louponne - 11:53 am on Sep 21, 2009 (gmt 0)

Friends, I'm not saying I want everything free - I'm happy to pay for a good app. And I'm not "complaining". I just brought this up as a subject of discussion. That is, that the players who are now making stores/carts, are not paying attention to usability. Whether the app is free or paid.

their product pricing is completely reasonable for a viable online business, especially if their ease of use saves you lots of admin man hours and contributes to the bottom line with more sales.

Yes, agreed to some extent. But their marketing/pricing means that the numbers won't swell and there are certain things, I think, that may take them a long time to put on their roadmap in terms of their financing the development. Example: multi-language admin interface.

And I'm seeing this completely differently. I'm a developer, not a store owner. What I'm saying is that I want any site/application I build or deliver to a client to be as close to "intuitive" as possible. a) because I know very well that if the admin and public sides are intuitive, then the site/app will work and be successful and b) because if it's intuitive, I won't need to spend hours in a hotline-like relationship, which isn't productive for anyone.

I'm repeating myself, but again, the far majority of the folks making open-source stores/carts (or reasonably priced ones) just don't have usability in their equation. I go along totally with lorax' list:
- intuitive GUI
- speed
- admin options/flexibility
- security
- compatibility with bolt on services (gateways, shippers, search, etc)
- scalability

(though I'd add on professional-quality coding - and at least in my case, LAMP)

Fact is, practically none of the players are including that first item. What I'm saying is that's really a shame.