Free software doesn’t come cheap
Open-source e-commerce solutions are plentiful, but don’t put your wallet away just yet.
Kenneth C. Fletcher, Oakland, Calif.
What are the best, free open-source solutions for e-commerce? My needs include robust international transactional functionality, a shopping-cart mechanism, and something that can be easily customized to handle products and Web content on a global scale, from Japan to Brazil.
By Kathleen Ryan O’Connor, Fortune Small Business contributor
Dear Kenneth: An open-source e-commerce application can be a boon for cash-strapped entrepreneurs hoping to become the next Amazon.com (AMZN).
Barrie North, a partner in JoomlaShack, a company that produces templates and customization for the open-source Joomla software, says small-business owners have a lot of great choices these days.
Well-known names include Ecommerce from Network Solutions (the popular MonsterCommerce software became part of Network Solutions in 2006), OsCommerce, Shopify, Virtuemart, Volusion, Zen Cart – and there’s still plenty more.
But don’t forget that when it comes to open-source software, free doesn’t exactly mean “without cost.” Expect to pay hosting fees of at least $30 to $50 per month, or transaction processing fees, and design, consulting or other fees might be necessary for the more complicated solutions. There is also the less tangible cost of the time you’ll need to learn the software.
“If your technical level is e-mail, you are probably going to have to spend $500-$1,000 to help set your site up,” says North, who also blogs at CompassDesigns.net, and wrote Joomla: A User’s Guide. “But if you can set up your own hosting account or know FTP – file transfer protocol – you could probably do it yourself in a couple of hours” for minimal cost.
For the average small-business owner, a closed-system, hosted solution will be “the fastest way to go online,” North says – but he adds that customers are expecting more than just a basic virtual checkout aisle these days.
“You need more than just a shopping cart in 2008,” he says.
The best shopping experiences will feature “richer content,” such as forums and blogs in addition to a user-friendly checkout mechanism. He encourages small-business owners to look for an integrated content management system that will incorporate all of the above.
Michael Bloch, an Australian tech blogger who writes at “Taming the Beast,” prefers Zen Cart.
“It’s based on OSCommerce, which has been around for many years,” he says. “The Zen Cart solution has a broad range of features, is very flexible and well supported. Like OSCommerce, there’s an active community associated with the application, so if you have problems setting it up or in general usage, chances are there’s info out there on the issue, or he can post a question to the Zen Cart forums. Zen cart also has many add-ons available, most of them free. If the reader needed custom applications made, there are many developers around who are experienced in modifying the application.”
Roy Banks, president of Authorize.net, the Internet payment processor acquired last year by Cybersource, says establishing an e-commerce presence can be especially challenging for small businesses.
“There really isn’t a quick and dirty answer,” he says.
He also notes that open source isn’t a cheap fix. Integration and development isn’t free, “and with a lot of open source you need to upgrade to other things,” Banks says. “You get what you pay for. That axiom will always hold true.”
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DiggI disagree with the old adage of “you get what you pay for”. There have been significant advancements in opensource software and having used both open and premium softwares, I would choose many of the open source solutions over a premium any day.
Using open source software is like saying “hey I support the community!”
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James McCennaugh
Real Estate License Direct
I have extensively implemented Open Source e-Commerce solutions. I shall strongly recommend Zen Cart. It is robust and less buggy when compared to others. For info regarding Open Source E-Commerce solutions see..
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yep maintenance and fixing bugs is almost as important as the software.
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I believe there is a misconception people have about open source software. Many people think that you download the software, configure it a bit and boom… your off and rolling. Although this may be true for most cases, some people tend to forget that once the site is up and running, changes and maintenance is required. Who will do the changes? Who will do the functionality upgrades? Who will fix things when they break? All this has to be kept in mind before choosing the open source software. Yes, there are plenty of “support services” you can get to maintain the product, but then finding resources may be a pain, versus the traditional approach of buying software. All this has to be taken into consideration.
Time is money and some of these OS programs are not easy to work with. I tried a few and decided to pay a little something and save my sanity.
Overall, things have come a long way since the days when you had to know Perl in order to make a website.
Unless your technically savvy and have time on your hands, pay a little something.
Open source has it’s uses however, it’s not a fix for everyone. I see it daily with my clients using open source on Multi million dollar SAN environment because they’re no longer willing to pay for high end OS’s such as AIX or Solaris operating systems. Ironically, they pay in the end with untimely outages with a technology that hasn’t worked all the glitches out. From what I see, you get what you pay for. You want 6 nines of reliability, plan on spending the money up front and purchasing high end. Want to save money and struggle for 2 nines, your call. Either way, You’ll come to us to fix your SAN!
Regardless of whether you use an open source solution or purchase a vendor product you have to ask yourself this question “Do I want to concentrate on running my business or baby sit the software that the business runs on…”. You need someone you can trust to setup and maintain your software.
The software may be free and is often better quality than commercial stuff because the authors aren’t under commercial pressures to take shortcuts to get the product out the door.
But that doesn’t mean you won’t have costs. You still have to set up hosting and configure the software for your business, and it may be a good idea to have someone on staff that has familiarity with what is available, and experience with using it.
I am taking a Computer Class at AV College and our tutor sings the praises of Linux.
There’s also Magento Commerce, which is fairly easy to install and is developed and maintained by a web development company (Varien) and a community of contributors.
If you use Drupal for forums and blogs, there’s also Ubercart.
I strongly disagree with the author when he says “you get what you pay for”. In the open source world there are many programs that are as good and sometimes better than any software program you will pay for and open source is more secure and more stable. I have used open source (Linux) software for personnel use with great success and am very happy with it.
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i love to shopping this product is to cheap