Our recommendation for a standard website solution
The principle reason why anyone should be undertaking a Joomla installation is to reduce the balance of risk while achieving their goals for the least amount of effort. There are thousands of decisions to make during the lifetime of a website or an e-Commerce site and all of these decisions will involve risk. If a proprietary offering were to be selected then there is a high risk of being unable to be aware of all the decisions needed to make your e-Commerce project successful. If any proprietary software solution or we-design agency were selected then the installation and deployment burden is reduced but the decision burden is increased. Proprietary solutions amount to 'you choose up-front and you are locked in' else it will cost you later.
Essentially, the use of Open Source releases some of the up-front decision requirements. This is due to the knowledge base of the forums surrounding the software and because someone somewhere will have more than likely solved the same website problems. A proprietary solution can, at worst, retain the source and, should the commercial supplier go bust, the whole system is stranded and unable to apply security patches or updates. This is important when considering the changing world of security and external payment APIs. Even if the source were to be supplied, a failed commercial software package will not attract the resources, or experienced people, to maintain and enhance the code base.
I recommend the adoption of a Joomla CMS system perhaps with an option of eCommerce via the extension called VirtueMart.
