Rather than building proprietary e-commerce systems that cost a fortune, the LWEBG team made the decision to focus on Content Management Systems with strong e-commerce components. Back in the days when Wordpress was about the only open source CMS we tinkered around with WP e-commerce and we weren't enamoured by the limitations we found.
Magento missed the mark
So we gave Magento a test and we liked it enough that we started recommending it to clients. We were pleased at first with the results but the more we used it the more Magento's limitations began to bother us. We found Magento to be cumbersome. The bottom line was that Magento was really an e-commerce program that tries to be a Content Management System and it doesn't do a very good job in that capacity. You can add and edit pages, but it isn't very easy to use by customers and that's where the rubber meets the road. In order to be effective, customers have to enjoy using the CMS. Customers enjoy using Drupal and Wordpress. They don't enjoy using Magento.
Shortly after they were bought out by Ebay, the Magento people launched this thing with mobile that I really didn't like. They would build mobile sites for you - for a (high) price - and you have to pay that (high) price and then you have to pay a (high) monthly fee in addition. Not cool.
But the worst part about Magento is that routine version updates required that the site had to be virtually rebuilt from scratch when you do an upgrade. Expensive for clients, a hassle for developers - a situation in which nobody wins.
And then we tried Drupal Commerce
Compared to Magento, Drupal Commerce is a E-commerce developer's dream come true. And a client's dream come true as well. The Commerce Guys' lead developer Ryan Szrama, a Louisville native, did a masterful job of upgrading Ubercart to Drupal Commerce and in doing so, Ryan transitioned a rather average e-commerce platform (Ubercart) into an extraordinary one (Drupal Commerce).
Drupal Commerce is used to build E-commerce websites and applications of all sizes. At its core it is lean and mean, enforcing strict development standards and leveraging the greatest features of Drupal 7 and major modules like Views and Rules for maximum flexibility.
Whereas E-commerce solutions are often developed with an application mindset, highlighting what you can do with it out of the box, Drupal Commerce was developed with a frameworkmindset, focusing on what you can build with it. The core Commerce systems make no hard-coded assumptions about your business model, privileging developers and site builders at the core level to build custom E-commerce solutions to suit.
Core Features
- Create product types with custom attributes
- Dynamic product displays
- Order management, line item
- Payment method API, allowing many different payment gateways
- Tax calculation / VAT support
- Discount pricing rules
- Deep integration with systems like D7's Fields, Views, Rules and Entity API.
Additional functionality is provided through contributed modules, such as Shipping, Stock,Coupons, File downloads, PayPal, and many more...
The bottom line? No CMS is as stable, scalable, flexible and secure as Drupal 7 and Drupal Commerce. If you're looking to update an existing website or create a new website altogether, contact Louisville Web Group right away!
