Template Monster Blog

This time we are happy to present the exciting interview with eCommerce professionals – Nick Weisser and Brian Stanic. We were lucky to know these two awesome guys by their comments on our blog – you can always tell a real pro even after just a couple of words from him.

So anyways, given how awesome these eCommerce professionals are, we knew their opinions about certain things related to eCommerce industry would be really interesting for our blog audience. Below are their answers to the questions we thought are the most trendy ones these days in eCommerce. Enjoy and let us know your opinions in the comments section!

The participants are:

Nick Weisser – web architect and owner of Openstream Internet Solutions in Zürich, Switzerland. He is an osCommerce team member, official Magento community (edition) partner and, as he calls himself, an Open Source evangelist.

Brian Stanic – the founder of The Holt Partnership, a Web Site Design company based in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England. For the last twenty four years (!), he has been heavily involved in both the Accountancy and Business Software industries.

On with the interview…

1. From developer’s point of view, what’s your favorite eCommerce platform to work with and why?

• Nick Weisser Being an osCommerce team member and an official Magento Community Partner in Switzerland I like to work with both of these open source e-commerce platforms.

• Brian Stanic: osCommerce, CRE Loaded or Zen Cart. Low cost of ownership and very good support options via Add-ons and significant amount of people/organizations, able to modify code on request.

2. What eCommerce engine do you most frequently suggest to your clients?

• Nick Weisser: I recommend Magento as an enterprise class e-commerce platform and osCommerce as a solid and flexible e-commerce platform for smaller store owners and startups who have to watch their budget given the fact that Magento as a TCO (total cost of ownership) that is 2-3 times higher than that of osCommerce.

• Brian Stanic: osCommerce. Very good selection of Add-ons, good support via online community and developers, well versed in the osCommerce structure, wide range of Ready-made Templates via TemplateMonster and relatively low cost of on-going ownership.

3. Each platform has certain design restrictions and requirements. So in terms of these design restrictions, what platform do you think allows the most interesting visual solutions?

• Nick Weisser: Magento certainly has a very flexible templating engine which osCommerce v2.2 does not have out of the box. We therefore use STS (simple template system), a templating system add-on particularly designed for osCommerce which allows us to implement almost any Photoshop design.

  osCommerce v3.0 which is not yet recommended for production use also has a native templating system which will make things much easier in the future.

• Brian Stanic: Magento certainly has the best default template but this is easily overcome in other Engines, such as osCommerce and Zencart, by implementing a new ready-made design from the wide range available on the Internet, such as, from TemplateMonster.

4. Do you use templates for your projects and why?

• Nick Weisser: Yes, of course! Many small shop owners do not want to afford an individual custom design when they start, so I always recommend that they have a look at existing custom templates to give their store a
  professional look & feel.

• Brian Stanic: In all instances, we suggest to clients that they look at our ready-made templates first. This gives them, visually, a very attractive looking Website at a, significantly, reduced cost, compared to what it would cost to develop a new design. For example, you just have to look at the Buy Our Price of some of the TemplateMonster osCommerce Templates, to get a good idea of what the additional design costs could be i.e. $2000 and upwards.

5. Are you a member of any eCommerce community? And what platform’s community do you think is the best in helping its respective platform?

• Nick Weisser: I’m part of both the Magento and osCommerce community as mentioned before. Although Magento is the fastest growing e-commerce platform and community, osCommerce still has the largest community with over 230’000 members. In both communities you will find free support as well as professionals to assist in all matters.

• Brian Stanic: When a client requires new functionality, we will always check, first, the relevant Community of the eCommerce Engine that our client currently uses. Since we outsource any modifications to our recommended eCommerce Engines, such as, osCommerce, unfortunately, you could say we are a little guilty of not giving something back to the community.

6. What do you think will happen to the eCommerce industry in 5 years?

• Nick Weisser: mCommerce (mobile commerce) will certainly gain more and more importance over the next couple of years as well as social media. Customers will be able to buy only anywhere physically and also anywhere within the Internet, i.e. not only in a particular online store, but e.g. on Facebook.

  How exactly the shopping experience will be in 5 years is difficult to say if you consider other new technologies like location based services and augmented reality. I’m very excited to be part of it and also help shaping it. That’s the great advantage of open source platforms.

• Brian Stanic: Much the same as what has happened in the last five years. New players will arrive with, technically, better solutions and, most likely, with a higher cost of ownership. Will this mean the end for solutions, such as, osCommerce? I don’t think so! It has already happened with CRE Loaded and Zen cart and, guess what, osCommerce is still here, arguably, as popular as ever.

  Solutions that can comprehensively handle the basics without any modifications and have a low cost of ownership, would probably get our attention. Solutions where the requirements were fully thought out and did not leave you thinking; “why did they not go just two steps further and include…”. This includes: handling all worldwide tax requirements, offer comprehensive, definable Delivery/Shipping options; offer selection of methods for displaying Pictures i.e. LightBox, iFrame etc; comprehensive, easily configurable product options; comprehensive Gift Certificates, Discount facilities (as available in Litecommerce); integral, fully featured Newsletter system; ability to define different product layouts; Wishlists; different layouts for Compare Product facility; comprehensive reporting facilities; different options for displaying menus and drop-downs; easily change Template design; facilities for inserting own Select Input boxes etc; and the list goes on.

  One product that really impresses me with regards to, how well thought out is, is the Litecommerce product, mentioned above. Quite frankly, if TemplateMonster decided to design Templates for this eCommerce Engine, it would make our day. Whereas, many solutions flatter to deceive with the amount of facilities they offer that have not been fully thought out and leave you frustrated, the guys at Litecommerce are the only eCommerce provider we have seen, who appeared to have really done their homework and delivered modular solutions that seem to leave no stone unturned.

  So to Developers out there; do your homework and deliver solutions: with more flexibility on how information is displayed; and where eCommerce basic requirements are handled, comprehensively.

* * *

Thank you guys for your participation and for the great responses, we really appreciate that! All the best to your great businesses and keep up the work that you do!

As for the rest of our audience – in case you have any questions for our pros about general eCommerce, please feel free to ask them in our comments section. We promise that the most interesting ones will be answered by our friends Nick and Brian.

Tags: CRE Loaded Templates, Interviews, Magento Themes, osCommerce Templates, Zen Cart Templates

Written by Lilian Rigo

Lilian Rigo, an expert columnist working with TemplateMonster since 2009, is committed to exploratory and creative writing that covers various aspects of the current state of web design and web development technologies.

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