I recently built a shop in Drupal, after much protest (I prefer Zen Cart for ecommerce).  Due to the complexity of the product layout, and the particulars of the contract, we were compelled to use a unique module integration.

In this case, the client wanted a tabbed product info page to store information about the product.  The tabbed display would include two images and four text fields to input warranty, product info, comparisons, and the like, in a similar way as is set up on futureshop.ca

As well, we were after a home page slideshow embedded into the custom theme.  We accomplished this using a content type, the imagefield module, and the nivo slider module.  About an hour of setting the modules up for this one.

Finally, the client also had an elaborate flash based gallery which had to be rebuilt and indexed with the site content.  We accomplished this by integrating Gallery2 with Drupal.

This is what it takes to use Drupal for ecommerce (additional modules):

Admin menu - CCK - CCK_fieldgroup_tabs - ckeditor - filefield - gallery - google analytics - image - imageapi - imagecache - imagefield - jquery_update - lightbox2 - link - mimedetect - pathauto - tabs - token - ubercart - views - views_nivo_slider - xmlsitemap

I set up a Magento 1.5 site today to see how it compares to other e Commerce platforms like Zen Cart and OsCommerce. I've found the user interface very pleasant, it has a lot of built in features I've struggled to apply to other frameworks, such as 301 redirects and URL renaming conventions built in.

It is a very different arrangement than what I've become familiar with in Zen Cart, I've found the attributes system is not very intuitive so far, but I like the ultra-modern feel of the site and administrative navigation. The checkout process uses the jQuery Accordion effect to bring down the CTR and increase sales conversion - very nice.

I will be exploring various methods and plugins in the next few days, given the time.

I keep running into situations where clients have used basic CMS systems such as Drupal, or Wordpress, to set up Ecommerce systems. Some have limited success, most fail to do business in this format.

In my opinion, wordpress and drupal are better suited for blogging, image content, galleries, forums, and the like. There are several available modules to help you link your PayPal account in so you can sell products, but I've found that the way they are set up is not very customer friendly.

I always advise people who are setting up Ecommerce sites to start in a CMS that is built specifically for the task, such as Zen Cart, or perhaps OsCommerce. These CMS systems are more appropriate for developing a product layout, and more conducive to client information security, re-orders, tax rates, and various shipping methods.

Zen Cart is a peculiar beast. It can be difficult to know how the modification of one line of php in the base code will react with the rest of the code. Recently I've found a few interesting things about the general installations clients like to see, and what zen cart has to do to get there.

To begin with, nearly every client I speak with wants to use a version of lightbox - of which the updated version is known as slimbox, or colorbox. These plugins run on mootools, a jQuery construct which is designed precisely for the job.

The issue becomes a bit more involved when the client would like to use a javascript based component on page, while running the jQuery library. They are based loosely on the same architecture, and share a common enemy, who's name is "$".

It is generally deemed to be incorrect to use two different architectures for your scripting, but at times, as with CMS systems which run largely on javascript, figuring out how to make a jQuery library work alongside javascript is a fairly common procedure, as the lightbox module shows, in all forms of CMS systems.