Off the shelf or Custom for this Project?

Hi,

I have a client who’s looking for something a little bespoke with their eCommerce system.

They’d like the customers to be able to customise their end product on the web site.
So rather than simply browse the site and add items to the cart and checkout…they’d prefer if the customer could:

  1. Choose a Product
  2. Choose a colour/size of the Product
  3. Choose Accessories
  4. Choose a size/type/colour for the Accessories
  5. Customise the Product with a name/signature
  6. Choose a Gift Card

… and the list goes on a bit more.

Is this something I could do by tweaking an existing shopping cart (prestashop, cubecart, magento) or would I have to go down a more bespoke route?

Many thanks for any guidance with this.

I hate to bump, but does anyone have any thoughts for this?

I’ve done a few sites where generation of user customised products is the main focus, and have mostly opted for a bespoke solution. The user process is sufficiently different to the single stage add to cart process typical in most carts that the effort in hacking them to behave as you want ends up sufficiently complex, you might as well start from scratch and get an optimised user experience. Whichever way you go, make sure you’ve fully wire framed the customer shopping process and agreed it with the client before starting out on development, as changes in direction later, particularly if you choose to use an existing cart, will be tricky.

Whichever way you go, make sure you’ve fully wire framed the customer shopping process and agreed it with the client before starting out on development, as changes in direction later, particularly if you choose to use an existing cart, will be tricky.

Quite right. That’s really good advice.

Right now, I’m toying with either choosing an existing cart and outsourcing the “bespoke” integration or doing the entire project myself.

Wireframing early on is key with a project of this scale.

I will let you know how I get on :slight_smile:

Here’s a good example of what I’m hoping to achieve:
Customise your stroller - Stokke® United Kingdom

Can you think of any software that could do this? Or am I still looking at bespoke? :slight_smile:

Thank you

There are product customisers like this available for common products such as business cards, t-shirts, but chances are you’d need something bespoke.