Hey guys, I thought this post was necessary because whilst in the process of setting up my online business, I have had to devote over 5 hours of research into my choice of system for my business.

The first thing which came to mind when I first thought of starting this business was, which system? Initially, I thought that maybe I would hard-code my own system, so that the shop wouldn’t look so shoppy, if you know what I mean. My DIY system would work like this:

• Landing page directing you to shop
• Have a look at which scripts would like to make a purchase of
• Click the “BUY!” or “Add to Cart” button
• Pay for your scripts via Moneybookers
• Download it.

The problem with this system is that the download process could get tricky. It would mean creating temporary Database variable and rows, then allowing a once-off download. Nah. What I needed was a solution which people had devoted a long time to. Something built from the ground up. I mean, how would I track orders with my solution? That’s when I decided to use a system all store owners were using.

The toss-up between Zen Cart, osCommerce and CubeCart

WOW! All those options. When doing a comparison in Google, I had to spend many hours sifting for useful and trustworthy sources of info. One of the things which came up often was that osCommerce was old, clunky, ugly and slow. Many hard-core people said that it was just so much more powerful, that’s why it is better. I decided against osCommerce (for various reasons).

I then decided to search on Zen-Cart and CubeCart. These two products were similar. My only problem was that CubeCart was also sold in a pro edition, meaning features were left out. I wanted a product with all possible features.  Between the two products, I settled on Zen Cart because I believed it to be created by people who didn’t care about money (even though I do). I also liked the downloadable products feature.

But then I thought to myself. I hate the way online shops look. I want to have FULL control over how my shop looks. Perhaps I need a content management system (CMS) with some sort of add-on/module/extra thingy. So, of course, there was another cross-roads.

The CMS fight-out

See, I know a thing or two about CMS’s and I know that Drupal and Joomla! are the most popular CMS’s around. That is, in terms of support and usage. So, once again, I dedicated an hour to finding which one was the best. My final conclusion was Drupal. The reason being that Drupal is more powerful. It may have a steeper learning curve, but hey! I’m a technically-minded guy. I can work it out. If not, there are always forums. I’ll tell you more about my reason for choosing Drupal either tomorrow or the next day.

So. I have chosen Drupal and now believe it to be the best CMS around. Great, but how am I going to find my E-Commerce thingy-majig/module/node/extension/add-on? Google was my first stop naturally. So, while Googling, I came across UberCart. I was suspecting for a while because I didn’t want to use something nobody was using. But I did find out that UberCart is right up there with the big-wigs of E-Commerce.

There are many comments in various places which say that Zen Cart and so on should be better because they are products built specially for E-Commerce. Well, I am not fazed because if they are designed specifically for E-Commerce, they suck. In terms of looks I mean.

So, that is my choice for my E-Commerce store. Drupal back-bone with UberCart E-Commerce clip-on. I hope that you choose the same, and give me some reasons why you chose the system you did, or why you wouldn’t choose my system.

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Tags: CMS, Drupal, E-Commerce, Joomla, online businesses, online shop, UberCart, Zen Cart