CI as a framework for e-Commerce site

[eluser]Interact Marketing[/eluser]
Currently I have site running on Magento 1.4.4 but it required a lot of customization by adding extensions and customizing them which overall made Magento installation a big mess. Actually I have hit a wall where I can't upgrade extensions because of those customizations, some functionality requests are not possible to achieve within Magento (developers community is pretty weak), etc. After that owner of that store decided to go for something custom.

I have done two custom sites based on CI and EE2 but both are not e-commerce dedicated. Are there any devs which was working with CI (maybe CI+EE2) as a framework for e-commerce site? Any suggestions, pros and cons?

Thanks

[eluser]pickupman[/eluser]
Can you create an ecommerce site using CI? Yes. However, depending on your clients needs it may be cost and time prohibitive to do so. I have done a simple cart for a client that sells framed work created by images of letters. They had very basic requirements (flat fee shipping, single location, flat rate pricing). It works very well. What makes Magento, osCommerce, openCart, zencart, Woocommerce or any other ecommerce platform difficult at times, is that they are a one size fits all. Magento is very powerful, but is an absolute pain to learn and test on. openCart has a very similar structure as CI with its MVC structure and naming conventions. It comes with a lot of similar features as Magento, but the codebase is much smaller.

I hadn't intended for this to be a plug for openCart, however, a ecommerce platform can be a lot of code depending on the requirements (products, shipping quotes, checkout routine, payment handeling, and etc). Coding all of those pieces can take a lot time if needed by the client. I usually look at all the needs of the client, and assess what platform I uses will meet their needs the best.

[eluser]Interact Marketing[/eluser]
I was digging deeper regarding CI and e-commerce, but found that most of them was done using EE2 with addons like Foxee (http://www.hccdevelopment.com/Web-Based-...uct/foxee/), BrillaintRetail (http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/brilliantretail), Expresso (https://exp-resso.com/), CartThorb (http://cartthrob.com/) or just using EE2 and Simple Commerce module.

I think in that case I will go with my concerns to EE2 forum.

[eluser]LeMec[/eluser]
Check this one out. It is codeigniter based: http://gocartdv.com/

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
[quote author="LeMec" date="1383645023"]Check this one out. It is codeigniter based: http://gocartdv.com/[/quote]

Thank you

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
[quote author="Interact Marketing" date="1383251424"]Currently I have site running on Magento 1.4.4 but it required a lot of customization by adding extensions and customizing them which overall made Magento installation a big mess. Actually I have hit a wall where I can't upgrade extensions because of those customizations, some functionality requests are not possible to achieve within Magento (developers community is pretty weak), etc. After that owner of that store decided to go for something custom.

I have done two custom sites based on CI and EE2 but both are not e-commerce dedicated. Are there any devs which was working with CI (maybe CI+EE2) as a framework for e-commerce site? Any suggestions, pros and cons?

Thanks[/quote]

My friend recently got his site built form Ariestco. The eCommerce solutions of are quite satisfying. You should check them and get a brief idea. The best part was they are relatively cheaper.

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
For e commerce websites your need to choose a platform which is ease to access for the customers as it consists of processes like shipping quotes, checkout routine, payment handling and lot more.