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The future of eCommerce store development!
As a long time web designer I've dealt with any number of
eCommerce options over the years. In general you've always had two major
options:
1) You
build and code from scratch. This required a great deal of knowledge in various
coding languages in addition to the ability to design an attractive interface
which will work within the construct of the website's structure.
2) You pay a company with pre-built systems. This was not only extremely
expensive but rarely allowed you freedom to create any sort of pleasing design
as it would have to conform to their limited header/footer customization.
Well, I've seen the light now! The future is here and (unfortunately for people
in "the business" like me) it's unbelievably easy to do.
These free solutions are Open Source based online shop e-commerce solutions that
are available under the GNU General Public License. They all contain a rich set
of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionalities that allows store owners
to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort and with no
costs, fees, or limitations involved. Most of these Open Source solutions
provide an e-commerce platform, which include the powerful PHP web scripting
language and the fast MySQL database server. With no special requirements, they
are able to run on any PHP 4.1+ enabled web server running on Linux, Solaris,
BSD, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows environments.
Unbelievable right? Well,, it's true and I'm loving it.
In addition to the obvious advantages of these open source stores, there are
many less obvious benefits such as
- Active user forums where you can get answers to most any question without
dealing with charges or "canned responses" from a profit company.
- The ability to change the design of your store nearly instantly by simply
selecting a new "template" from within your administration panel
- Countless free "add-ons" and "modules" which add all types of additional
features to your store.
- As the projects continue to grow and the stores improve you can upgrade, and
of course the upgrades are free also.
In my opinion once of the greatest of the above features is the ability to
change the design and/or appearance of your site with the ease of a few uploads
and button clicks (ONCE YOU HAVE A DESIGN DEVELOPED). The most common complaint
I found from OS users was the same one I've heard about other e-commerce
packages. People weren't aware of how much work would be involved in getting an
original design put together. They would get to a certain point, hit an
unexpected bottleneck, and be unable to keep going. The majority of the work
involved in getting your store up and running was getting a design to function
within the limits and restrictions of the store's code. Every implementation
will run into these problems, and everything takes longer and costs more than
you plan for it, whether it's proprietary or open source. There are now;
however, easy solutions for this issue which will prevent you from getting
overwhelmed. Many businesses on the web (example: http://www.bg-website-templates.com
& http://www.bluegelmedia.com ) who focus on web template development have
entered a whole new era in template design. They have begun development of
stunning designs for Open Source eCommerce solutions such as OScommerce, ZenCart,
and CRE Loaded (the most popular of these Open Source eCommerce solutions). This
allows you to easily implement a perfect store design within minutes. While
these design templates are not free like the eCommerce solution, they are worth
the mere $50 average price, saving you weeks of frustrating design.
You can find more information on these Open Source eCommerce Solutions at their
hub sites. Just type in the OS solution name you wish to research into your
search engine and their home pages will show up. The most popular solutions are
ZenCart, OScommerce & CRE Loaded. But there are many other ones out there to
choose from; however these three have proven themselves over time and have such
large user bases and support groups that I would recommend trying one of them
first before attempting to delve into lesser known solutions.
To sum this all up. While large companies will always need a custom built
solution for their online stores, the average small business no longer needs to
spend five or ten thousand dollars to have a quality store developed. The use of
a free OS solution along with an inexpensive design template will have you
selling online for pennies on the dollar compared with a custom built store.
Even if you don't feel you have the skill set to work with the OS solutions, you
can hire any competent developer to implement it for you. Sure you'll be
charged, but the price will be a small percentage of what you would have paid.
Written by Gene Torrey
Webmaster/Lead Designer.
I have spent nearly seven years in the pursuit of how to make high end websites
using small business resources.
This article may be reproduced if all content, links and byline remain intact.
Ecommerce Web Templates can be found using this link.
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