Virtuemart, like Joomla has a large community following. And as such, there's plenty of support for users of the component. I use Virtuemart and a few 3rd party addons for my eCommerce based wesbites and cannot fault it as a shopping cart.
I have almost tested all and I have to say that Virtuemart is the best solution available so far. It is easy to learn and use, you should be able to set-it-up and run it in no time... and if you need help you can always visit virtuemart forums or ping me
Virutemart, easy at the beginning, but will definitely goes beyond control when your store increases in terms of products and users. A simple way to avoid this is to use a seperate shopping cart, and integrate it with Joomla. If you know a little PHP, you'll be able to integrate Joomla header menu inside any shopping cart. I recommend Prestashop, free, and very easy to maintain.
is there an extension that will handle both membership subscriptions and a shopping cart, or will I need separate packages?
Virtuemart is the best E-Commerce component if you need something with lots of features. But the only reason it is the best is because it is the only Joomla E-commerce solution that is feature rich. It has a lot of bugs - and I mean a lot - and very shaky development. I use it out of necessity, but it always requires a lot of hacking to get things looking and acting right. The out of the box themes are very ugly and oldschool, so you can't just install the component and use it without doing lots of hacks. If a simple solution will work for you, try RokQuickCart - it's beautifully simple and quick to set up, and looks nice out of the box. And just so you know I know what I'm talking about, I've built several large E-commerce stores with Virtuemart (by large I mean a projects with $10,000+ budgets).
You can use the account expiration system from valanx.org It is compatible with the most joomla components.
I have used virtuemart for many of my clients but agree with moderntattoodesigns quite often you have to do a bit of work to get it functioning and looking the way you want. But if you only want a basic shopping cart it will certainly do the job for you. Usually membership packages are separate components.
Virtuemart is the oldest one and that makes it so popular. But it worth to look at new components like Mighty Commerce f.e.
Hi... I recommend also use Virtuemart for create Shopping cart / ecommerce site in Joomla. Good point of Virtuemart is this extension has a lots of Additional extensions rather than other extension. You could check here >>> http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension-specific/virtuemart-extensions regards
Vrituemart is definitely your best choice, huge community of supporters. So if you have an issue with it you can be sure to find help quickly.
Virutemart, easy in the beginning, there are challenges to take visitors. A simple way to avoid this is to use a separate shopping cart, and integrate it with Joomla. If you know a little PHP, you will be able to integrate Joomla menu header on each shopping cart. I recommend PrestaShop, free to anyone who wants to react!