John Roa » The Blog

Oh, Magento …

For those of you that are still living in the Stone Age (or those of you who don’t spend their free time researching open-source e-commerce platforms), Magento is a groundbreaking piece of software that basically splits the gap between the dated, functionality-deprived open-source platforms and the big, sexy (read: expensive) enterprise systems. Magento lands at a nice spot in the mid-market sector and having been downloaded 600,000+ times since it’s alpha release in the beginning of Q2, has certainly made quite the buzz in the e-retail community.

Having used Magento since it’s first public beta, I feel like I have been raising a child not unlike myself: absentmindedly-sophisticated-with-a-hint-of-logical-defiance. My relationship with Magento is the epitome of love / hate. We have had our beautiful moments when I realize my checkout process is just screaming high conversions and plugging-in with a third-party service is as simple as supplying API credentials. Other times, the only thing I’ve hated more then Magento are the software it was built to replace (read: x-cart, OS Commerce).

Magento makes the complex tasks simple and the straightforward tasks absolutely torturous .. for example:

Want to create a turn-key multi-channel e-retail store with guided navigation, single-page AJAX checkout, dynamic merchandising, complex promotions and a powerful data input/output engine? NO PROBLEM!!

Want to remove test orders from the database / backend? NO PROBLEM ……… just run this SQL query against your database:

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SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;TRUNCATE `catalogsearch_query`;  -- added
 
TRUNCATE `catalogsearch_result`;  -- added
TRUNCATE `log_quote`;
TRUNCATE `report_event`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item_option`;
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_payment`; -- added
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_shipping_rate`; -- added
TRUNCATE `sales_order`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_int`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_tax`;  -- added
TRUNCATE `sales_order_text`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `sendfriend_log`;
TRUNCATE `tag`;
TRUNCATE `tag_relation`;
TRUNCATE `tag_summary`;
TRUNCATE `wishlist`;
TRUNCATE `wishlist_item`;  -- added
-- reset customers
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `log_customer`;
TRUNCATE `log_visitor`;
TRUNCATE `log_visitor_info`;
-- Reset all ID counters
-- Some payment gateways need a unique transaction reference for every order,
-- reseting your order ID may result in future transaction errors!
-- (so only do this if you are sure it wont be a problem)
-- TRUNCATE `eav_entity_store`;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;

No folks, not kidding.

(This criticism isn’t completely fair … but …) I suppose you cannot expect a company whose revenue model is built off support to make their product too easy to use.

At the end of the day, it is still an great piece of open-source software that is only getting better and will pave the way for many new and established e-commerce properties. I for one will continue our box-of-chocolates / Freddy Krueger relationship until something better comes along.