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by ForHackernews 4530 days ago
That's not the way the small businesses that use Magento think. They want one, all-singing all-dancing tool that does everything they could ever imagine wanting. And they never want to update it or maintain it or have to think about it.
3 comments
theseanstewart 4530 days ago
I run a web dev company and we specialize in ecommerce. What you're saying couldn't be further from the truth. Our clients want a shopping cart that can evolve with their functional needs. Magento does just that in its current form. From a marketing perspective (which we also specialize in ecommerce SEM/CRO) Magento can handle everyone of our objectives with a module. If not, we build one.

Everyone on HN gloats about Shopify. Shopify is a plain ecommerce platform with a simple to use backend that also implements these marketing functions through plugins/extensions/modules. The difference is that with Shopify your functional needs can't always be answered as they evolve.

Other self-hosted ecommerce platforms are still playing catch up with Magento. It's not a perfect solution, but it's still the best one out there.

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lsaferite 4530 days ago
I think this is a legacy from how Magento became popular. They didn't target developers, they targeted merchants and had an amazing marketing drive to get the foothold. This drove adoption from the merchant side. As a developer I would have never pushed Magento as from the early betas I was horrified at things like the EAV system.

The core platform should be one thing, and the features should all be 100% modular. If you want the all-singing all-dancing version then you could just have a config tool on the website to generate your specific bundle of core + features. Decoupling the features from the core allows the feature set so shift over time to track merchant expectations while still maintaining a solid platform to build upon.

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mgkimsal 4530 days ago
And they also want it to adapt to the changing needs of their business and the wider marketplace. Without upgrading, modifications, downtime, adjustments to how they work, or having to pay anything extra.

Did I get close? :)

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lsaferite 4530 days ago
You missed free. They expect it to be free or practically free. I mean, it's an Open Source project, why should they have to pay for anything?
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ForHackernews 4530 days ago
Don't forget they want it to always run perfectly with no downtime on bargain-basement shared hosting. Overloaded database? Don't bother me with your technobabble mumbo-jumbo!
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