stated negatively: Is there a point where wordpress will not do the job?

Have fun and thanks for the article and your responses to the questions.

Johan

By: alec

alec — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:08:59 +0000

Magento is useless is a pretty harsh statement. For a large enough shop with very specific shipping and tax issues, Magento can provide a comprehensive solution. For most shops, Magento is serious overkill though.

By: Phoe

Phoe — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:30:38 +0000

JiGoShop is the new kid on the block, and fixes a lot of woes with Wp-ecommerce.

Also, WP-ecomm is itself now quite new.

Magento is useless.

By: alec

alec — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:35:21 +0000

By now, I would think so. If not, you can write your own payment integration script, or we could write it for you (as a paid engagement of course).

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:00:28 +0000

I’m about to start selling freeze dried food on my wordpress site, but I don’t want to use paypal for merchanting. Does Market Theme integrate with any other payment processors?

By: Vancouver Rich

Vancouver Rich — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 22:35:00 +0000

I’m with Alec. WordPress can be a powerful platform. No, it still can’t do everything Magneto can do, but it’s far easier to implement and more plugins are being developed all the time.

By: alan

alan — Mon, 03 May 2010 02:34:37 +0000

Magneto is too big and too slow.

Also I don’t like the admin.

You can build the same e-commerce site with WordPress and have it run fast.

By: alec

alec — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:14:11 +0000

Hi Chlorella,

If you think about how themes work, they are made up of templates. You can have any number of templates within a theme. So effectively for a shopping site, there is no different between a theme and a template. When it’s a theme, the shortcodes are already built-in. It really just saves you the hassle of trying to build the shopping cart section of the theme yourself.

It doesn’t make sense at first glance, but if you think more deeply about what a shopping cart is, it will.

Hi Tai,

Glad to hear you found a solution which worked. I agree, a year ago the state of Ecommerce on WordPress was dire, largely because of the presence of a prominent but awful solution in the market, WP Ecommerce.

When developer realised just how awful WP Ecommerce is as a plugin (tax is just one of its problems) and started some alternative solutions, the WordPress shopping cart ecosphere is very healthy now.

Totally agree about Magento overkill. Not suitable for organisations without dedicated IT departments.