# Magento - Start from template or scratch?



## Steph (Jan 26, 2008)

I am currently in the process of redesigning my old site, and after using Cubecart, Zencart, Joomla etc. on various other sites I've decided to give Magento a try.

My husband is quite technical (computer science nerd - ) and has done the install, but we would definitely hire a pro to design the site. 

So.....is it better to find/purchase a template that comes close to what I am looking for and have a professional modify it from there, or to give them my outline and have them design it from scratch?


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

I would have your designer give you a bid both ways. No point in paying for a template if he is going to charge you the same either way.

Curious why you are going through so many shopping carts. What do you think Magento will give you that the others didn't?


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## Steph (Jan 26, 2008)

True, good point. I was also thinking a designer would probably rather set up their own code (an dlikely have pre-built templates of their own) rather than wading through someone elses....

My husband does affiliate marketing/SEO/web stuff for a living, so we've had experience with all of those carts or CMS' but I have not gone through them all on my site  

With Zencart, we found that we had to do alot of dirty hacks to get things where we wanted them (such as guest checkout, among other things). Magento has a good inventory management system, guest checkout, conditional selections, and on and on


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## in2infinity (Dec 8, 2009)

Watch out for Magento. I had my site 95% built and was in the process of testing it when I discovered that it does not calculate tax properly. In Magento, tax is applied per item ... not to the subtotal. The tax is then rounded for each item, and then summed up for the total order ... which leads to rounding errors. It also did not play nice with PayPal standard... again, a rounding error in the tax so the amount sent to Paypal for the transaction did not match the amount on the Magento invoice. So, when the transaction went through Magento could not reconcile it's own invoice.

I was using the latest version available January 1,2010... If you go to the Magento boards you'll see that these are long long long standing issues (dating back well over a year and several verisons) and they have yet to be addressed.

It's a shame since it really has a great user experience.


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## chobay (Aug 4, 2009)

If you are starting out with a template, there is no need to hire a web designer. Get your techie husband to do the customization, he should be able to handle it. Especially if he worked the other carts for you..


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## Steph (Jan 26, 2008)

He's technical, but he's not a designer and he has a full time job  He's going to handle all of the back end stuff, tweaks etc., what we are looking for is someone to design the front end and get everything working. None of the templates we have found come close to what I am looking for....I am thinking of maybe checking out 99designs or similar to find a designer who understands what Magento can/can't do to come up with something for us. 

^^ Thanks for the info re: tax! My biggest fear is getting 99% of the way there and then discovering something just like that. I'll look into it before we proceed.


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## pdpatch (Aug 30, 2009)

Generally when you are starting out with any cart, it will be a lot easier to tweak and existing template. That is if you can find all the pieces and parts of the template. Most designers I have talked to recently despise Mengento's template system because things they need to edit is all over the place.

That does not mean that Magento doesn't have some really nice features. 
I have yet to see one cart have all the features that all store owners want. 

As far as the tax thing, Megento is set up more for Vat type taxes which is used in the European Union. The rounding problem is caused by a change in PHP some years ago and how the defualt rounding is done.
Most carts based on php use half round up, which is the rounding we learned in math class. 1 to 4 is rounded down 5 to 9 is rounded up. Taxes in the Sales tax in the USA use "Half even round up" that is even number are rounded up odd are rounded down. 

the actual round rules are:
precision is 3 digits
* if the precision digit is even, round up
* if the precision digit is odd, and there are no digits following the digit after the precision digit, round down
* if the precision digit is odd, and there are digits following the digit after the precision digit, round up

Ok so I put in more info about taxes then most people want to know. Sorry

Tom


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## in2infinity (Dec 8, 2009)

never heard of the half even round up ... always thought in taxes in the US that ..

$1.355 rounds to 1.36, $1.354 rounds to $1.35.

From your explanation it seems that 1.352 would round to $1.36 since the third digit is even. I don't think that should be the case.

.. but that's not the issue with magento. Magento does tax by item so if you ordered 3 different items it does this ...

Item 1 - qty (2) - $5.00 each - total $10.00 - Tax (2%) = $0.20
Item 2 - qty (1) - $10.00 each - total $10.00 - Tax (2%) = $0.20
Item 3 - qty (10) - $5.00 each - total $50.00 - Tax (2%) = $1.00

Total: $71.40

It should be ....

Item 1 - qty (2) - $5.00 each - total $10.00
Item 2 - qty (1) - $10.00 each - total $10.00
Item 3 - qty (10) - $5.00 each - total $50.00

Sub total: $70.00, Tax (2%) = $1.40
Total: $71.40

In this example, everything works out but since Magento rounds the taxes per item and then sums the ROUNDED numbers then the total tax (and total sale) can be a few pennies off in either direction when compared to calculating the tax on the subtotal only.

Word on the street is that the entire cart is based on this method and to correct it is a colossal task. It would take rewriting the entire core because all the coupons, discounts and other features dealing with pricing manipulations all rely on this method of tax calculation - which is why it hasn't been fixed yet.

In short ... if you plan to handle sales tax in the US with an online shopping cart Magento probably won't work for you unless you're willing to track down the mistakes and manually correct them. Since those changes will be post sale they come out of your profit (you can't reconcile the error by recharging the customer the penny or two difference). Of course, thats only a penny or two on the occasions it happens, but without the correction your books won't balance. The time wasted dealing with that would be more then enough reason to look for a different solution.


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## Steph (Jan 26, 2008)

I live and ship from Canada, so I think I would only have to worry about sales tax up here.....and 99% of my customers are US. I'll spend some time playing with Magento this weekend and see how much of a problem this will be for me.... 

Argh...there's always something, eh?!


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## pdpatch (Aug 30, 2009)

As a programmer I got say one to many complaints about this issue and did a lot of research. The problem is also magnified by where you apply the taxes. In the US taxes are applied to the sub total not by item. As a rule a thumb the using two more digits for the prices helps cancel out most errors. Calculating for $10.0000 vs $10.00 for the US.

When it comes to taxes the best thing is to consult a tax account who knows the jurisdiction you need to collect for and pay to. 

A vat system the taxes are item by item like what Magento does. 

Many of these tax calculating problems have happened in the last several years

As far as rounding there is about 8 methods to use for rounding.

This is an example of the round rules for taxes in Texas they are genraly the same, if you notice when the start taking about the even odd for the 3rd digit:

FAQ: Texas Sales Tax

Tom


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## Fr4nk13 (Feb 10, 2010)

I've designed a website for a local company in my hometown with Magento.

I used a template, but altered it enough to where it looks like my own design (no use in recreating the wheel). 

As for taxes, I only had to apply taxes to zip codes in the state of the nexus (I live in Florida). This can become rather _*taxing*_. I manually applied taxes for each zip code in the state of florida in order to get the desired result. But now that everything is done, both taxes and shipping (UPS) are calculated correctly.


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## Steph (Jan 26, 2008)

Wowza....we've been playing around in Magento for the past few days, and so far have been able to completely customize a free template (in so far as it now does not resemble the template in the slightest). I did the design, and my hubby is working on the back end stuff. 

I am so happy we didn't pay for someone to do this for us, and attempted it on our own! I guess you never know until you try


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## chobay (Aug 4, 2009)

Steph said:


> Wowza....we've been playing around in Magento for the past few days, and so far have been able to completely customize a free template (in so far as it now does not resemble the template in the slightest). I did the design, and my hubby is working on the back end stuff.
> 
> I am so happy we didn't pay for someone to do this for us, and attempted it on our own! I guess you never know until you try


that's awesome! I love DIY...


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