is there a maximum of how many products ezimerchant can handle

[gavin]

is there a maximum of how many products ezimerchant can handle

[dferguson]

We reccommend ezimerchant Professional for sites with UPTO 2500 products.

If you want to sell more products than this on your website then we reccommend you look for a different ecommerce solution.

[iangarner]

Dave,

What is likely to happen if say you exceed 2,500 products?

[dferguson]

When customers visit your site the time it takes to download the home page will take longer as you add more products to the site.

The search will also become slower.

We have customers with 5000+ products on their web sites but we dont reccommend it.

When customers visit your web site you want them to be able to download the home page fast.. With 5000 products there will be a delay!

[iangarner]

Thanks for the advice Dave, will bear it in mind.

Cheers,

Ian

[niko]

I think though, with the massive increase in broadband users, download times are so fast that like my rather heavy main page it doesn't take more than 15 seconds for all of it to download. By the time they have scrolled down all images are pretty much there. I just try to limit the size in bytes of the images so the download is quick. On a 256mb/s plan the download time for 10 5k images is like 10 seconds. My web sites has about 50 images on the main page and takes a total of 15 seconds on a 512 broadband plan. If you were on dial up, that's around 2.5 minutes.

I have probably close to 2,500 products and believe that it is more of a case of overburdening a page is more of an issue rather than having more than 2,500 products. For example, I avoid flash animations and large main page image files. The max size really should only be 5k, unless you have a logo that goes across the the full width of the page.

Are you entertaining or are you selling? I am trying to sell, therefore Flash is out and simple GIF or JPG images are in; assuming you'r not trying to sell your artistic web page production skills that is :)

[john]

David,

Why would it take longer to download the home page the more products your site has. Are other pages affected also?

Thanks,

[bcarroll]

All product data is stored in javascript files which are downloaded on first access of the site. Subsequent pages are in in theory not affected as the javascript is cached locally

[dferguson]

Actually, since my post in 2003 we have changed the way ezimerchants JavaScript works.

The home page no longer contains any of the product pricing javascript - This means the home page will load fast regardless of how many products are in the web site. The new javascript loads in the category and product pages. It is more efficient than previous versions but large sites with say 3500+ Products will get small delays when loading pages.

But with more and more Australians getting onto broadband these days the loading times dont really pose that bigger problem. (A recent report said that of all the Australians connected to the internet OVER 52% are now connected with a broadband connection!)

[TreppidX]

Has this changed in the past year at all?

I'm currently working on a website using ezimerchant and we have only input a fraction of the amount of products that we hope to sell.
That number is already at approx 2300 products with more still to come.

>.<

[dferguson]

We still reccommend 2500 as the limit, however clients are going way past this. We still dont reccommend it thou!

[dferguson]

Hi

We simply do NOT reccommend ezimerchant if you want to use more than 2500 products. The javascript gets big, and causes delays when downloading. The other issue is related to the search function on the website - It also slows down - even for broadband users.

If you want to use it with more, it will function - But you must be prepaired for the site to be slower than a smaller site.

[TreppidX]

We still reccommend 2500 as the limit, however clients are going way past this. We still dont reccommend it thou!

Thank you for your prompt reply.