Ask HN: What self-hosted shopping cart should I buy to do easy A/B testing?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1607261

by rms • 16 years ago

18 9 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

My store uses Prestashop which has worked well for an open source shopping cart but we've always had wonky Google Analytics conversion tracking issues.

We need a shopping cart that allows for quick and painless A/B testing. It seems like Shopify has this feature ( http://blog.shopify.com/2010/3/22/test-test-test-more ) but I'd much prefer to host the website myself without paying a % of revenue.

What's the best shopping cart I can buy and host myself? Or, are the 3rd party hosted solutions vastly (or somewhat) superior?

Myrth• 16 years ago

Magento integrates with google analytics A/B testing.

krmmalik• 16 years ago

I second that. Can't beat Magento for eCommerce.

hippich• 16 years ago

the only problem with Magento is the fact it is overengeneered! And once you decide to work on it yourself, you will find out no documentation, no community support, etc.

But if you like to model everything - you will like digging in it's code. Just do not forget primary reason you installed magento - sell something to client ))))

hellweaver666• 16 years ago

I'm with you on the community thing... I mentioned how slow and bloated Magento is on their forums and was told to go and buy a faster server.

Throlkim• 16 years ago

I'd highly recommend Spree (http://spreecommerce.com/tour). It's based around the payment processor that Shopify uses, and it supports a lot of the more advanced Google Analytics features.

RobIsIT2• 16 years ago

This is a good quality PHP, self-hosted A/B testing system. It's free and it works well.

http://robisit.com/8n

This is a very flexible way to accomplish A/B testing and since everything is hosted on your own site, you don't need to worry about any other variables finding their way into your tests such as additional load time. It integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics and can perform true multi-variative testing.

trin_• 16 years ago

is there any specific reason that you dont link to the site [1] directly but instead use some sort of redirect using (possibly) your own domain (8n=hn i guess)?

http://phpabtest.com/

RobIsIT2• 16 years ago

I use Yourls on my domain to shorten and track links. I was curious to see how many folks would click through. It's my first comment here on HN (long time lurker). No real motive behind it other than just for fun to see if anyone cared what I said. I find myself hitting the "shorten" button the majority of links that I post online not only to see if folks are interested in what I've said, but so that if I make a mistake, I can correct it. 8n is just the next random sequence that was generated.

Of note, the Firefox addon LongURL (http://longurl.org/) is a great thing to have if you're at all nervous about shortened URL's.

Ask HN: What self-hosted shopping cart should I buy to do easy A/B testing?

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