[Phpwm] Off the shelf shopping cart software vs roll-your-own

[Bronwen Reid]

  A general, not very php question here.  When building a site for a 
client, I'd always rather roll my own shopping cart software than work 
with an off-the-shelf product, whether open-source or commercial.

I've found that off-the-shelf is fine provided you want to do exactly 
what it says on the tin and build a perfectly generic site - no monkey 
business, no deviating from the norm.  And then if you want anything 
extra - vouchers, partial VAT, affiliate tracking, stock management, 
product options, upload images, changes to site searching or navigation 
- this is where the fun starts.  It also seems to be where all the 
companies who are selling shopping cart packages for $45 make their 
money - you're using their product and now you want an extra features 
... pay up buster.

But is there anyone here who uses off-the-shelf and likes it ?

By the way, I don't mean the small "just setting up a webshop to sell 
funky earrings" people, but regular companies who are setting up or 
expanding their e-commerce business.

-- 
Bronwen Reid, Web Development, www.bronwenreid.com