Does anyone here actually have a VM 2 site up and running and doing business?

[daviator]

I cannot get the tax, shipping or pricing display to work correctly therefore I cannot see how anyone can be up and running with VM2.

[Limonbay]

No, and I think it will be a long time before I dare to do it. Too risky.

[daviator]

I've given up all hope. I loaded Zencart yesterday and had ALL of the issues I've had with VM2 solved in about an hour.

Zone shipping works perfectly, so do tax zones and the price is the price and not the "Sales price". Also, the credit card portal I need is free for Zencart. I would have to pay the dev $200 US to get it working for VM2. Also, you are not tied to Joomla 2.5 which I think is partly to blame for the VM2 debacle.

[osp]

www.chciletat.cz
www.hrackyfido.cz

[Clocked0ne]

I will have two UK based sites up and running soon if I can work out a decent way to do shipping for the UK market (see the problem here). The UK market seems overlooked by the developers even though I'm sure it must be one of the biggest markets; there is not even simple options to change things such as 'tax' to 'VAT', it has to be done through editing language files.

I think it is great software but needs some definite improvements in usability, a proper manual and at least one dedicated support staff - too many easy questions here that should be obvious for users are being answered by a few members which looks good on the outside, but the tough questions or pointing out ways to improve seem to go largely unanswered from all my searching, sadly. I have had to spend manby hours finding my own solutions or working off the backs of others hard work on the forum to resolve issues that don't get a solution from the developers, most of these issues being easy to configure correctly in other software.

[Dick_K]

I've given up too .... I have changed my clients to Hikashop ... The last one was running VM since 2007 - even then it was a big headache to setup and the support has not improved....

[jenkinhill]

I think it is great software but needs some definite improvements in usability, a proper manual and at least one dedicated support staff

You then may be pleased to hear that an expert on Accessibility has volunteerd some hours to help the development team, and someone has volunteered to write a manual in her spare time - already under way - http://oscmanuals.com/virtuemart-fdm-26.html

As for dedicated support staff, it would need at least three to cover time zones, and they would need to be paid. So either VirtueMart becomes a fully commercial product to cover costs or  there is a membership or support charge levied for forum access. I suspect that would generate even more complaints.

In the meantime this remains a peer support forum where VM users try to help out other VM users. All are volunteers, as are the developers & testers who are working on this more or less 24/7 between their other paid jobs and responsibilities.

A VirtueMart 2 book has been written and is with the publishers, but I suspect that like most software books someof it will be out of date by the time it is published.

There have been over 350,000 downloads of VM2 since its release just before Christmas - just over 3 months ago. That could generate a lot of support requests even with perfect software.

[antonitus]

I suspect a lot of issues people are having is that they don't really know how to set up or even use VM2.  There are some bugs that need to be ironed out, but it seems the developers do listen and they act on many of the important bugs very quickly for an SVN update, so well done to them.  As an example, I found a bug with the shopper group permissions and within a few days it was acted upon with a new test release.  VM2 just keeps on getting better and more powerful with every update.

[spyderwebdesign]

My site is almost complete. www.likdancewear.com

I just need the following to go "live".

1. The rest of the content from my client.
2. Paypal Pro (API) so customers can pay directly on the site
3. Multivender shipping complete since manufactures are located in different states.
4. Final inventory feeds from manufactures

[Bruce Morgan]

I have not yet seen a working VM 2 site that measures up to older versions that are live.  VM is so incomprehensible to some users that it is really difficult to evaluate if some of the features actually work or not.  Joomla did not help with its accelerated product cycle, but the VM team really blew it by not building in an easy transition from VM1.1 to VM 2.0 including retaining many of the features such as attributes and themes/views that we were familar with.

Jenkinhill may be right.  It may be time to make VM a commercial product.  I would willingly pay, but not unless the major issues of stability and user friendliness are resolved.  Right now it is not good enough to bother paying for.  I have a lot invested with the J/VM platform but users are rapidly jumping ship, or thinking abut doing so, and VM risks becoming the next Yahoo (i.e. irrelevant) if something is not done soon.

[antonitus]

Come on guys, it's not fair.  The developers have done an excellent job for us as a community.  As you can see they have worked so hard so let's not piss them off.  It's early days, VM2 will get better and more robust in the coming months.  I've tweaked my shop to the point that it is 99% ready.  If there are things that don't work and I do not use, then it will still be ready.  My only concern is that it needs to be more secure and it's getting there.  At least the developers listen and respond to us, unlike a lot of other script writers and even politicians come to think of it, ha-ha.  Personally this make me feel reassured that someone is out there who is constantly working on this project, .... for us.

[uschmi]

Our site is up and running for several weeks now: http://www.unexsports.de
In my opinion, the developers have done a fantastic job!

Our site is running under Joomla 2.5.4 and usually the news Beta of Virtuemart. I always have to do some workarrounds when upgrading to a newer beta version, but it works
And, I´m aware about I´m using brand new beta versions - so, I always have to check the functionality of the shop. But this is ok since it´s a fantastic software!

[jbenes]

I love Virtuemart. I am about to launch a site running the latest version- https://www.survivorssupply.com. I won't lie, there have been lots of bugs along the way. Although I had problems, I posted about each one on the forum and now the problems are all solved! Not only that, I've got a great store, so when I need another web store in the future, I'll just build off of the one I have now.

Virtuemart definitely has flaws, but with a little programming knowledge, perseverance, and patience, I think you'll realize that most of them tend to be user related.

As for Virtuemart being a paid product or offering a paid tier, I would definitely like this. I love Virtuemart and I would be happy to pay for such a great product!

On another note, I've noticed some English strings that weren't really translated properly (they just sound weird). Is there a place I can contribute updated strings?

[John2400]

I am up and running and things are going well.
Running 2.5.6 Joomla on PHP 5.3 and VM 2.0.8e
I have no hacks in any settings.

[ivus]

I suspect a lot of issues people are having is that they don't really know how to set up or even use VM2.

I suspect that a lot of people are having issues because they lack the fundamentals of Joomla!, PHP and webdesign in general and blame it on VM2.

VM2 is a much better product than VM1; it is much easier to implement, easier to style, quicker and more responsive.

I see the same old questions creep up everyday... "How do I style this? How do I style that?" - those questions really aren't VM2 related issues and if people are thinking that they truly are, then I think VM has no future as a viable product.

Fortunately I know better. So far I've only run into a few serious bugs, posted some questions about it and got a few responses that was a weeks ago. While I wait patiently for someone to answer my questions I've responded to over 100 other posts. As jenkinhill clearly states, VM is a free product, this forum is run for free, time is given up for free by community members to help others. If this model doesn't work for you then I suggest you look into a paid service where you'll soon realise that you don't have the same freedom VM2 allows.

There's my 2 cents... everyone play nice