what's the most extensible/flexible FOSS e-commerce software? (or should I roll-my-own?)

Question

I need to build an internal order entry and tracking system for a grocery store which requires many of the features of existing e-commerce systems, such as product catalog, customer_to_order relations/views, movement reporting, order statuses, etc. However, the first phase of the product is purely internal, so I don't need any online e-commerce features such as shipping addresses, postal rates or a payment gateway. I've also got a bunch of business specific stuff that may not apply to a lot of on-line stores: complex product/customer discount system, lots of attributes for the products, a producer order-tracking flow (customer has an order with us and we have an order with the producer), and so on.

So I'm stuck wondering if I would be better off customizing an existing product, or rolling my own with a good web framework (such as Python/web2py)? If it was a cut-and-dry online store, then the decision would be clear - but it's not. So I'm trying to find the most extensible/flexible FOSS e-commerce software for prototyping.

The main contenders I've been considering so far are: Drupal/Ubercart, Django/Satchmo and RoR/Spree. Ubercart is undergoing a complete re-write as Drupal Commerce, so that puts me off. The Spree project looks clean and I like the ideas - but I'm already writing a product/customer ETL in Jython and don't want to balance the two languages - both Python and Ruby are new to me.

I don't like Magento's enterprise/community edition model. And I've heard lots of complaints about osCommerce and it's variants.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

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By the way, I think the gap between the feature-set I need and what I could get out-of-the-box from an existing e-commerce product is on the order of 30%.

Tod

Answer 1

if you need that much extra functionality I reckon roll your own so you aren't constrained later.

Or better yet fork the current very basic (and easy to understand) web2py estore:
http://code.google.com/p/web2py-estore/
http://web2py-estore.appspot.com/ (demo)

Topical

As a matter of fact, I just came across the web2py e-store and am looking into it. Thanks. – Tod

Cool! I am the administrator of the google code site could give you commit privilege if you wanted to extend it. But your description sounds different enough that forking might be preferable. – Topical

Thanks, Richard. Maybe we could implement a few of the more general features before forking. I'll follow-up if we decide to use web2py/e-store and get some code rolling. – Tod

I've decided rolling my own is probably my best option. Starting parallel prototyping with Django and web2py to see which one is a better fit for my development style. – Tod