Brand New to VM, some basic questions

[RyanK]

Hello.

I am new to Joomla and am working on setting up my first site. Since VM is exclusive to Joomla my preference is to use it as clearly your priorities will be a smooth integration with the site. I have taken some time and reviewed the site but still have a number of detailed questions which I am hoping someone can answer.

1. VM2 for 1.7, would a RC be expected at some point in August? Or is it too soon to commit?

2. The initial store I need a cart for only sells a single product. It may expand to two or three products but it is very basic. Is VM overkill? If so, is there another solution you would recommend for a simple store?

3. Does VM retain customer info so it does not have to be re-entered upon each visit? My current software on the old site is transaction-focused so customers have to enter their info on every visit. I prefer a solution that retains all customer info so they just log in and that's it. Credit card info and everything is preferably retained.

4. I saw VM is set up for CC and Paypal. Is there currently a Google Checkout integration?

5. Can customers review their order history with VM?

6. Is there any extension you recommend to add LiveHelp to VM?

7. Is the entire cart kept on my site? There is never a need to have users move to another site during the shopping experience with VM?

8. Does VM offer complete SEO control? Can I control the URL or will it be something like product=100? I prefer to control the meta description and page titles as well.

9. I purchased a template which I would like to use throughout my site. How much work would be involved in changing the look and feel of VM to accept my current Joomla site template?

I realize this is a lot to ask but I also presume others may benefit from the responses. I would be willing to pay a monthly charge similar to other carts if that was offered as a solution bundled with higher support.

Thank you for your time and attention.

-Ryan

PS. I used the forum's spell check and it flagged "Joomla" and "Google". I would suggest updating the dictionary to accept those terms.

[lindapowers]

1 - no idea

2- You can perfectly use VM but if you are new... well maybe try this one http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/e-commerce/shopping-cart/4148

3 - OFC VM keeps all the info from your visitors and for the login you can use cookies to save their login too.

4 - no idea, at least I have not seen it.

5- Yes, orders history is part of the customer panel.

6 - LiveHelp? http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/communication/live-support-hosted for your entire site. For VM just enable the "ask a question about this product", works for us

7 - The only moment when they will be redirected is at the paying process, in our case to the bank secure payment url.

8 - Not it doesn't offer full SEO controls. However the router.php creates decent URLS, but a better solution is to use SH404 SEF component, there you can control urls, metatags etc.

9 - Only you can answer that. Dependes on the level of detail you want or need. If it looks fine just keep it as it is cause changing templates takes time. You can just edit simple details like images or colors.

[jenkinhill]

RyanK there will not be a Google checkout for VM2 until a third party developer produces it. If you want all those things in your message and need them within the next couple of months then I'd use Jooma 1.5 with VirtueMart 1.1.9, especially as official J1.5 support will continue later than J1.7 support.