How can I build a homebrew online music store?

January 28, 2009 8:30 PM

What are some open source/inexpensive e-commerce solutions for developing a homebrew online music store?

I've been charged with designing the site of an independent record label and the only concern I have is their desire for an online record store. They want to sell both physical media and dowloads.

Ideally I'd like to use Drupal for this site as that is my platform of choice. However, I don't have much experience with the e-commerce or ubercart modules and I don't anticipate connecting cart functionality with a music player/browser would be much fun.

Beyond Drupal, I'm curious as to if there are any open source or affordable music oriented e-commerce/cms solutions out there. Since the store will be one of the central features of the site - it may be worth choosing the e-commerce solution first and reconciling the rest of the site design with the limitations of that platform.

Any suggestions as to platforms to investigate would be greatly appreciated.

posted by serial_consign to computers & internet (3 comments total)

zen cart is free and has an option for media downloads. it's not the most user-friendly software in the world though, but the message boards are highly active, and the posters are very helpful. and did i mention, it's free?
posted by polyester.lumberjack at 9:36 PM on January 28

A simple solution would be to set up a pay-what-you-want store; however, this model might not fit the label you're working with.

Here's what a local hip-hop label put together:

http://marathonofdope.com/

Two buttons for each album:

* Paid Download (Goes to PayPal first, then digital download)
* UnPaid Download (Straight to zip file full of mp3s)

:)
posted by stungeye at 9:43 PM on January 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'd recommend Magento. It is an open source e-commerce platform with a good community behind it. I've evaluated it at length and it appears to be a pretty strong platform and I think a great solution for small(er) businesses.

Setup is real straightforward. I was able to have it running locally, on my Macbook Pro with MAMP, in just a few minutes. Good admin console, straightforward frontend/UI work, and a lot of extensions already written to integrate with different payment processors. I've recommended it to several clients and will be working with it in production shortly.

In the last major release (1.2), they added the ability to have downloadable content. While I have not worked extensively with this aspect, it does seem worth looking into for an independent label.
posted by tommccabe at 6:40 AM on January 29