Question
I really appreciate your insight regarding Location-Based-Inventory. I don't think you are being brutally honest with me, I think you are just being honest and informative, and I appreciate it. I don't have much interest in getting buried in something that is way over my head! I have never used Magento, so I don't know what I would be getting into, and that is certainly not settling. I need to do some research on their platform. I read your article about it being analogous to building home, and I agree with your stated principles. Can you give a synopsis of what exactly makes it so difficult? The first thing that comes to my mind is that there might be a lot of code involved. I have coding experience, but not in the languages that you would use for a website (I was proficient in MATLAB for a while).
Thanks for offering to partner up. I am interested to hear more about what you think that might look like. I understand your costs around developing a Magento website for my client, and in the context of my client, it might be pretty high. I'm not saying that's its not worth it, or that it's not what it costs you. I just don't know if they would be up for that. It seems like a lot of added cost just to solve the problem of in-store pickup with multiple locations. I agree that this is a core feature though. It kind of feels like having 4 retail locations is in this middle ground of going with an on-demand solution like Shopify or going with Magento.
Last, now I'm more seriously considering using NRO's modified version of Magento. I realize this option wouldn't be as beneficial to us, but now I'm thinking it could be what's best for the client, which is obviously what is really important. I will do some more research with them.
Answer
Magento is a wonderful platform because there’s so much it can do. For bigger retailers who need the flexibility and extensibility Magento has to offer, it’s really hard to beat. However, it does come at a price because it takes a lot of care and feeding to keep it running. Here are just a few articles that will give some insight into what it takes to maintain a Magento website:
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/214490617-Magento-Malware-Security-Warning-November-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/212194698-Magento-Security-Patch-Malware-Alert-October-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/206585548-Magento-Security-Update-August-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/206232008-Critical-Magento-Security-Patch-July-7-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/205392278-Important-New-Magento-Security-Patch-May-14-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/205660427-Urgent-Immediately-Install-Magento-Critical-Security-Patches-April-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/204887248-Magento-Security-Update-April-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/204060718-Critical-Magento-Security-Patch-SUPEE-5344-February-10-2015
Those are the Magento security patches this year, which doesn’t include the following which needed to be patched in SSL and Linux (not to mention the “standard” monthly Linux patches):
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/204947327-FREAK-SSL-Vulnerability-March-3-2015
- https://support.modernretail.com/hc/en-us/articles/203925958--GHOST-Linux-Exploit-January-27-2015
Again, we love Magento but feel it must be matched up with the right business. Typically, for us this means larger retailers (B2C) who are already doing over $500,000 per year in business or manufacturers or distributors who need a B2B website. Magento is really hard to beat right now in the B2B space.
If your customer cannot afford a Magento website, then they should not be using it. Period.
Here’s my assessment of the situation with the limited knowledge I have about your client. Your client has caviar taste on a mac and cheese budget, which is fine. However, I would get them started off with an easier solution like Bigcommerce or Shopify. After the website grows and makes them money, you can either upgrade to the enterprise versions of these platforms or move them over to Magento/NRO.
Ok, good luck.