Hi everyone,
I wanted to know what type of eCommerce solutions are preferable for the beginners who would like to start their online store? Hosted solution or open source?
What are your suggestions?
There are many forums around where this topic is being discussed. I think it completely depends on the customers requirement, budget and capability to manage the Ecommerce store. We have many clients using Magento (https://www.milesweb.com/magento-hosting.php), PrestaShop (https://www.milesweb.com/prestashop-hosting.php), Cube Cart (https://www.milesweb.com/cubecart-hosting.php) and many other shopping carts to run their eCommerce websites. We install the shopping cart application and charge only for the web hosting account which starts from just $3 per month. We have also assisted some of our clients with payment gateway (https://www.milesweb.com/blog/top-10-online-payment-gateways-indian-ecommerce-websites/) integration and we have not charged them for it. ;)
Hosted eCommerce platform offers limited flexibility, whereas Open source solutions can be customized as per the clients requirement. More features can be added using extensions and custom coding. Both hosted and open source offers good number of features which is more than enough to run an eCommerce website.
Your decision for opting for hosting solutions or open source solutions depends on three important factors:
* Your budget
* Whether you have in-house programmers or you have outsourced coding and programming
* Your important requirements for the online store
One of the major differences between a hosted solution and an open source software is that a hosted solution can be easily implemented by anyone who is technically savvy. In case of open source solution, specialized developers are needed for managing the online store.
The world today is driven by open source technologies. Running an eCommerce store on open source platform is going to ensure maximum benefits and the process of business expansion will be simplified.
Open source enables you to do so much more! You can customize the scripts and use them for the benefit of the online store. Open source is the best platform for an online store 8)