It's almost always easier to develop a Web site when you're familiar with the tools that you're using to build the Web site. That's the general idea behind Web Assist's eCommerce Suite 3.0 which integrates with Macromedia Dreamweaver MX (and MX 2004) to provide extensive e-commerce functionality all within a familiar interface and workflow.

If you're not a Dreamweaver user though, I'll save you the time of reading this review now and tell you that WA eCommerce Suite is probably not for you, there are easier (albeit less powerful) ways of building an e-commerce site. For those that are Dreamweaver users, (and considering that for many years, Macromedia's Dreamweaver has been the de facto standard web development tool there are likely many of you out there) WA eCommerce Suite 3 may be the commerce tool you've been looking for.

What It Is
WA eCommerce Suite is not a tool in and of itself. It's a combination of six Dreamweaver extensions and a mountain of supplemental documentation and other such "helpful" tools and resources. The primary tool at the heart of the suite is the WA eCart extension, which is the extension that includes the bulk of the shopping cart application smarts.

The eCart extension includes the ability to get real time shipping quotes from UPS or FedEx. Payment gateway support includes 2Checkout, Authorize.Net Simple Integration method (SIM), Express Checkout, PayPal, LinkPoint Connect, Payflow Link and WorldPay.

Product data can be static or it can be data driven with support for MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access data bases. Dynamic code for various server models is also part of the suite with example code for ASP (both Javascript and VBscript), Coldfusion and PHP. For the purposes of this review I used PHP running on a typical Linux LAMP server stack, which I found to work quite well.

The eCart Display Manager function gives you the ability to do what few other applications properly do, namely the ability to fully customize the layout of the cart itself (as opposed to the design template of your site) with different layouts, color schemes, buttons and rules. There is also an "email friendly" cart display that allows you send the shopping cart display in an email receipt. Thanks to the fact that the output is all standard CSS, and Dreamweaver is certainly a CSS friendly development tool, it's easy to see how this really is a power user's tool.

Beyond "just" the eCart shopping cart extension itself, the suite also includes five other very helpful extensions:
WA Database Search - wizard driven database search code
WA Cookies - a cookie management tool
WA Dynamic Dropdowns - dropdown menu builder
WA Universal Email - a tool to build functionality for web based email (automatic reply, order confirmations etc)
WA Validation Toolkit - validates forms

Installation
Installing the whole suite with all of its tools is not complicated but it is a bit tedious. The first sign of "trouble" that I encountered was when I had to actually get all the files that constitute the suite. Rather than just having one download that includes "everything," I had to manually go through the list and download multiple components individually. It would have been nicer, and easier, had the package been more easily downloadable with perhaps a master .zip file. Actually, installing the extensions is the same as with any other Dreamweaver extension, and is done just by double-clicking the file, which pulls up the Macromedia Extension Manager that automatically does the rest.

Usage
WA eCommerce Suite 3 comes with a ton of tutorials, reference guides and examples - as well as what Web Assist calls "recipes" which are essentially tutorials with code snippets on how to get a particular function into your Web site. Despite all this, after installation I was still a bit lost as to where to begin. There is no master wizard, no step-by-step, automated mechanism that automatically launches inside of Dreamweaver telling you what to do first, next and what's not yet done in order to have a fully functional Web site.

One of the core tutorials that is included provides a walk through of what to do to set up the test site for something called Blue Sky Shoes. It is easy enough to execute and it does give you a flavor of what you can do and how to do it. It doesn't, however, give you your own working site. All you've got is the tutorial site, which, unless you're making a shoe company Web site, isn't going to cut it.

WA eCommerce Suite 3's store template allows you to explore how to build your own e-commerce site. (Click for larger view)

But, then again, perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. Dreamweaver is a power user's tool and is not (not anymore, anyway) a tool for the timid or the un-initiated. If you want a simple step-by-step wizard I suppose you could always go for Miva or one of the hosted e-commerce vendors. You wouldn't however have the full power and customizability that WA's solution offers however. Full customizability and design control is what has drawn Web developer to Dreamweaver since the dawn of the Internet era, and it still draws them for the same reason today. If you think of WA e-commerce Suite for what it is — a set of tools that extend the functionality of Dreamweaver — as opposed to an e-commerce application, you'll likely not be disappointed. Though, be prepared to invest some time to get used to it and fully explore its myriad capabilities.

Stay A While - You Might Like It
Over the course of two months of usage I found that the WA Assist Ecommerce Suite 3 extensions really grew on me. As I spent more time with it, the more comfortable I became with it and the more I appreciated and discovered its true power. The tutorial and the various recipes are all fine and nice but there is nothing quite like trying to use a tool to build a production-grade site.

Ultimately, I suppose that's what this is all about; it's not a quick fix for a newbie, it's an incredible amount of functionality and developer customizable power.

Sean Michael Kerner is a regular contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com.