I wish I read this article a year ago....

The Problem With Ecommerce: Don’t Build Your Own Ecommerce Engine

...... The reality is that it would take several man-years to even come close to matching the features that a mature ecommerce application would have.

This article could have saved me a lot of time. I honestly had no idea how difficult rewriting the core code of osCommerce is as I always thought that the real challenge behind designing the perfect site was in the usability and architecture - not the actual coding!

At least now I understand why the state of E-commerce on the web is so backwards. Finding experts in website usability design, online Marketing and Sales, and hardcore osCommerce coding is nearly impossible to do. It has taken about a year for me and all I had to do was find a kick-ass programmer!

I'm not sure if my e-commerce opus was worth the nightmare. While usability design is extremely important, it can only increase your sales linearly. Marketing & Sales are what give you the geometric increases in business. At least I will be getting an e-commerce site 4 generations ahead of my closest competition; compared to my site, they will look like the Taliban.