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Ask HN: Why open source free E-commerce ecosystem sucks?

5 points by econcon ↗ HN
There is WooCommerce but it doesn't even have free shipment tracking plugin. Nearly all additional functionality (I am sure it's helping WooCommerce owners) are subscription based with yearly subscription.

Why there aren't good free Opensource e-commerce systems which aren't very complicated or have too much legacy and are free and easy to add functionality through other Opensource free plugins?

It seems this space is least developed of all software spaces.

4 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 20.6 ms ] thread
byoung2
Those features cost money to develop, so charging a fee helps fund development. In theory if you are selling, you have revenue to pay for those subscription-based services. The best part about open source is that you can build it yourself if existing offerings are lacking.
econcon
For starting forums for example Discourse is great with plenty of free plugins.

But nothing like that exists in E-commerce atleast I've not used anything which atleast solved some basic e-commerce problems with free plugins.

Yet there are tons of e-commerce websites.

It seems many of them are using plugins by some private agencies which sell maintenance service.

noble_pleb
Have you tried the PHP OpenCart? It may not be perfect but there seems to be a good plugin ecosystem around the project and you can also hire a programmer on upwork, etc. for some quick customization.
peeterx
I have an ecommerce store and just recently I finished setting up a custom chatbot to ease the communication between my customers and my agents.

What I was not expecting was how annoying setting up a custom AI chatbot could be. There are so many tools out there but they all seem to miss a feature that you REALLY need. Most times they all force you to pay to have that “Powered by….” imprint removed and AI doesn’t work.

How about a done-for-you solution? These Chatifai guys set up a simple custom chatbot for just 19$/m in 72 hours after placing your order! https://chatifai.datawisepro.com