is magento overkill for a one-man webshop?

Question

I have been looking at magento for a while and I think I have a decent handle on how to use/customize it.

I have a client that wants a webshop , this is just a small business that sells a few products and just supports one language.

I was wondering if using magento will be an overkill for a simple webshop , in case I cant help them to make future changes tp the webshop, the people running their business might have to do it. But it looks like magento is made for people with some technical know how (lots of xml editing etc)..

So should i go for magento or a simpler solution like osCommerce or maybe even a simple custom solution. Would like to hear your opinions!

Answer 1

i looked at magento when it first came out (might be different now), it looks great, it seems to be designed to do everything for everyone, and in that sense i found it a little complex. i also found my server would not display the list of orders that had come in cause it maxed out the 16mb memory limit on that particular shared hosting account i was using. (they may have optimized it since, i don't know)

For serious use, you would need a vps server at the minimum, or pay for the hosted version

i have also done some work on oscommerce and found it not particularly straight forward either. for a small shop i would consider using something like www.shopify.com, it is cheap to try, integrates with lots of payment systems out of the box, and is about as simple as it gets.

if you want even simpler again, make a standard html page, and link it to paypal shopping cart. very cheap, very simple, easy for someone else to maintain.

Answer 2

I think this depends on what you plan to do in the future. Truly getting to know Magento represents an investment in both time and effort on your part. If you're in the business of creating e-shops then it just might be worth it. If this client doesn't want much, even better; it gives you an opportunity to get started on it without any pressure.

If on the other hand you don't really do a lot of website work, then you might be better off with a simple custom job.

It might make the decision easier for you if I list some pros and cons..

Pros:

• Mind-numbingly customizable.
• Massive amount of options in the administration panel so the customer can do things himself.
• Once you know it, you can deliver world-class solutions with relatively little work on your part.
• Growing community - lots and lots of free modules.
• Any module you make can easily be reused later on in other projects.

Cons:

• Complicated (it has to be for all it offers)
• Documentation is a joke.
• Really steep learning curve.
• Serious resource-hog.
• If you don't know something, a modification can take days instead of the hours it'd take for a custom website.

Answer 3

If you are going to use Magento out the box without any modification or very small design changes THEN and ONLY THEN I would recommend Magento for one man shop, with the condition that the one man should be a PHP developer with some OOP background.

Otherwise get more men or get other shopcart.