As you might have read, internet sales have increased drastically in 2020, and the market presents even more growth opportunity for the future. All retail businesses across the globe have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and adjust to new conditions of products and services delivery models. 

E-commerce operations or internet sales are not possible without technologically advanced platform, that allows customers to navigate products or services and place orders. 

A big part of the internet sales success is a smart business process with the right e-commerce platform powering this process. 

It is challenging to find the e-commerce platform that would satisfy all the business process requirements as well as function without failures and be cost-efficient. Big companies spend millions on building, maintaining and expanding their e-commerce platforms. There are teams of professional IT specialists working on these tasks. 

These expenses are not possible for small and medium businesses. For that reason, there are a number of SaaS (software as a service) and traditional software e-commerce platform available to choose from. With many options on the market, it is easy to get lost and make an incorrect decision. 

SaaS e-commerce platforms.

Not everyone aware of e-commerce platforms or SaaS solutions that can present a problem or be a bottleneck with future business growth. 

Most of SaaS Providers can attract you with low entry service fees and convince you to use their solution. After spending some time building your e-commerce around their solution you might find a number of limitations with setting business process as you need and no easy option to leave or switch platform. 

The cost of SaaS providers ranges from $1000 per year with additional fees for each transaction or high traffic fees. 

Every business owner anticipates growth of online sales, but not everyone can predict future business process improvements and changes in product or service delivery. As the number of customers and sales start to grow, customers will notice an increase in the platform service bill. 

This can be explained with higher traffic and data transfers, storage increase, more sales volume and increase in transaction fees. 

Additionally, If you use any of the popular SaaS solutions you will start facing some problems as your e-commerce continue to grow or business process will need to be altered. Such a problem could be a limit of expansion or specific business requirements or integrations to your e-commerce or substantial increase of fees per each transaction. 

Additionally to restrictions with proprietary e-commerce solutions, there is a challenge with migration if you decided to move to a different solution. Despite the fact that you can have the ability to export some data, you will not get full access to your data or database.  

Open source e-commerce platforms 

To overcome future issues with your e-commerce platform, we recommend checking open-source eCommerce platform such as AbanteCart. 

With free e-commerce platform, you can start e-commerce very quick and still have all the features offered by SaaS platforms. With an open-source cost-efficient solution, there is no need to worry about the increase in fees in the future. There is no limit to the number of products, customers, orders or any other records.

Because of the open-source nature, AbanteCart e-commerce platform can be modified, extended and you are in full control over the code in technology and can adapt to changes quickly. You fully own your platform and not limited with any access to your code or data. 

Ability to customize the platform to any specific of your business is not limited either. 

The great thing with an open-source platform that it is driven and supported by the community. Issues are resolved fast and questions are answered by similar business owners.  

If you want to hire some to help, it will be not hard.  AbanteCart is powered with a powerful and popular programming language that can be supported by a vast variety of developers and budgets. 

Is Open Source Platform a solution for you?

You can find a lot of articles and suggestions for various platforms and solutions, but at the end of the day decision needs to be made.  We are not saying AbanteCart is the only solution for your business. Start with your goals for your e-commerce business, and what you really want to accomplish with your online presence. Consider your stating and ongoing budgets. This will help you make the right decision. 

Sometimes open source platform might not be a right solution for your business, but if you’re not sure, here is some quick tips that will help you decide if open source e-commerce is right for you and your business.

Open-source e-commerce platform is right for you in case of the following:

• You prefer to be in control of your data and source code. 
• Your business model cannot be covered by SaaS platforms
• You sell very customizable or unique products or services 
• You need specific integrations with third party services.
• You require a custom look and business process for your e-commerce
• You want to start with the lowest cost possible 
• If you like open source or want to contribute to it. 

Brief about AbanteCart open source e-commerce platform

AbanteCart is a free and open-source e-commerce platform with all the features offered by popular SaaS solutions with even more featured available from the marketplace of authors. AbanteCart platform can run on most all of the hosting companies including Docker installed on any computer. It is very easy to start e-commerce with AbanteCart and setup up your business process with help available with documentations and a very active community forum.  

As there are no restrictions or limits to use AbanteCart, anyone can try and see how it can integrate and work for your business process. Application PHP or JavaScript source code is very well maintained, easy to navigate, modify and extend. AbanteCart marketplace is a great source for additional themes, plugins and extensions for demanding e-commerce business requirements. Anyone can become a contributor to AbanteCart platform or author of the plugins or extensions. 

The chose is yours, so pick a platform that works best for your e-commerce business.