Open Source solutions versus customised | price comparison

[webmto]

The purpose of this post is to make a comparative assessment of open source versus personalized solutions.

I met clients who offer tens of thousands of magento solutions, so that after 1 year they can look for solutions to migrate.

Speaking of performance and scalability I do not see an answer to open source or wix, woo, bigcommerce, shopify, etc. and so come back I understand that it is only the price that decides when deciding to set up a website.

I think everything if we talk about final costs, installation, configuration, imports, etc. it would be possible to balance the cost between open source and personalized solutions. And in this sense, I think it would be good for all this discussion.

 

[WebDesires]

This is exactly what we do, we use OpenCart because of its neat, developer friendly base that allows us to pull something with all the major features a client will need but then allow us to apply personalisation and customization as necessary.

I personally find magento, shopify, woocommerce to be very hard to customize without allot of knowledge and even then development is much harder. Where as a clean, light-weight system such as OpenCart gives you a great base to make a fantastic customized system.

 

[fisicx]

There was an other developer on here a while back (from Poland I think) who posted a very similar question.

There is no single answer. Each ecommerce platform has pros and cons and each has there own following. It all depends on what you are selling and to whom and how much customisation you need. I've got a client who set up woocommerce, installed a theme and is now doing very well. Another just uses paypal for the two products he sells. Other people swear bu shopify. So cost may be a factor but it's only one of many.

This a good place to begin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_shopping_cart_software

 

[webmto]

@fisicx,

In other words, the purpose of this post is to discuss cars and their cost.
Not what cars we have or what cars we drive day by day.
But without driving an e60 we will never know what is the pleasure of driving and we think the bmw ad is a lie.

 

[webmto]

This is exactly what we do, we use OpenCart because of its neat, developer friendly base that allows us to pull something with all the major features a client will need but then allow us to apply personalisation and customization as necessary.

I personally find magento, shopify, woocommerce to be very hard to customize without allot of knowledge and even then development is much harder. Where as a clean, light-weight system such as OpenCart gives you a great base to make a fantastic customized system.

Not quite hard, really. Also open cart can give you a lot of headacke if you mess the virtualisation.
As @fisicx said, even woo commerce can be a solution even if in my opinion it is the weakest of all.
When the costs are the boss, woo is the hero.

 

[antropy]

The purpose of this post is to make a comparative assessment of open source versus personalized solutions.

I wrote a blog article about exactly this 5 years ago:
https://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/custom-code-or-existing-platform/

 

[webmto]

I read the article and you mostly support what I said.

But if there was a way to offer customers super solutions at near open source costs?
Does not this mean evolution and steps towards a more efficient and profitable web?

 

[Nick Chambers]

This is why Sylius is the perfect solution. It's decoupled, so you can use whichever bundles you need and so easy to customise. Like ready made building blocks.

 

[webmto]

@Nick Chambers, if you like it, the customers love it, it the perfect one.

Could you tell me how much will cost an e-commerce website based on Sylius? I'm interested in a price comparison. Thank you.

 

[TLT Property Management]

I would recommend using open source to keep the cost down. I am happy with opencart and drupal a custom them and some work myself and own everything

 

[webmto]

Since the costs is the main issues for the website owner and since I have +20 years experience in building website from scratch, I was thinking to the following idea:

What about an open source platform where people can have their own website, selling products, all this starting from £100, website, hosting and email ( [email protected] ) included ?

It's a small costs for a website/hosting/email or is comparable with UK prices?

By open source I'm referring to : WordPress + WooComerce, Open Cart, PrestaShop, Magento.

I look forward to your response,
CC

 

[Alan]

It's a small costs for a website/hosting/email or is comparable with UK prices?

No it is extremely expensive by UK standards. Just pop along to peopleperhour.co.uk and see how many people are asking for websites designed & built for £12 or even £6.

 

[webmto]

No it is extremely expensive by UK standards. Just pop along to peopleperhour.co.uk and see how many people are asking for websites designed & built for £12 or even £6.

£100 for website, hosting and personalised email is extremely expensive?

 

[merchado]

It’s expensive based on what people think an e-commerce site will cost to build.

It’s cheap as heck in the real world.

 

[webmto]

Perhaps you can indicate me a price that is considered acceptable?

 

[merchado]

There are many factors.

What support do you offer? Do you have a testing process for any modifications that you may make to the platform? A staging environment? Do you manage security updates on behalf of the client? Do you carry out SEO for the store on an on-going basis? Do you deal with analytics? A/B testing? Are you pro-active when it comes to implementing new technologies that will benefit the client? At what times are you available for the client to contact you?

These are all value-added services and I’m sure that I’ve missed many out.

Like any service, building an e-commerce store can be cheap for the end user. But the old adage applies that you get what you pay for.

 

[Scottishgifts4u]

Apologies for a bit of a thread hijack but it doesn't justify a whole tread on its own. I'm with Sellerdeck and happy enough with it but i'd love to have a go at designing another site using something like WordPress + WooComerce, Open Cart, PrestaShop, Magento. I have no programming experience and would probably never put it on the net but purely for my own fun which is easiest to start with?

 

[webmto]

There are many factors.

What support do you offer? Do you have a testing process for any modifications that you may make to the platform? A staging environment? Do you manage security updates on behalf of the client? Do you carry out SEO for the store on an on-going basis? Do you deal with analytics? A/B testing? Are you pro-active when it comes to implementing new technologies that will benefit the client? At what times are you available for the client to contact you?

These are all value-added services and I’m sure that I’ve missed many out.

Like any service, building an e-commerce store can be cheap for the end user. But the old adage applies that you get what you pay for.

All type of support, starting from choosing the right hosting solution (physical server / dedicated server), OS version (linux distribution), web server, database server, cache server, security, web /database server optimisation, fall back solution, backup server, data secure server (encrypted data), professional analytics (not google), platform for online website custom or open source (stability, features, easy administration for customers, adding new features that are not available by default or by module installing - many modules can slow down dramatically a website), SEO, AdWords, business analysis and more.

Yes, all modifications are tested on separate platform before implementation, and if true, the update files are released. This also include the security issue that may appear.

SEO is optional, but available as the analytics and custom analytics software much better then analytics. A/B testing is optional, but available, reports are included.

New technology is welcome, but will need to be tested first and prove the efficacy. A report will be generate and the conclusion will be discussed with the website owner.

The customers have to chose from Full (24/7/365) and Standard 09:00 - 17:00, depending the website (payment, anti fraud, DDOS, etc) and after explaining the customer the differences between Full and Standard.

 

[webmto]

Apologies for a bit of a thread hijack but it doesn't justify a whole tread on its own. I'm with Sellerdeck and happy enough with it but i'd love to have a go at designing another site using something like WordPress + WooComerce, Open Cart, PrestaShop, Magento. I have no programming experience and would probably never put it on the net but purely for my own fun which is easiest to start with?

@Scottishgifts4u

There is no fun in choosing the right solutions, is just years of experience.

Anyway you can start with Open Cart, easy to install, quite fast compared with WordPress, PrestaShop and Magento. Need to be careful when install new modules.

WordPress / WooCommerce also easy to install, lots of plugin available, but slow. Each plugin load the website but if you don't care about speed is nothing to worry if you are sure that the installed plugins does not compromise the server security.

Magento is quite heavy, hunger for server resources, need special optimisation, but in the end can be a valid solution.

Have fun!

 

[fisicx]

WordPress / WooCommerce also easy to install, lots of plugin available, but slow.

Not if you do it properly

 

[webmto]

Not if you do it properly

Sorry to have different opinion. The wp_enqueue_style and wp_enqueue_script will load the style and script resources unless there are already registered. That is so each plugin will add his own styles/scripts and that makes the site slower.

Demonstration.
Fresh install WordPress , WooCommerce and theme.
See the movie.

 

[Coari]

At the end of the day you get what you paying for, full stop.

 

[merchado]

Agreed.

Over many years in the business I’ve found that the clients with the smallest budgets are those that are the hardest to work with. In general, they don’t appreciate the amount of work involved and feature creep is a real problem.

We no longer compete on price. If you want to charge £100 to a client for an e-commerce site then knock yourself out. It’s not a client that I would want to work with and it’s nowhere near enough to cover the initial setup costs, let alone the ongoing work.

We choose to offer a complete, tailored solution with real support and maintenance. Put simply, that costs money.

 

[Coari]

Yes. We are also trying to filter out clients who don't have money before we even spend more than 5 minutes talking to them.
Ecommerce business is not for kids or dreamers, you want to make money you have to invest.

 

[webmto]

@merchado

100% agree.
I'm not saying that I want to work with small budget customers. What I said is that I can offer solutions starting from £100, because from what I see here everybody is looking for best price and not the quality.

I can offer both, the quality and the affordable price, but will not be happy with with £100 per website.

It's not about the price competitions is about to enter the market. If you have better solutions please let me know.

I've made projects up to £25,000 but those customers are quite rare and usually they have their own person who want that money, event the final products is £1000 product.

That's the current situation and I need to accommodate with because of the economical situation.

At any time if it is to make a comparison between my solutions with other, any available tools or audit will give a higher score to me. But that costs money.

 

[webmto]

At the end of the day you get what you paying for, full stop.

In special situations, as mine, at the end of the day you can get the five time what you pay.

 

[webmto]

Have better proposal? Just let me know. Full stop.

 

[merchado]

Please don’t take my opinions personally.

I don’t see how you can offer a client a full-blown e-commerce store for £100 whilst charging others ‘up to £25000’.

There is obviously a difference in service for the money. Offering both ends of the spectrum dilutes your expertise and my question would be that - if you are experienced and can provide value, why cater for the lower end of the market?

It’s hard to cover both bases and we prefer to leave the lower end of the market to the many people who can install eg. Woocommerce but aren’t actually software engineers nor bona-fide web developers.

The time that you spend on building stores for low-value clients would be better spent on obtaining high-value clients who appreciate your expertise and are willing to pay accordingly.

My opinion of course - you’re more than justified in disagreeing with me!

 

[Coari]

Have better proposal? Just let me know. Full stop.

When you run a business the most important part of it is to get customers. You need to be a salesmen and know how to catch bigger customers. If you don't know how to do this it is probably better to work for someone who knows how to do it or alternatively get some business coaching.

 

[webmto]

Please don’t take my opinions personally.

I don’t see how you can offer a client a full-blown e-commerce store for £100 whilst charging others ‘up to £25000’.

There is obviously a difference in service for the money. Offering both ends of the spectrum dilutes your expertise and my question would be that - if you are experienced and can provide value, why cater for the lower end of the market?

It’s hard to cover both bases and we prefer to leave the lower end of the market to the many people who can install eg. Woocommerce but aren’t actually software engineers nor bona-fide web developers.

The time that you spend on building stores for low-value clients would be better spent on obtaining high-value clients who appreciate your expertise and are willing to pay accordingly.

My opinion of course - you’re more than justified in disagreeing with me!

On the contrary, I agree with you. The project I mentioned was time ago.
When big projects on the table the time for £100 woo commerce is zero.

You can not imagine how well I know what you're talking about.

Yes, high-value clients is the key, at any time I prefer this solution than to configure 10 woocomerce per day.

That's why one of my first posts was to find a partner who is already working online who appreciates well thought-out and structured solutions and who wants to promote these solutions and earn a lot of money.

Do you have any idea how many proposals have come?

 

[webmto]

When you run a business the most important part of it is to get customers. You need to be a salesmen and know how to catch bigger customers. If you don't know how to do this it is probably better to work for someone who knows how to do it or alternatively get some business coaching.

Indeed. Big customers can't be found remotely

Via partners or company that provide online services, yes.