To be honest, I think if you stripped any of the features from the current ecommerce plugin, you would be left with a system that would soon be frustrating to fully configure. Although it is a very flexible system (and my shop of choice), it isn't as feature packed as some other shops - it's just well built, able to be configured easily and takes advantage of all C5 flexibility. The only feature that could perhaps be removed is the coupon system, but I'm glad it is there (as clients often ask for such things post deployment).

One thing to keep in mind is that ecommerce is regularly the 'deal of the day', being sold at 30% off (I think). From my point of view, I feel the cost of the plugin is easily justified with the time it saves and being able to use C5, but I do appreciate that not all projects are able to be paid for by clients.

If you aren't able to pay for the plugin, perhaps try using opencart (http://www.opencart.com/) or Prestashop (http://www.prestashop.com/) alongside your C5 site. The disadvantage of this is that you obviously don't have the systems tied together and you have effectively have to style two sites instead of one.

If an eCommerce venture isn't going to make enough profit to cover the $125 pretty quickly, what is the reason for it? Personally I would go for the C5 eCommerce.

Anyway, for a free alternative you could use PayPal's cart facilities and stick the code PayPal provides into HTML blocks, then manage your commerce through your PayPal account. Or for $20 there is an addon that does that for you (and probably a bit more - I have not used it)http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/paypal-cart-buttons/...

hey- I agree with mesuva and john the fish that if you don't make enough to cover the eccomerce its not worth it- Ive found that the eccomerce is a great value, you can build really complicated addons with it. However, there is an addon thats in the approval process thats basically a light version of eccomerce- you add and manage products via the frontend. Its going to be $35, and its made by this guy:http://www.concrete5.org/profile/-/view/7962/... . maybe try contacting him to see if you can get a beta.

Hi,

I actually don't feel that the price is the problem, in my case the customization of this add-on is the biggest issue. I've already bought it but I noticed the front-end needs A LOT of customization/overriding to get the functionality my client needs/wants.

So, I would like to ask if there would be any developers out there interested in starting out an open-source project to create a free eCommerce add-on for concrete5 that would be build from the developer perspective.

In this case we would provide users two options:
- Pay for the commercial solution to get an "out-of-the-box" alternative
- Use the free open source one if you're up to do some coding / modifying

The main problem with the current eCommerce add-on is that the block types do not fit into my case that well. I would need to add many times the same blocks to different page types etc. Also, I need custom menus, want the product page to be ONLY 1 PAGE (not a completely different page for each product), etc. etc.

Anyone up for this? I know this is quite a big project but if there are developers willing to contribute for it, I'm also IN!

Br,
Antti / Mainio

Thanks Guys for your input on this matter. I found 55design most helpful as I did not know these free option's existed. I will inspect these as temporary options.
Hopefully I can catch eCommerce on a "deal of the day" for 30-50% off would be nice.

@John- I looked at that PayPal add-on and could not tell exactly what it was for? Buttons are free to add from PayPal...

@Mesuva- tried both of those options with my simple scripts but as you said it made a lot more work designing two sites.

@mainio- let us hope someone picks up the ball on this.