Drupal for a Direct Sales company

[sparklingexpress]

I have been looking at software for building a site for a direct sales company. (and quotes have been all over the board for various premade software that is already aimed at direct sales $$$$$$$$)

Would need a backoffice (ie consultant logs in and can see mail/forum and interact with each other, download documents, perhaps see information on their sales/earnings, downline etc, have their own replicated page that is public viewed (like a facebook fan page) and likely some other functions like placing an order for their customers with paypal as a gateway all of which is hidden from the public )

meanwhile having a simple general site/pages of, who the company is for the general public that you dont need to login to see etc.

can drupal handle something like this or would it require a lot of coding and tweaking of already made stuff/modules? Just trying to guage if these super expensive already made geared towards direct sales software bundles are worth all the money they are asking for or not. Or if Drupal might be worth looking into.

[CMS Dude]

Can drupal handle something like this? No doubt.

Would it require lots of coding and tweaking? Depends on your definition of "coding and tweaking" as well as your definition of "alot."

Is it going to give you all of this functionality straight out of the box? No. You would need to have a very good understanding of the Drupal CMS and the various contributed modules out there. But if you have that understanding, then it shouldn't be too much of a chore.

As to whether or not these "out-of-the-box" solutions are worth it? I would say the time you might save in development could be worth untold thousands -- if they do, indeed, give you everything you need, right off the bat. On the other hand ... if your "ready made" solution doesn't offer all of the things you need, and you find yourself having to customize and roll some of your own functionality ... then you may have just negated most of those time-saving benefits you derived.

Generally, stuff that is that customized and tailored for a specific purpose ... tends to be the least flexible; it will do one thing really well, but don't ask it to do anything else. This is just a general rule, of course, not to be taken as gospel (it would more than likely vary by situation). On the other hand ... something like Drupal will give you the opposite quandry. It can be made to do just about anything you want it to do, but the learning curve of working with it is very steep, and your biggest financial investment is in the form of time (assuming time=money).

[sparklingexpress]

Oh im sure these out of the box solutions wont do everything i want them to do ( i know they wont) which is another reason why im looking at drupal. If i have to end up paying someone to code anyhow might as well have exactly what i am looking for versus altering and tweaking an expensive out of the box solution that might not ever do what i want completely. But now that i know drupal can do this..i now have a new avenue to investigate

[CMS Dude]

Oh im sure these out of the box solutions wont do everything i want them to do ( i know they wont) which is another reason why im looking at drupal. If i have to end up paying someone to code anyhow might as well have exactly what i am looking for versus altering and tweaking an expensive out of the box solution that might not ever do what i want completely. But now that i know drupal can do this..i now have a new avenue to investigate

Being very particular about what you want is going to be expensive, no matter how you look at it. And it's generally that last 1% of the way there that winds up being the most challenging. Life is cheap for those who are easy to please.

[oddz]

Can drupal handle something like this? No doubt.

Would it require lots of coding and tweaking? Depends on your definition of "coding and tweaking" as well as your definition of "alot."

Is it going to give you all of this functionality straight out of the box? No. You would need to have a very good understanding of the Drupal CMS and the various contributed modules out there. But if you have that understanding, then it shouldn't be too much of a chore.

As to whether or not these "out-of-the-box" solutions are worth it? I would say the time you might save in development could be worth untold thousands -- if they do, indeed, give you everything you need, right off the bat. On the other hand ... if your "ready made" solution doesn't offer all of the things you need, and you find yourself having to customize and roll some of your own functionality ... then you may have just negated most of those time-saving benefits you derived.

Generally, stuff that is that customized and tailored for a specific purpose ... tends to be the least flexible; it will do one thing really well, but don't ask it to do anything else. This is just a general rule, of course, not to be taken as gospel (it would more than likely vary by situation). On the other hand ... something like Drupal will give you the opposite quandry. It can be made to do just about anything you want it to do, but the learning curve of working with it is very steep, and your biggest financial investment is in the form of time (assuming time=money).

Completely agree. Without knowing all the details – especially what these other systems fail to provide it is hard to say.

None the less, you are not talking a simple site. You are talking a medium to large scale web application from the sounds of it. Any generic CMS is going to require considerable customization. That might not be so true with something specific to the business goals at hand. Which might make it worth every penny, not to mention support.