A common complaint with all e-commerce systems is that they are difficult to customise for everyone except the authors. I wanted to use a Python based based system for the long term productivity benefits. I looked at Satchmo. Satchmo is impressive and does work but I found myself stressed out as hell trying to find where to even start to make customisations I wanted.
The well known e-commerce apps largely restrict themselves to a store- front retail model where an anonymous customer purchases a small amount of goods that next to know detailed information is provided about. This does not suit my model. None of the small sample apps that portray themselves as e-commerce apps have even the remotest conception of what a real e-commerce app is that ties in stock levels, volume discounts, customer account histories/payment records and detailed product information (where necessary). I went for building a clean system using Web2py and now have a web site, http://www.zgus.com, that I can easily modify without getting stressed about. It was very stressful at first since I knew exactly what I wanted but I had to learn the skills necessary to build the infrastructure and to implement the site 'on the job' (after a ten year gap). When I have now is a site that is ready to go when I have mature products to sell that are still under development. I reckon I can further customise my own system in less time it would take to find a customisation option of another system and then edit it do what I really want. Whatever approach you take be prepared to take far more time that you anticipate you will require at first. Assuming you are adept at building web sites without a database driven back-end, if you build your own database driven site it helps to spend time to get a really good grip on Python, on Web2py and to have a good grip on database techniques. Otherwise you will not get the best use out of using Web2py. With regard to getting a grip on Python, if I did not understand precisely what a Python statement was doing I spent time hunting down the answer and trying out examples. Python is sufficiently different from other languages that it can be like learning a first language again instead of just learning a different syntax. For example treating everything as a pointer to an object and the flexibility this allows can be difficult to adapt to at first when coming from an environment where pointers to objects are regarded as undesirable evils and maybe hidden (such as with references in C++ passed as function parameters). I hope this helps. John Heenan On Feb 9, 5:22 am, snfctech <tschm...@sacfoodcoop.com> wrote: > I need to build an order-entry and tracking system for a Food Co-op. > I was excited about using Python/web2py, but I'm struggling with the > fact that existing e-commerce systems seem to have about 70% of the > functionality I need. I don't need stuff like shipping addresses, > postal prices and online features like a payment gateway - at least > initially. And I think I will need to do a lot of customization - > complicated discounts for products and members, a store->producer > order/tracking flow (in addition to customer->store), printing > invoices with line-item UPCs that can be printed and brought to a > register for payment, and so on. But all the rest of it is already > there - product catalog, customer_to_order relations, order status/ > tracking, (some) notifications, etc. > > My concern is that the 30% customization on the existing system will > be more of a headache than building a clean system from scratch with > nothing I don't need. Or is it silly to build a system that is 70% > wheel-reinventing? Should I try to work with an existing project like > Django/Satchmo and save my web2py project for something more unique? > > Thanks in advance for any tips. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "web2py-users" group. To post to this group, send email to web...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to web2py+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/web2py?hl=en.
