What do you guys think the best CMS is for E-Commerce sites are? Please state your opinion plus information from personal experience =) Thanks for the help in advance!
either one is fine actually =/ I heard Joomla works well but i've never used it. Anyone tried the wordpress ones?
Zencart is cool and it's free, Joomla with Virtumart is also cool and free. Magento is almost cool but is let down by being awkward to install on some types of hosting. Cubecart works well and the support is pretty good, but you have to pay for it and some encrypted code connects your admin page to their website so you can't use your admin if your license is invalid, runs out or their license validating servers go down which, to be fair, doesn't happen very often, but still....
Ah, It seems many people are suggesting Joomla+Virtuemart. I havn't used Joomla before but now's a good time to start =)
Oh yes, but if i were to want a customized template. Or maybe just one built from scratch, would OS commerce still be good for it?
OScommerce is the most used Commerce-Script because it is also the oldest Script of all. There are many OScommerce Themes available on different Templatesites. But OScommerce is a little problematic to maintain and update (when a update will be available). Magento is the most powerfull and promising Commerce-Script but also a big resource hog. I never tested Joomla in combination with virtuemart but know that joomla itself has some security problems and is not a performance beast Prestashop looks to be a new, fast and promising commerce-script and has a fast growing community. They are also working on CMS functionality for the near future. See at prestashop.com. A further recommendation of mine (and my personal favorite) is the Open Source CMS Drupal (drupal.org) in combination with uebercart (uebercart.org). You have nice possibilities to combine a fullblown, fast, reliable, SEO-friendly CMS with a good shopping cart that is heavily under development. There is also a second big ecommerce Module available for drupal. And both are free.
Wow, so I'll have to check out Drupal too. Are drupal templates also easy to find/ cheap to hire people to make?
Magento is good but steep learning curve and seemed a bit "unpolished" to me as it's still very new, it'll become a real contender within the next year however I reckon Interspire Shopping Cart is currently my weapon of choice, it's a paid solution however but worth every penny.
@kencake aap is right. there are not as many professional templates available for drupal like for joomla. But there are some available. Find Free Templates here: drupal.org/project/Themes themegarden.org/drupal6/ themebot.com/website-templates/drupal-themes Find Pro Templates here: topnotchthemes.com/browse templatemonster.com/drupal-themes.php (sorry, still can not post links here...my profile is to fresh. Just copy and paste the links) On the other side if you get used to the theming-system of Drupal there are no limits for you to setup your own Themes and Templates. And this is the best way to go for the long shot.
Can any drupal theme be customized as a ecommerce theme? Or are they supposed to be specifically made as drupal ecommerce themes?
You can customize every Theme like you want. Drupal has a hierarchic Template Structure so you can theme on a more global base (for many different pages) or down to every single page or view. There is nothing like special ecommerce theming, as far as i know. A Theme is a Theme.. There are also many functionalities that can be themed. I don't now if i understand your question correct. P.S. The Website you link to in your Signature are not working for me (from germany).