Requirements
Virtuemart is not a standalone system. It needs to get installed over content management system such as Joomla or Mambo. Virtuemart earlier called as PHP Shop as been one of the most important components of Joomla and mambo since the birth of these systems. While it is available since a long period virtuemart has been quite considerate using maximum possible environments to get it work so is Joomla. Virtuemart's requirements are same as Joomla and nothing extra is
needed. If you can make Joomla running smooth on your box chances are you will get Virtuemart running pretty fast almost with few clicks. Joomla needs PHP 4.3.10 and above. Recommended settings are PHP 5 of course however unlike other applications out there Joomla DOES run almost good with PHP 4.3 too. One fine day you may discover some third party component isn't doing what It suppose to do and in that case you may need to consider PHP 5. On the Database side surprisingly enough joomla runs even on MySQL 3.23. That's right! Recommended settings would be again MySQL 4.x and well there is not a big deal if you have MySQL 5.x but then not a problem either. Joomla works on IIS and it's not a unreliable workaround but It can get your job done provided how far you wish to go. Again though it works no one wants to go and make themselves feel stupid without any reason, so when we are saying it works do use it only if you do not have any other option at all. You are about to SELL something with your store and if so it's better to go for Linux plus we know at any point Linux hosting will cost cheaper than anything else.The Installation
As we said Virtuemart need a Joomla we could rather talk about issues related with Joomla installations and there can be many in earlier days. By this time Joomla 1.5.x gone pretty stable and it runs on most of the servers. To make this task more than easier few hosting companies offer one click installation of Joomla via their cPanels ( how cool is that?). Once you get Joomla up and running you will need to follow few steps carefully for installation of Virtuemart. Virtuemart comes under a Joomla Component installation package and will have com_virtuemart.zip file to be acquired from Virtuemart.net and install it from joomla installations screen. Many of the cases you will have GD library installed for your PHP settings. If you don't then it can be a problem but most of the standard hosting do provide it. GD library is useful for generating thumbnails as well handling some other stuff related with database oriented graphics. Along with the basic components Virtuemart comes with some default Joomla modules available for installation such as Show Cart, Mini Cart, Categories. You will need to install these just like the component from installation screen and place them in proper positions. If you have installed default Joomla installation and default Virtuemart extensions then the first instance you may not happy with the look and feel of the store. Do not worry. We got this covered in design section of this review.
Features
Virtuemart is a standard shopping cart which doesn't promise you the whole world but get all basic needs covered. But if you are passionate about Joomla and then wish to make Virtuemart wonders for you then you are at the right place. There are several third party modules available that can take your shop to next level. You can see some good features of other cart softwares and can hunt for alternatives of it and you will be surprised to see them available most of the times. The features could be bifurcated with core features and third party features. We believe that taking all third party goodies available for Virtuemart in the market with some core enhancement can kill any other shopping cart fast we prefer to stick our opinions with core features of Virtuemart which are pretty straight good.
- My Account Area for customers which let user handle Shipping Address Management, Order History, Tell a friend and much more
- Multiple Currencies, Multiple Languages
- Powerful Web-Administration Interface
- Product Ratings & Testimonials (moderated or auto-published)
- feature specific Products by setting them "on special"
- Handles downloadable Products (virtual Goods)
- Product Attributes (like Size or Color) can be added to Product
- multiple Prices per Product (Quantity-based and/or Shopper Group-based Prices)
- Shop Statistics / Control Panel with a Summary of new Customers, new Orders....
- Capable of live Credit Card Processing
Extra Advantages
There aren't enough extra advantage if you are with the core component and there can be many if you consider the whole development around it. Virtuemart still stands out better because of its component nature and careful thoughts in core development keeping real life scenarios in mind. The most important advantage of Virtuemart is its based on Joomla which makes handling shop one process and handing contents other process and that makes site pretty informative, enjoyable and for users if they are enjoying informative contents then they will be turning customers fast than standalone shopping carts. Other carts do have inbuilt CMS but with spending much time on them we think they are still limited. Here are few things that we liked most about Virtuemart apart from separate CMS capabilities
- Good Tax system to configure taxes by various options
- Easy and powerful administrative functions
- Product Availability: show how fast a Customer can expect delivery
- On-the-Fly Price Conversion between different Currencies using Live Rates from the ECB or other banks
- Shop Statistics / Control Panel with a Summary of new Customers, new Orders....
- pre-defined Payment Gateways like authorize.net®, PayPal, 2Checkout, eWay, Worldpay, PayMate and NoChex
- extending capabilities with other Payment Modules using the Payment Module API
- Live-Shipping Rates using Shipping Modules (e.g. InterShipper, UPS, USPS, FedEx or Canada Post; Modules can use the Shipping Rate API).
Design
The design for Virtuemart needs to be considered a little different that other carts. For one simple reason is it's a CMS based solution so there are two designs. One your core website on joomla and second is actual look and feel of the product navigations which gets handled by Virtuemart. While making custom templates is still a little challenge there are virtually several thousand ready to use templates available for Joomla. (We mean it!) And if you are looking for state of the art or far ahead in time there are premium templates that can make you happy for the designs. Coming to Virtuemart's core templating system you will find it easy to modify existing default templates as well there are couple of free available to go with. The real blessing is premium joomla template companies are making few templates available with Virtuemart built in it. This makes having a premium look for your website and a Virtuemart color scheme matching with those premium look and feel. If you have spent enough time with Joomla then setting up a beautiful store with future prospectus of getting sell is possible within minutes. (We mean it!).
SEO
One more time Joomla being platform CMS for Virtuemart can play an important role in SEF. The core SEF of Joomla wont help much enough for desired URLs however if you are ready to shell out few bucks you can get third party SEF components which will handle Joomla SEF as well Virtuemart URLs far better than you can expect. Being said that it also means a full control over urls and you are absolutely free to make any changes in urls as per your wish. We personally have made two sites on this one and it went right up there in no time and staying there for pretty generic key phrases. Being on Joomla it also helps you add more static content as much as you want and get enough attention from search engines.
Pros
Makes ecommerce just another small lesson to learn for people who knows Joomla very well. It gets most of the basic jobs done fine and you don't need much of the programming knowledge if you are a small shop owners with handful of products.
Cons
If you are about to put 1000 or more items the buck stops here. Having a large shop over Virtuemart is probably not something you wish to do. Also if you are developer then you may not like looking at the code. It has object oriented code, procedural code, HTML code, at point even css called in between and stuff. Being so long in the market the Virtuemart was pushed from stand alone system (phpShop) to component for mambo and then Joomla and later for Joomla 1.5 the code just not something you can take for large community based development of large stores.
Overall
Virtuemart is ideal for products up to 100 and 300 at points. Anything beyond that isn't happening enough. If you are having handful of products you can get Virtuemart work for you pretty well. When you install it first you may discover some functional conflict and will run to community and may bite nails. 80% of the chances that you will figure out the solutions faster after going through manual and will convince that its something better to have than anything else in the niche.