I’ve created a website for my girlfriend’s lingerie company using Opencart, and being completely honest the look and feel of the site needs a huge overhaul.
We’ve both spent a considerable amount of time looking at themes for Opencart but couldn’t find anything suitable (she shortlisted 6 themes, along with pages of notes, but isn’t particularly happy with any of them) but then stumbled across this Magento theme which she absolutely loves.
I’m basically wondering if we should move the site to Magento, or if I should try to re-create something with a similar look in Opencart? Opencart certainly hasn’t been perfect for us (in particular we’ve had a lot of email configuration problems, that still won’t let us send HTML emails) but on the whole I’ve been happy with it, and the performance is great.
Would really appreciate any thoughts on this, since moving to Magento would be a huge commitment and not one we could easily backtrack on at a later date
Sounds like moving to another CMS is a big operation, so personally, I’d be looking at a reskin, as CSS is easier to work with (at least for me).
If you do want to move, though, what other options have you looked at? Admittedly, I haven’t done an ecommerce site, but if I were to, I’d seriously consider either going with something like Shopify, or, if I wanted to host the site myself, I’d go for ExpressionEngine with an add-on like CartThrob. Just my 2c.
Its limitation is that it only works with the CMS I mentioned, but it’s a great CMS, all the same, so worth looking into. EE has a number of such add-ons, such as Store, so it’s worth checking them all out before deciding which is right for you.
There are so many options out there that I don’t envy you having to choose something. If you use a particular website CMS in the normal run of things, it’s easier to make a choice, as you can just go with something that works with your CMS. WordPress has several as well.
Then again, if the site is mainly an ecommerce site, there’s reason to stick with the sort of dedicated ecommerce CMS that you are already using.
Thanks ralph… it is going to just be an ecommerce site (plus a blog that is already in Wordpress) so it is tempting to stick with a dedicated CMS like you said Thanks again
OpenCart is a lot easier to use and maintain than Magento in my opinion. Opencart vs Magento - I would stay with the first.
Since you already use WordPress, did you consider some of its shopping cart plugins? Woocommerce is a popular one, and it shouldn’t be a problem to find suitable WordPress theme.
Also, if you could find decent theme for Joomla there is a shopping cart component for it called MijoShop, which is based on OpenCart. It’s compatible with all OpenCart extensions so transfer would be easy.
Hopefully Ralph chose Magento for it’s scalability and open source power. Also don’t forget to mention the huge developer network and plugins to trick it out. You also can’t beat the cost at FREE for Community, but you do need a development team that knows their way around the platform <snip/>
Magento will be good choice for you but for quick process it will not be a good option as migration requires time and developers effort. You may find many bugs and issues later.
And if its ok for you to launch the website with new magento theme then you may migrate your site from opencart to magento.
I like opencart bcoz it’s fantastic performance, coding is simple, using MVC architecture , bug free but for magento you need to have good hands in php otherwise it would become nightmare for you.
