4 Important Reasons why Open Source eCommerce Shopping Carts Fail
Posted at 8:35 PM
Facts you should know why Open Source eCommerce is not your best Solution
Author: Igor Soshkin
Tag: sce-pr
1. Database Infrastructure
Internet is way too young for Open Source eCommerce companies to completely build a proper infrastructure to accommodate all business models. Once an Open Source eCommerce company releases its initial framework and infrastructure there is no reversing it without completely rewriting the whole project. The majority of companies (oScommerce, Zen Cart, X-Cart and even some new ones Magento, etc.) fail to see this. They all have an infrastructure to accommodate products with a single database and multiple attributes. Let me give you some examples:
The most advanced Open Source eCommerce currently supports products with options and multiple attributes. See example below
i. Hawaii Shirt > Size: XL > Color: Red
ii. Hawaii Shirt > Size: XL > Color: Blue
Automotive industry has one of the most advanced and complex data right behind computer hardware. Let’s take the automotive industry data and try to integrate it with one of these Shopping Carts. In the automotive industry we have the following databases that must be linked together:
iii. Product with Product options = Product, Color, Size, etc.
iv. Standardized Vehicle Data (ACES) = Car Make, Car Model and Year
To get even more advanced lets look at some specific products such as rims for cars with matching tires. The database will need to be linked together to the product with product options, (19” Spider Rim in Chrome) and vehicle data (Nissan Maxima 00-03) as well as the database below:
v. Standardized Wheel data = OEM Size, Recommended Replacement Size, Offset, Bolt Pattern (19x9, bolt pattern 104.3x5, offset 35)
vi. Standardized Tire data = OEM Size, Recommend Replacement size, Different tire rating, etc. (245/40/19ZR)
It doesn’t end there let’s take a look at bulb applications:
vii. Each standardized vehicle has a unique bulb type which is suppose to be mapped back to the vehicle application data and the product with options
As above said, there is no Open Source eCommerce Shopping Cart that can support such complex data mapping between databases without advanced programming. The only solution you have if you are in this scenario is to hire a programmer for this type of project. However be prepared for the programmer to tell you that it will be easier to rewrite everything from scratch then to use the Open Source eCommerce. In conclusion this completely eliminates the purpose of Open Source eCommerce software and their modules for a complex business model. Automotive is not the only complex business model, I can name hundreds of business models ranging from service providers (IT and Medical) to retailers (Vacuum hosing to Computer Hardware) where Open Source will not work due to the poorly designed infrastructure.
The main reason complex data is so hard to come by for Open Source eCommerce because there is too much data mapping going back and fourth. The databases (which are usually standardized such as vehicle make, model, year with separate database of rims and tires) will require you to use third party software such as MySQL where advanced programming knowledge is required. This makes it impossible for Open Source eCommerce to provide such shopping carts for you for free without daily maintenance and testing.
If you have a complex business model don’t look into Open Source eCommerce. Either find a closed source solution or be prepared to pay high hosting costs and expenses in hiring a professional programmer. Keeping the data in the database up to date every year is a project of its own.
New Features, Centralized database, Patches and Security updates are subjects that require there own sections but I will point the main key points of each:
2. Features
New Features seem like a stone age away for some Open Source eCommerce end users. What Open Source eCommerce companies fail to see is their target market is not as big as they think it is. In result there is not enough incentive to expand the open source network. Lets look at some examples
According to http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos110.htm in 2006 out of 435,000 computer programmers in United States only 17,000 were self employed.
As an Open Source eCommerce company your target audience is only 17,000 self employed developers to help out the community. You can’t assume that 17,000 developers are occupied with online retailing. They might be contractors, 3rd party developers, etc., realistically we can take 17,000 developers and cut it by 75% in order to get a statistic of developers that are involved with eCommerce (Certainly this statistic is not 100% accurate but at least we know it’s not in the millions and we can round up a number). This leaves us with an audience of 4250 developers in United States in 2006. Now lets take this figure and try to match the following, developer plus eCommerce retailer plus not already established and looking for an Open Source eCommerce provider. I will not be surprised if this number falls under 500. Now from the 500 people let’s take this into consideration, Advanced Programming Skills. I won’t be surprised if we will be working with a number close to 10 programmers. If you are a good programmer, you will most likely not use open source because you can develop whatever you need from scratch or if you do use open source you won’t share it.
What does this realistically leave us with? We have fewer than 10 people who are related to retailing and have good development skills in the United States where 10 major different Open Source eCommerce companies are targeting the same 10 people. The other 490 people we have in the Open Source eCommerce industry are individuals who have bright ideas of how they need their online businesses to succeed. The problem is they don’t have money, knowledge and/or man power to develop these solutions.
Now tell me, what kind of business plans these Open Source eCommerce companies had under their sleeves when they decided one day to launch there software companies and depended on the community to provide them with FREE modules. Was it to hard to calculate what I was able to research in less then an hour that there is not enough people and coordination to accomplish anything open source. There are no Fortune 500s interested in sponsoring projects like these. Open Source eCommerce might as well start charging for their services and hire professional developers to expedite whatever they are doing because 8 years from now they will be in the same place they are today. If you don’t believe me, look at oScommerce.
Open Source eCommerce completely ignores the fact that there are million of entrepreneurs coming online everyday who have no knowledge of even basic html but would like to use a Shopping Cart and sell products. Targeting new comers with Open Source eCommerce is like throwing a homeless person into the ER to help out a doctor with an operation, “Practically impossible”.
In conclusion if you have no knowledge of development forget about Open Source eCommerce completely unless you have some serious cash to put into development and a good business model. If you have little knowledge in development do not expect your solution to be finished anytime soon. The Open Source companies are either too busy doing their basic updates and integrating with partners or they are (Joomla) too busy trying to keep up with fixing bugs on their Shopping Cart which will leave them no time for new development since they have limited staff and no income. If you are thinking about working with someone in the community to develop the feature for you, either prepare to lay out some money or wait another 10 years before it’s finished and working properly.
My Personal Opinion – “Open Source eCommerce supporters or employees may read this and disagree with me. But if you think about it, it would be a much more organized community if there was a single Closed Source Shopping Cart, where each party would benefit with an incentive by working for that company either via license fee per module created or equity in exchange for mass development. Take all the knowledge between oScommerce, Zen Cart, X-Cart, Joomla and create one super cart and we would be 30 years ahead from where we are today. You can’t handover source code to ordinary people without incentive and expect them to do magic”.
3. Integration
Open Source out of the box solutions will only work for a one man show. If you ever expand to 5 or more employees. Prepare to spend most of your day trying to integrate your front end website with your backend management tools. After you’re done, you’ll be ready to continue integrating your backend management tools with your accounting software and visitors analytics.
One of the biggest expenses eCommerce face in the industry is their poor marketing conversion campaigns (specifically pay per click campaigns). This is due to poor centralized database which should be working automatically (such as automating the statistics and reporting about which traffic is converting and which traffic is spam). Instead of spending time to look over your marketing campaign, you are usually too busy doing something in your business which can be automated (Integrating databases with other tools, inventory, tracking, etc.). When you finally get time to go over your marketing analytics, you realize you lost a lot of money. However, you can’t stop the campaign because you need to get traffic to your website and there is nothing you can do about it because you can’t be doing everything at once. If you are doing the same work everyday you need a better solution. It is not about doing 1 thing 4000 times, it is about doing 4000 things one time.
4. Security
Open source software is known to be good against hackers because the community can exploit bugs and quickly release patches for them. Yes that is true, except Open Source eCommerce does not have Fortune 500 companies using the software and pouring millions of dollars into development. Open Source eCommerce (oScommerce) is the most exploited software on the market where your database can be easily hacked at any moment and you will never know about it.
Shopping Cart Elite was created considering the Open Source Community programs out there. Their program works on a low monthly subscription base. However there are more benefits then you think. You will have access to developers to create features you desire and they will never say “No, we can’t do it”. The features that you request will be developed FREE OF CHARGE as long as you are on the network. Free features include minor to intermediate modifications. If there are major modules to develop you will have a choice to have it developed for free but have a monthly subscription for that feature or you can help develop the feature and use it royalty free. If you develop the module on your own, not only will you be able to use it royalty free but also have an exclusive license to it. This means if you will want to license your module out to another user on the network, Shopping Cart Elite will help you do it and you will be able to earn money for each license sold. Definitely check them out (Shopping Cart Elite).
If you would like more information about this topic or schedule an interview with Igor Soshkin, please contact, email: myseo101_gmail_com
Author: Igor Soshkin
Tag: sce-pr
Suppose a survey was conducted on “The satisfaction of all Open Source eCommerce users”. Although no actual survey has been conducted yet, I as an everyday ecommerce user and researcher can safely predict the outcome and the answers of the surveyors’. If we were to ask simple questions such as “how satisfied the eCommerce user is”, (that is currently using Open Source eCommerce software). I can assure you 95% of individuals would respond with a “not at all”. Then ask them “What is the most common response you get when you ask the community to implement a new desired feature”. The answer you will usually hear is “Not anytime soon”, “It can be easily done on your own with the communities help” or “There are a bunch of 3rd party software that are available for that solution”. As witness to such responses from fellow patrons and co-workers, I began to further my research and would like to widen my knowledge and some facts about why Open Source ecommerce is not your best solution.
Please do not mistake me for a person who is against Open Source Software. In fact, I am completely for Open Source software and community development. As a CMO of MimoUSA (Wholesale Auto Parts), our users are all about Networking together. If truth be told, initially we have developed many websites for our users on open source software and we are certainly grateful for the opportunities that it opened up for our clients. However, many Open Source eCommerce providers do not realize that Open Source eCommerce will not work out for most users, specifically in the long term. Many start-up companies never envision expanding or developing their ecommerce beyond that of which they were systematically equipped with. Hence, the incapability of foreseeing the decline of their business due to rapid expansion and lack of technology to satisfy the expansion.
This is an informational insight to the future of internet business and information provided to you at no cost, just time. Yes! Time is money, but the time invested into reading such information may only help you succeed and gain the money you may possibly loss by wasting your time with Open Source eCommerce.
1. Database Infrastructure
Internet is way too young for Open Source eCommerce companies to completely build a proper infrastructure to accommodate all business models. Once an Open Source eCommerce company releases its initial framework and infrastructure there is no reversing it without completely rewriting the whole project. The majority of companies (oScommerce, Zen Cart, X-Cart and even some new ones Magento, etc.) fail to see this. They all have an infrastructure to accommodate products with a single database and multiple attributes. Let me give you some examples:
The most advanced Open Source eCommerce currently supports products with options and multiple attributes. See example below
i. Hawaii Shirt > Size: XL > Color: Red
ii. Hawaii Shirt > Size: XL > Color: Blue
Automotive industry has one of the most advanced and complex data right behind computer hardware. Let’s take the automotive industry data and try to integrate it with one of these Shopping Carts. In the automotive industry we have the following databases that must be linked together:
iii. Product with Product options = Product, Color, Size, etc.
iv. Standardized Vehicle Data (ACES) = Car Make, Car Model and Year
To get even more advanced lets look at some specific products such as rims for cars with matching tires. The database will need to be linked together to the product with product options, (19” Spider Rim in Chrome) and vehicle data (Nissan Maxima 00-03) as well as the database below:
v. Standardized Wheel data = OEM Size, Recommended Replacement Size, Offset, Bolt Pattern (19x9, bolt pattern 104.3x5, offset 35)
vi. Standardized Tire data = OEM Size, Recommend Replacement size, Different tire rating, etc. (245/40/19ZR)
It doesn’t end there let’s take a look at bulb applications:
vii. Each standardized vehicle has a unique bulb type which is suppose to be mapped back to the vehicle application data and the product with options
As above said, there is no Open Source eCommerce Shopping Cart that can support such complex data mapping between databases without advanced programming. The only solution you have if you are in this scenario is to hire a programmer for this type of project. However be prepared for the programmer to tell you that it will be easier to rewrite everything from scratch then to use the Open Source eCommerce. In conclusion this completely eliminates the purpose of Open Source eCommerce software and their modules for a complex business model. Automotive is not the only complex business model, I can name hundreds of business models ranging from service providers (IT and Medical) to retailers (Vacuum hosing to Computer Hardware) where Open Source will not work due to the poorly designed infrastructure.
The main reason complex data is so hard to come by for Open Source eCommerce because there is too much data mapping going back and fourth. The databases (which are usually standardized such as vehicle make, model, year with separate database of rims and tires) will require you to use third party software such as MySQL where advanced programming knowledge is required. This makes it impossible for Open Source eCommerce to provide such shopping carts for you for free without daily maintenance and testing.
If you have a complex business model don’t look into Open Source eCommerce. Either find a closed source solution or be prepared to pay high hosting costs and expenses in hiring a professional programmer. Keeping the data in the database up to date every year is a project of its own.
New Features, Centralized database, Patches and Security updates are subjects that require there own sections but I will point the main key points of each:
2. Features
New Features seem like a stone age away for some Open Source eCommerce end users. What Open Source eCommerce companies fail to see is their target market is not as big as they think it is. In result there is not enough incentive to expand the open source network. Lets look at some examples
According to http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos110.htm in 2006 out of 435,000 computer programmers in United States only 17,000 were self employed.
As an Open Source eCommerce company your target audience is only 17,000 self employed developers to help out the community. You can’t assume that 17,000 developers are occupied with online retailing. They might be contractors, 3rd party developers, etc., realistically we can take 17,000 developers and cut it by 75% in order to get a statistic of developers that are involved with eCommerce (Certainly this statistic is not 100% accurate but at least we know it’s not in the millions and we can round up a number). This leaves us with an audience of 4250 developers in United States in 2006. Now lets take this figure and try to match the following, developer plus eCommerce retailer plus not already established and looking for an Open Source eCommerce provider. I will not be surprised if this number falls under 500. Now from the 500 people let’s take this into consideration, Advanced Programming Skills. I won’t be surprised if we will be working with a number close to 10 programmers. If you are a good programmer, you will most likely not use open source because you can develop whatever you need from scratch or if you do use open source you won’t share it.
What does this realistically leave us with? We have fewer than 10 people who are related to retailing and have good development skills in the United States where 10 major different Open Source eCommerce companies are targeting the same 10 people. The other 490 people we have in the Open Source eCommerce industry are individuals who have bright ideas of how they need their online businesses to succeed. The problem is they don’t have money, knowledge and/or man power to develop these solutions.
Now tell me, what kind of business plans these Open Source eCommerce companies had under their sleeves when they decided one day to launch there software companies and depended on the community to provide them with FREE modules. Was it to hard to calculate what I was able to research in less then an hour that there is not enough people and coordination to accomplish anything open source. There are no Fortune 500s interested in sponsoring projects like these. Open Source eCommerce might as well start charging for their services and hire professional developers to expedite whatever they are doing because 8 years from now they will be in the same place they are today. If you don’t believe me, look at oScommerce.
Open Source eCommerce completely ignores the fact that there are million of entrepreneurs coming online everyday who have no knowledge of even basic html but would like to use a Shopping Cart and sell products. Targeting new comers with Open Source eCommerce is like throwing a homeless person into the ER to help out a doctor with an operation, “Practically impossible”.
In conclusion if you have no knowledge of development forget about Open Source eCommerce completely unless you have some serious cash to put into development and a good business model. If you have little knowledge in development do not expect your solution to be finished anytime soon. The Open Source companies are either too busy doing their basic updates and integrating with partners or they are (Joomla) too busy trying to keep up with fixing bugs on their Shopping Cart which will leave them no time for new development since they have limited staff and no income. If you are thinking about working with someone in the community to develop the feature for you, either prepare to lay out some money or wait another 10 years before it’s finished and working properly.
My Personal Opinion – “Open Source eCommerce supporters or employees may read this and disagree with me. But if you think about it, it would be a much more organized community if there was a single Closed Source Shopping Cart, where each party would benefit with an incentive by working for that company either via license fee per module created or equity in exchange for mass development. Take all the knowledge between oScommerce, Zen Cart, X-Cart, Joomla and create one super cart and we would be 30 years ahead from where we are today. You can’t handover source code to ordinary people without incentive and expect them to do magic”.
3. Integration
Open Source out of the box solutions will only work for a one man show. If you ever expand to 5 or more employees. Prepare to spend most of your day trying to integrate your front end website with your backend management tools. After you’re done, you’ll be ready to continue integrating your backend management tools with your accounting software and visitors analytics.
One of the biggest expenses eCommerce face in the industry is their poor marketing conversion campaigns (specifically pay per click campaigns). This is due to poor centralized database which should be working automatically (such as automating the statistics and reporting about which traffic is converting and which traffic is spam). Instead of spending time to look over your marketing campaign, you are usually too busy doing something in your business which can be automated (Integrating databases with other tools, inventory, tracking, etc.). When you finally get time to go over your marketing analytics, you realize you lost a lot of money. However, you can’t stop the campaign because you need to get traffic to your website and there is nothing you can do about it because you can’t be doing everything at once. If you are doing the same work everyday you need a better solution. It is not about doing 1 thing 4000 times, it is about doing 4000 things one time.
4. Security
Open source software is known to be good against hackers because the community can exploit bugs and quickly release patches for them. Yes that is true, except Open Source eCommerce does not have Fortune 500 companies using the software and pouring millions of dollars into development. Open Source eCommerce (oScommerce) is the most exploited software on the market where your database can be easily hacked at any moment and you will never know about it.
Open Source software is unable to repair your critical security threats unless you update them yourself (If they are ever discovered). Open Source eCommerce does not have the ability or permission to automatically enter your FTP and update your software. If a patch is discovered and released, the next problem you face is that the retailer is too busy running the business to realize that the patch was never installed.
Security is a very big issue in eCommerce; if your server gets hacked in good case scenario you lose your data and reload it from you backups later. Worst case scenario, your credit cards get stolen by a hacker without you even knowing, the hacker sells the data overseas. 11 months later you get picked up by the CIA for providing credit card information to fund terrorist organizations, then you’re taken to Guantanamo Bay and you never see the light of day again.
SOLUTION!
Shopping Cart Elite was created considering the Open Source Community programs out there. Their program works on a low monthly subscription base. However there are more benefits then you think. You will have access to developers to create features you desire and they will never say “No, we can’t do it”. The features that you request will be developed FREE OF CHARGE as long as you are on the network. Free features include minor to intermediate modifications. If there are major modules to develop you will have a choice to have it developed for free but have a monthly subscription for that feature or you can help develop the feature and use it royalty free. If you develop the module on your own, not only will you be able to use it royalty free but also have an exclusive license to it. This means if you will want to license your module out to another user on the network, Shopping Cart Elite will help you do it and you will be able to earn money for each license sold. Definitely check them out (Shopping Cart Elite).
If you would like more information about this topic or schedule an interview with Igor Soshkin, please contact, email: myseo101_gmail_com
Labels: eCommerce Solution, Open Source eCommerce, Shopping Cart
