Magento Commerce
I am currently using Virtuemart on Joomla Platform for my e-commerce site. I love it, in the sense that it is very flexible, and modular. But there are a lot of functions missing which I would love.
So last night, I went to research on the other free, open source, e-commerce shopping software around. Basically, it is still the few players around, and it just re-determined my initial decision on why I chose Virtuemart out of the rest. True, osCommerce might have the loads of functions which I would love to use, but if you want to customize it, it will be a chore. Especially the theme. Considering the fact that I personally believe that visual is very important, that is one software that is out for me. (Just look through their collection of live shops to know what I mean, all look the same)
The others, almost similar.  (If you are interested, there are ZenCart and Cubecart)
But there is this new e-commerce shopping software that is coming up. In fact, the marketing for it is ferocious.
 We’re proud to announce Magento, the all new open source enterprise-level eCommerce platform that’s going to change the industry. This revolutionary new system will bring the power and security of an enterprise solution without the hassle and cost.
Basically, it states that it would change the way the ecommerce industry will proceed.
And best of it all, it is open source.
Ok, if you are clueless what open source means, simply put, it is free, support by volunteers and community that helps to develop the software. They would not charge you for using their software, but they will appreciate the donation.
Anyway, the marketing work, and quite a number of blogs are already singing the praises for this software, and thus I am hooked. Went to their website, viewed their demo site, tried their demo-admin backend portion. And I love it.
What do I love about it?
The ability to control pricing, promotions with rules. Which is going to be superbed for marketing for your site.
(Which I am desparately finding a solution for it for Virtuemart, I want to create a promotion for discount on 1 specific category. And there is no way for it. Either I wait for version 1.1 to come out, which will create a nightmare for me when I have to migrate my site over. Or I have to wait for mccalf’s advanced discount system to come out, which is also going to be a while as he is seriously busy with the development of 1.1 if I am not wrong. Virtuemart’s development team have been brimming with activity nowadays.)
Of course, there are loads of stuff that will make you really wish to use it, but it is really up to you to go to the site and play around with the demo yourself. No way to describe it, it’s better that you go and feel the experience yourself.
But with saying all these,  of course there are the shortfalls currently the demo version that is being released have. Which at the very least, until it is being resolved, I would not be adopting it.
There is a lot of hardcoding of html/css now for the pages of your site, maybe as their template framework have not been set up. Currently, they are still seeking help for that group.
Adding products are going to be a chore if you have let’s say, 10 colors for your tees, and 4 sizes for your tees. As you need to add a simple product for each variation first, before combining all to a single configurable product for others to just select the options.
They should take into consideration that sometimes owners just want to provide the options without tracking the inventory. Thus allowing just setting of options for a configurable product without any simple product will be good.
They do not have the resized thumbnail feature yet. You have to upload the main pic, actual pic, thumbnail pic separately, though you can do all of it in 1 page at one go.
But their attribute sets function is really good. They have the up-sell,cross-sell feautre. Grouping feature. Price rules, conditional rules. Excellent sales report, traffic tracking, currency converters. Etc. All these currently Virtuemart is lacking in some ways or another.
Now I can’t wait for 2008 to come so that they can release their production version. 
Woooo…can’t wait. osCommerce is going to be so gone if Magento is ready and fit for production. (no offence, but I really think osCommerce is difficult to use and configure)
