One site made with a shopping cart (ex : all made inside Magento)
One site made with a CMS + Cart (ex: Wordpress + shopping cart plugin)
Two sites, one for info and viewing item, a second one for buying.
I am starting to wonder which of these 3 is better ?
Lately I am starting to like the idea #3, where I would create a standard website with info on the company plus all the usual medias and stuff, and pages to show the products. Then have another plateform on a subdomain where the selling get done. Will it be better? I guess it would allow to change the selling part someday easier, like moving for Shoppify if needed or something like taht ?
If you are willing to pay a bit (around $300), you will find ExpressionEngine a much nicer CMS to work with.
As for external shopping carts (that can appear to integrate seamlessly with your site), one good one is FoxyCart. But really, there are lots out there.
I personally feel that Drupal is the more powerful of the three (Joomla & WP). Having worked with sites in all three CMS systems, I would say Drupal best, WP second (esp once all the plugins get ported to 3) and Joomla last.
One site made with a shopping cart along side CMS is the best possible option in accordance to my point of view. But, then again it predominantly depends on the content’s structure.
It really depends on the structure of your content, and which part is more important - general or shopping information. First of all, I’d recommend outlining the list of site sections and choosing a solution basing on this criteria. It also depends on whether you have an existing site already.
It might depend on the nature of the site, but I would go for #1 or #2. Although all I tend to offer is a link to something like FoxyCart of Shopify, as I don’t like to host cart software myself (only because it is a big responsibility and learning curve).
I think #2 is the right choice for your situation, because you will have a lot of other content not only products. Wordpress is very popular and powerful platform and I’m sure you will find a lot of plugins for the videos, photo gallery and etc. for free.
It is always better to take specialized applications. Moreover, you must assess which one is a priority for you - the informational website or the online store?
Once you are sure about your product/service/capability - go ahead and act accordingly.
I personally prefer separating major products. E-commerce is an entire world of its own and entire products surround that world (OpenCart, Prestashop, Zen Cart, Shopify, Froogle, etc). Figure out the e-commerce solution FIRST. It not only needs to meet your client’s needs today but also tomorrow - once you pick the e-commerce platform, I’ve personally found that it is VERY difficult to switch away to something else, so choose wisely. If the e-commerce system is separate from the main site, it makes it easier to change the website later even if the e-commerce system stays the same forever.
The only real issue I’ve found is disparate login systems. The main site has a login system but the e-commerce solution also has a login system. Getting the two to play nice together isn’t always possible. The more popular an e-commerce solution is, the more likely it is that someone has already figured out how to make it talk to other open source products.
As to a CMS for the non-ecommerce parts, WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are definitely the most popular. I just released my own product called Barebones CMS 1.0 last week:
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A few people here on SitePoint have found Barebones CMS to be “interesting”. Not sure if that is a good or a bad thing yet. As an open source product, it definitely has potential. I’m already using it myself and have some friends who are going to try it out with a few clients who want smaller websites built.
Use the right tool for the job though. Each CMS has its strengths and weaknesses.