What is the best solution for a blog with e-commerce?

Question

Hi!

While there are loads of Joomla vs Wordpress posts out there, none address which is best suited to a blog with an attached online store.

I anticipate having about 40 or so articles and want the full set of blogging features- tags, comments, talkback, sharing options, SEO functionality, support for ads etc. The online store will come later.

I'll be the only contributor but I want to keep extensibility in mind with respect to multiple contributors, possible social network integration, and expanded categories of content down the line.

I'm a developer with a lot of experience with C# and SQL Server but very little with web development, mostly in ASP.NET and basic HTML/CSS. I'm keen on learning as much as I can but don't want to reinvent the wheel or put the project on hold as I get up the learning curve.

I have concerns with both Joomla and Wordpress. Joomla seems like the most extensible option but but all of the articles on blogging with Joomla I've read complain of shortcomings I'd rather not trade off.

Wordpress on the other hand seems ideal for the blog aspect of the project, but a lot of people on this site recommend avoiding it for much more than that, including e-commerce.

I really don't want to hack together a hybrid.

Advice is much appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

can you tell us what features do u expect from the e commerce script as far as payment methods/shipping methods goes

Answer 2

Wordpress is a great plataform to extend and create a full-blown CMS solution. It's easy, the admin is more user-friendly than most CMS and with it's plugin ecosystem you have from Google Analytics to e-commerce plugins. I agree that Wordpress code isn't perfect, so judge for yourself is this is an impediment factor. Using plugins like flutter, WP-Ecommerce and such, you can have a great website.

...but we can't decide for you. Just because you can do, doesn't mean you should. So, my 0.2c:

• If your articles are the most important thing of your website and a store is going to be just a part of your website later, Wordpress or even Joomla is an interesting approach.
• If e-commerce is going to be the most important aspect from your website, I would try a hybrid approach: install a Wordpress and second e-commerce solution instead of a plugin (like PrestaShop or Magento). Remember: Magento is indeed powerful and a great solution, but it's complex to customize, so beware.

And welcome to SO!

Answer 3

You could take a look at Joomla and maybe use http://getk2.org/ for your blogging. With regards to the shopping cart, you can use something like http://redcomponent.com/redshop, or maybe do somethin glaong the lines of http://blog.oneduality.com/2009/09/22/shopping-cart-made-from-joomla-k2-simple-caddy-and-a-csv-import/

Answer 4

Hi, Joomla and Wordpress are great CMS solutions, but if you want to have available the thousand Joomla extensions including extensions for creating an online store and still to have the Wordpress blogging features the compromise is CorePHP's extension - "WordPress Integration for Joomla 1.5" http://goo.gl/zTM4

Answer 5

I've really got to get my reputation up so that I can comment directly on answers.

Two particular posters made great points. John Conde made a tremendous point - if you want the best of both worlds, why not try using two totally separate systems? If you have Wordpress for blogging and a dedicated shopping cart for the cart, you will have a really tremendous site (provided that the cart you choose lets you use custom templates).

As far as making the two systems seamless, sadly, that depends more upon you than upon the systems themselves. If you are good with CSS/(X)HTML, you will be able to get the templates completely clean. But, you will have to figure out whether you want people to be able to use the login to comment on your blog entries that they can use to shop on your site.

Finally, user295971 asked a wonderful question and I encourage you to do some research now. If you don't do the research before you decide on a cart, you could run into a problem where the cart and your payment processor/shipping provider do not play well together. Worst case scenario, you could end up having to build your own payment/shipping modules (so that your cart and your payment/shipping providers can talk). Best case scenario, if you do some homework before, you can select a cart that provides easy, install and go support for your payment/shipping providers!

Best of luck with your site!