Advantages and Disadvantages of an Open Source Ecommerce Tool
Gaining success with your ecommerce website before it's too late to compete in the market is not a rocket science. E-commerce Website selling products or services has grown larger since 2004 and is increasing its sales figures on the web grossing an increase of 5 million dollar every year. These days people are crazy about the concept of buying from their cell phones and Pcs from work or home. Using internet and buying online is now a lifestyle. Social media sites contribute to this concept by creating a culture of all internet users to share information and cross exchange opinions. This created the opportunity to the service providers and manufacturers that sell unique and quality products that their products be discussed and opinions be shared all over the internet. This led to the rest of the industry to stay in the competition and thus follow the concept and staying in the front row.
To begin with an ecommerce website development, the most essential aspect is planning your goals. One must plan for short term goals and long term goals. Based on the competitors history, industry trends, and the dynamics of risks goals must be planned. Also, budgets being the most dominant factor in planning phases, it needs to be accepted that if the growth of your Ecommerce business requires a certain (minimum) amount of investment, it must not be avoided. Budgets must be planned on the basis of many close and relevant case studies.
The aforesaid is now going to help me express the subject matter. Now a days Open source website development is the need of the hour as everyone wants to start an ecommerce website in the lowest possible budget. Open source based development always favors the quality of presentation in less price. Some of the tools might perfectly fit your objectives and every tool is made available for free. But here are the pros and cons.
Advantages:
Programmers that are not experts can easily work with these tools to build a site, thus services rendered are less expensive.
Increasingly a number of development firms are creating addon features for each tool so the features that are default, can be increased with addons.
The structure of an Ecommerce site is in place, no programming from scratch needed.
Shipper services features, merchant service features are pre-built, again no coding required.
Standardized code structure and PCI DSS compliant.
Robust architectures!
Less time taking as compared to developing and building from scratch.
Disadvantages:
Coders that are not experts can also implement non-standardized coding.
Addons are paid for, and sometimes an Addon that is not compliant can also cause another addon to conflict and stop responding sometimes.
Incase base structure needs modification, it will require thrice the development time and cost than working on a custom built ecommerce site.
A shipper or merchant service that is not pre-configured will require coding time and thus cost of development or will require purchasing of an addon.
Incase of a feature that requires modification, architecture amendment requires high level of expertise.
A pre-configured process and functional system having a base structure and features far too complex for modifying.
Conclusion:
Those who tend to setup an Ecommerce website that falls in an industry that has a rich user experience trend should opt for custom Ecommerce website development. Those who tend setting up an ecommerce website with an idea of letting sales to happen without being too unique should opt for an open source tool such as Virtuemart, UberCart, Magento, Zen Cart, X-cart, Cube-Cart etc.
To begin with an ecommerce website development, the most essential aspect is planning your goals. One must plan for short term goals and long term goals. Based on the competitors history, industry trends, and the dynamics of risks goals must be planned. Also, budgets being the most dominant factor in planning phases, it needs to be accepted that if the growth of your Ecommerce business requires a certain (minimum) amount of investment, it must not be avoided. Budgets must be planned on the basis of many close and relevant case studies.
The aforesaid is now going to help me express the subject matter. Now a days Open source website development is the need of the hour as everyone wants to start an ecommerce website in the lowest possible budget. Open source based development always favors the quality of presentation in less price. Some of the tools might perfectly fit your objectives and every tool is made available for free. But here are the pros and cons.
Advantages:
Programmers that are not experts can easily work with these tools to build a site, thus services rendered are less expensive.
Increasingly a number of development firms are creating addon features for each tool so the features that are default, can be increased with addons.
The structure of an Ecommerce site is in place, no programming from scratch needed.
Shipper services features, merchant service features are pre-built, again no coding required.
Standardized code structure and PCI DSS compliant.
Robust architectures!
Less time taking as compared to developing and building from scratch.
Disadvantages:
Coders that are not experts can also implement non-standardized coding.
Addons are paid for, and sometimes an Addon that is not compliant can also cause another addon to conflict and stop responding sometimes.
Incase base structure needs modification, it will require thrice the development time and cost than working on a custom built ecommerce site.
A shipper or merchant service that is not pre-configured will require coding time and thus cost of development or will require purchasing of an addon.
Incase of a feature that requires modification, architecture amendment requires high level of expertise.
A pre-configured process and functional system having a base structure and features far too complex for modifying.
Conclusion:
Those who tend to setup an Ecommerce website that falls in an industry that has a rich user experience trend should opt for custom Ecommerce website development. Those who tend setting up an ecommerce website with an idea of letting sales to happen without being too unique should opt for an open source tool such as Virtuemart, UberCart, Magento, Zen Cart, X-cart, Cube-Cart etc.
Source...