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I'm looking for an e-commerce system that is built around EAV (entity-attribute-value) somewhat like Magento, but hopefully simpler. I'm really okay with just about any platform (Java, .NET, PHP, whatever), I just really need to be able to freely associate properties with groups of products... e.g. a drill bushing will have some inner diameter and outer diameter, a drill bit will have a certain outer diameter, etc. Thanks for the info!

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Sane people don't use EAV - they value their data and EAV makes it extremely difficult (verging on impossible) to ensure the data's integrity. –  Jonathan Leffler Jan 9 '11 at 8:19
@Johnathan Leffler: Sane people don't use EAV without reason. For retailers with complex attribute requirements, EAV is the most conceptually simple model short of adding multitudinous columns to a table (which is not extensible.) The poster appears to have such requirements. –  Joseph Mastey Jan 11 '11 at 4:44

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I'm not aware of any other ecommerce systems that use EAV (except Magento). While Magento does have a learning curve, I think you'll find it worth the effort particularly if you start by working some of the improved documentation and tutorials written by Stack Overflow members like Alan Storm.

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