Interesting discussion. Whilst I agree that certain elements of Magento are extremely frustrating (resource hog, frustrating file structures/hierachy), the upside is well and truly worth the effort.
I am a developer, but also come from an SME sized retailer background (I'm still involved in our family businesses). We have our magento sites integrated with a cloud accounting app for live multi-channel inventory control (easy), ebay store integration, google shopping feed integration, market segmentation/targeted marketing and more. None of this was insanely hard, nor was it perfectly easy. However, trying to achieve this with another open source platform was just out of the question.
I understand the frustration re: extensions of poor quality and/or extensions that you have to pay for up front. As a business owner though, I simply look for extensions from reputable providers, with a solid support track record. Paying for extensions from said providers is absolutely a non-issue.
I guess our point of view is slightly different, in that I am both a retail business owner/manager, but also a developer and as such, view things slightly more real world, than pure technical/coder minded. The learning curve was steep, but rather than saying goodbye to Magento, I'm actually going the other way and simply diving in deeper.
Hi Guys,
Interesting discussion. Whilst I agree that certain elements of Magento are extremely frustrating (resource hog, frustrating file structures/hierachy), the upside is well and truly worth the effort.
I am a developer, but also come from an SME sized retailer background (I'm still involved in our family businesses). We have our magento sites integrated with a cloud accounting app for live multi-channel inventory control (easy), ebay store integration, google shopping feed integration, market segmentation/targeted marketing and more. None of this was insanely hard, nor was it perfectly easy. However, trying to achieve this with another open source platform was just out of the question.
I understand the frustration re: extensions of poor quality and/or extensions that you have to pay for up front. As a business owner though, I simply look for extensions from reputable providers, with a solid support track record. Paying for extensions from said providers is absolutely a non-issue.
I guess our point of view is slightly different, in that I am both a retail business owner/manager, but also a developer and as such, view things slightly more real world, than pure technical/coder minded. The learning curve was steep, but rather than saying goodbye to Magento, I'm actually going the other way and simply diving in deeper.