This is part of a series on osCommerce, the popular free, open-source shopping cart alternative and the industry it has spawned.
The results are in for the first annual Open Source Commerce (OSC) Survey and you may be surprised at the winners. This included both a "beauty contest" store design contest for store owners and Web professionals, and a serious opinion survey on what actual users consider to be the best of the industry.
Not just a popularity contest, each respondent in the survey was required to answer a short series of questions designed to help ferret out the supporting reasons why he or she believed the program, Web host, etc. was the best.
It's important to note that any survey on the Web is not scientific, even when careful controls are used. Not all respondents answered all questions, and not all questions received a statistically significant number of responses. There is also no way to independently verify that a respondent has actual experience with the subject of a question. There can also be language barriers or misunderstandings of the meaning of terms.
This study captured the IP address of each respondent and eliminated duplicate votes from the same IP address. The series of questions that were required with each entry help to eliminate casual voting by persons who did not have actual knowledge of the program, boosting the reliability of these data. Even though a Web-based survey such as this cannot be considered scientific, it nevertheless can reveal interesting trends in opinions by actual users.
In this column, we examine the survey responses for two very important categories, the best OSC program and best OSC Web host.
Best Open Source Commerce Program
By a margin of three to one, CRE Loaded was named by respondents as the best open source commerce program. Zen Cart and osC-MAX were in a statistical dead heat for second place, with the venerable osCommerce receiving the fewest votes. The respondents' actual responses to the survey questions help explain these results.
When asked specific questions to find out why respondents ranked their program the top winner, both CRE Loaded and osC-MAX were rated by respondents extremely as easy or somewhat easy to install and add additions. osCommerce was rated somewhat difficult to install and upgrade, and Zen Cart ranked a neutral "neither difficult nor easy."
When asked how easy the program is to upgrade, CRE Loaded was ranked extremely easy by a wide majority of its respondents. osC-MAX was rated extremely or somewhat easy, Zen Cart rated somewhat easy or again the neutral "neither difficult nor easy" and osCommerce again came in last, with upgrades seen as somewhat difficult.
The Importance of Being Friendly
The overwhelming majority of respondents who voted for CRE Loaded said that the program is user-friendly. Most revealing is that these respondents said that the program is loaded with features geared toward the store owner and the end-customer. Answers were mixed as to whether CRE Loaded features are geared towards the "Web pro." This could be because many respondents were users, rather than Web pros, although the survey did not specifically ask this.
Respondents voting for osC-MAX as best program voted the program as somewhat user-friendly, with good features for both customers and store owners. The jury was out on whether osC-MAX features are geared for Web pros.
Those respondents who voted for Zen Cart as best program rated their program as neutral on user-friendliness — neither user-friendly nor user-unfriendly. Here is where we see a major distinction between the rankings of the programs, though: these voters ranked Zen Cart as being loaded with features geared towards the Web pro. Customer and Store Owner features were ranked as good by these respondents.
How Highly Do You Recommend This Program?
When asked how highly they would recommend the program to others, respondents who voted for both CRE Loaded and osC-MAX overwhelmingly said they would "absolutely recommend" the program to others. Zen Cart and osCommerce both received a rating of "somewhat recommended" by those who voted for it as best OSC program.
The Users Have Spoken
Although this is the first study and more study is necessary, the survey results imply that the most popular open source commerce programs will be correlated with the most user-friendly features toward the store owner. It will also be the easiest to install, add additions and upgrade. The most popular programs will contain the most features that are geared toward the store owner and end customer, rather than the Web pro. Program makers will do well to take heed of these findings.
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