The Cart Blog

Magento documentation is really building up.  Here are a handful of key links.

Wiki:  http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/

Knowledge Base:  http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base

Design Guide: http://www.magentocommerce.com/design_guide

Magento Architecture: http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/doc/magento-architecture

Create new page/custom module: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/2191

Customization: http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/how-to/customize_part_of_configuration

A very interesting post from the Magento forum on the relative merits of both carts.  Thanks to srinigenie for writing this up.

The Varien guys did a webcast yesterday talking about the Magento Partner Program.   It’s an interesting idea and I’ll probably become an associate ($350); I suspect this will be required to participate in Magento Connect, the online marketplace for software and services.  I would actually be willing to consider participating at a higher level (assuming the benefits were commensurate), except that the higher levels have a certification requirement, which is an additional $1000 in cost.    They were a little vague about this; perhaps in the future you’ll just be able to do the training independently and take a test for a lower fee.

I spoke earlier this week with Tobias Lütke from Shopify about the new risk management features in the latest Shopify release. Tobias said,

In this update, we concentrated on order flow management with some special
attention to risk assessment. Our clients are now informed about all
the risks which can be deducted from an order, such as address
validation failure, order placed in a high risk country but shipped
somewhere else, and similar problems in a friendly and clear way.

For items such as electronics and jewelry which can significant resale value, risk management is an important area in e-commerce, and I’m excited to see Shopify move on this issue.

One of the drivers of this work was this report from Wells Fargo about the characteristics of fraudulent transactions.

We essentially took the information from this PDF and use all the
available information from the payment gateway to present an overview
of risks to our customers in the most user friendly way : a check-mark
if no problems are found or a full text explanation of what is amiss.

Shopify found the best bang for the buck came from these checks:

• AVS (Address Verification Service) – the statistics on AVS no match are compelling: 100% of counterfeit cards fail, 90% of cards stolen from the mail fail, and 65% of lost or stolen cards fail.
• Checking the IP address of the client and comparing its geocode with the billing address

Here’s a screenshot of a transaction that has been decisioned positively:

Now here’s a screenshot of a transaction that is considered risky:

You can see “Risk Assessment” items in the center column towards the bottom. Very impressive!

An interesting article from eCommerce Guide on the many offshoots of OSCommerce.

The Interspire guys decided to rename their shopping cart package Interspire shopping cart.  I quite liked the old name, but they didn’t ask me.   There’s a beta of Interspire shopping cart coming out today.  Looking forward to it!

Across the pond, a group of French developers are working on a product called PrestaShop.   It’s not yet ready for deployment, but looking promising.  It will be interesting to see what the take rate among English speakers is for a product from France; forum activity could be a challenge.

Dolphin Cart is a new cart based on the FileMaker database product.

I was amused by some recent posts from ecomsolutions.net saying that open source is crap and that you need a custom-build cart. Most of the assertions they make are so risible as to not warrant a response (which works out well, because they don’t allow comments) – but it’s Christmas, so just for fun, let’s go through them:

1. Most open source software applications are not reliable

Ever hear of “the blue screen of death?” Commercial software – even expensive commercial software – is often riddled with bugs. And you can’t fix them yourself, nor can you hire someone to fix them, because the source is not publicly available.

2. No support exists for open source software

Free support is typically provided via a forum or mailing list. Dedicated support can easily be arranged if you are willing to pay. Certainly no dedicated free support exists for open source applications, but neither does it for Microsoft, Intuit or any other software vendor. In fact, this is how JBoss and RedHat operate – give away the source, charge for support.

3. Higher installation costs

Again, this is just rubbish. Higher than what?

4. No guarantee of updates

When is there ever a guarantee of updates for anything? Look at all the applications which were instantly obsoleted by Vista – including my beloved Palm Pilot HotSync.

Now certainly it’s true that adopting an open-source application is not a zero-cost proposition. You will either have to spend time yourself maintaining it or spend money hiring an expert to do the job. But this shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone who has any e-business experience; the same is true of any website. And turning the development of your e-business over to a third party might make complete sense, whether they use an open or closed source approach.

But let’s look at the flipside – what are the dangers of turning over your entire e-business to an operation like ecomsolutions.net, which does not release its source?

1. They control the code
   This means any changes must be done by them at a price they alone determine. If you control the code, you can accept multiple vendor bids for changes.
2. You are completely reliant on them
   If they decide to get out of the shopping cart business, you’re out of luck. Will you even be able to get to your data? Who knows! What if there’s a security issue? With Zen Cart, you have the benefit of thousands of reviewers looking for bugs.
3. You have no alternate support options
   Want to get someone else to support you? Surprise! It’s a proprietary application that only they know.

Think I’m making this all up? Here’s a recent post on the Shopify forum in which people are arguing about these very issues. Shopowners are complaining that it takes the developers too long to do things; developers are reminding shopowners of how difficult these things are to do and that they would not be better off doing it themselves.

The question of buying vs. renting a shopping cart (and open vs. closed source) is a serious matter with costs and benefits to either approach. That Software Guy provides a treatment of this topic looking objectively at both sides. The solution you choose should be based on your own situation, needs, abilities, schedule and budget. Do your own due diligence and make a decision based on facts, not some vendor’s fearmongering.