In the hands of someone who takes some time to learn this tool, the design of your store will be limited only by your imagination. If you’re a serious programmer needing an advanced e-commerce framework to make major customizations, VM is an older code base and I would imagine there are better choices. It isn't going to give you Amazon.com exactly. However, for the average store and especially if you need it to integrate with Joomla, Virtuemart is very good. If you’re in doubt of this, go to their forum and check out some of the sites made with it.

I’m amazed at some of the negativity I’ve seen about Virtuemart. Some of it is based on their forum support. Let’s remember that this is a very small team of VOLUNTEERS trying to help a huge number of users. Yet if you ask something in the right place that hasn’t already been answered (and aren’t a pushy _ _ _), someone will help you. Before you get upset, keep in mind that a lot of bugs you may come across are actually a problem with your own server or browser setup.

Let’s face it, e-commerce is not for the faint of heart…even in 2008. Virtuemart makes it about as easy as it comes for a beginner, but you very well may have to sort through a few bugs and challenges. Don’t give up. Once you get through a site or two, I think you’ll find this an amazing tool!

A few things it has:

* An easy to use theming system which gives you full control of layout and style
* A strong integration with Joomla. There are 13 optional modules plus plugins to integrate with the normal Joomla search and allow for inserting products into Joomla articles. Users are synchronized, and products or categories can be linked to from Joomla menus
* Good CSV import/export with an addon called CSV extended
* Most of the features you’ll find in other open source shopping carts
* Hacks are available for adding certain features (although some haven't been updated)

Some things it doesn’t have:

* Joomla native SEF. However, there are 3rd party SEF extensions that work with it
* Events, Subscriptions, wish list
* Comprehensive reporting
* Backend is clunky for making multiple edits or additions (although csv extended can solve this if you’re technically saavy)
* Poor, untemplatable custom fields implementation (product types)
* Dynamic front end product attributes
* A sexy front end out of the box (as Magento)

This extension allows you to define different content types into your articles. It's complicated but powerful once you get the hang of it. You can create custom fields and content areas that are searchable and can be managed in the back end.

Unfortunately, the code it produces is a bunch of nested tables and not very controllable. While they say the template code is not encrypted, it would be far easier if they used css and provided classes/IDs for each element (or allowed us to choose). This of course is a problem for many components and even Joomla itself, but this component serves to make some serious table spaghetti in the main body.

I also agree with the other posters. The Ioncube encryption sucks and doesn't mesh with the GPL. Fix these things and it would be 5 stars. It would be a must have extension that I'd buy for sure.