I’m looking into redesigning my website, I’ve looked at Xoops, Mambo, Joomla, SimplePHP, PHPShop and currently playing with ZenCart - which seems like overkill. Some of these are content mgt and the Ecommerce stuff seems mostly for stores that stock things. It does quite work for a whistlemaker since I make things to order.
Any suggestions?
It seems like a topic folks ought to have thoughts on. Therefore, I’m moving it toward the top of the page.
Very well, dear Walden
I’d think that finding a prepackaged e-commerce solution that supported sales for a manufacturing company, if available, would not be cost effective for a smaller business.
You’d probably have to buy servers and hire a geek to baby sit the beast also.
FWIW the only ones that I’ve seen were done by major corporations with huge IT staff. If you have already invested in manufacturing software and have all of the costing, piecing, etc. in a relational data base to ease the selection of parts to create a product it would ease the decision logic in walking the customer through the selection process.
The Chinese menu approach, while simpler, is still a bit of work.
I bought a Harpmaker dulcimer recently. It appears he has something custom made on his site where there’s a form with all the customization options to select and in the end, when the form actually submits, it’s really just an email that he receives and he contacts you with information about where to send the check plus answers any other questions.
At least that’s how it worked when I used it. I think the software was having a bad day.
Even though I come from the high-tech world, I think I preferred the email and send a check method for something as personal as a handmade musical instrument. I don’t think anything more complicated is needed unless you need to accept credit cards or something fancy like that.
So, if that seems like a viable option for you, all you need is to hire a geek for a day to prepare you a form that has all the options, adequate error-checking and that sends you an email. Make sure the geek you hire can make the email form secure so your site doesn’t become a spam relay or something like that.
If harpmaker ever gets his rear in gear, he’s got a new website “waiting”… 
Daniel, my husband Tom does Dave’s site, along with quite a few others, one that is an internet music store. If you click on the “Tom’s websites” link on ours, you’ll see some of them. If you click on the “Contact us” link at the top of the page, you’ll see a similar interactive page that sbfluter is talking about.
And since we’re in Cincinnati, it wouldn’t be too hard to do the logistics.
Feel free to contact him if you are interested.