First Annual Open Source Commerce Survey Results

By Kerry Watson

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.

Best Web Host
Respondents feel strongly about their Web hosts. Without a single exception, every respondent who voted for a best open source commerce Web host said that they "absolutely recommend" their host to others. This is in stark contrast to the best program recommendations, where some respondents gave qualified recommendations for their nomination.

Tied for first place Web host were chainreactionweb.com and ixwebhosting.com. Chain Reaction Web offers all versions of the CRE Loaded program pre-installed for customers. IX Web Hosting offers one-click osCommerce hosting, and says their hosting packages will support most of the popular shopping carts including Zen Cart, X Cart and Cube Cart.

The above winners received the highest rankings on customer self-service and support availability, all respondents ranking the hosts as "extremely easy" and "available almost anytime, 24/7."

The above winners were also ranked highest according to the number of different communication methods the host offers the customer: the more methods, the more the Web host was nominated as best host.

Co-winner IX Web Hosting offers support via a toll-free number in the US, direct dial to their US number from outside of the US; live chat, knowledge base, and traditional trouble ticket support. They offer one-click installation of osCommerce. According to a sales representative, none of their hosting plans includes application support, i.e. help with the osCommerce program itself.

Co-winner Chain Reaction Web offers support via a 24/7 toll-free number in the US, 24/7 toll-free number in Canada, a direct dial number in the UK, e-mail support, fax support, live chat, knowledge base and traditional trouble ticket support. Hosting customers can choose a hosting plan that includes full application support for the CRE Loaded application.

There was no correlation between the number of open source commerce programs available from the Web host, and the customer rating for best Web host. This may be because hosting customers care only that their own particular program is available, though more study is needed to confirm this.

Many voters reported that they had paid additional fees to their Web host for services above the hosting fee. Surprisingly, reporting these additional fees did not affect the customers' rating of best Web host for better or for worse. This may tell us that the availability of these additional services, even for a fee, helped boost the ranking of a Web host. Additional study can help us tell if the respondents value the convenience of receiving additional services all in one location over the cost involved.

Other Best Web Host Nominations
Also nominated for best Web hosts were hosts Global-Freeway, Site Ground, CRE-Hosting, and GoDaddy. Global-Freeway offers Zen Cart and osCommerce pre-installed. Site Ground hosts CRE Loaded, Zen Cart, and osCommerce, as well as lesser-known Cube Cart, CS-Cart and Virtue Mart (formerly php-Shop), an ecommerce component for Mambo or Joomla! Content Management Systems.

Go Daddy's Web site says that their hosting accounts support any system that uses MySQL and Access databases, CGI, PHP and ASP, but the only shopping cart program they actively support is called Website Complete, which appears to be the company's site creation tool.

Pearls of Wisdom for OSC Web Hosts
Web hosts that offer customer self-service and widest support availability will be rated most highly by their customers. The more communication methods a Web host offers, the more highly their customers rank the Web host.

Web hosts entering this field may want to consider specializing in supporting a single program, so as to be able to maximize the customer self-service and the number of communication channels they offer on that program. Hosts should make use of round-the-clock technology so you can offer support when customers need it. Rather than turning down customer requests for application support or additional services, hosts may also wish to consider cross-selling these extra services for an additional fee.

We will examine the survey results of other categories in a future column, including best OSC tech support, best credit card processor and best contribution.

Kerry Watson is a consultant and author of ten books in the OSC industry. Her Web site is osCommerce-Resources.com.