Your Small Business Website Solution -- Iris Market Builder

Is Iris Market Builder the Right Website Solution for You?
How Does it Compare to Open Source Shopping Carts?

Is Iris Market Builder right for you? It depends on what you need and your budget. This page will help explain some of the various point to consider before choosing your website management system.

"Open Source Cart Systems" compares the general features or resources available for carts such as osCommerce, Zen Cart, and Agora. This is not intended to be a comprehensive comparison but just a basic overview of some good things to consider and plan for when deciding what cart will work best for you.

1. Installation and Hosting

Iris Market Builder: is a hosted solution. This means that you don't have to install the cart or find a web host. Your cart is installed by us on your included web space. Your hosting is included in the $9.99/month fee. You receive a complete hosting space with cPanel and email.

Open Source Cart Systems: you must choose a website host that the cart you choose can run on and make sure the host meets the requirements and then install the cart. Some hosts do offer easy-install of open source carts (like Fantastico, which is also available on the cPanel of Iris Market Builder accounts). If the host you choose does not have easy-install options, you'll have to download a zip file from the open source cart's website, unzip the files, make some configuration edits, create and associate a database with the cart, upload all the files using an FTP program and then set permissions correctly on the files. Or you'll need to hire a designer or programmer to do this for you.

2. Simplicity and Ease of Use for Whole Site Management

Iris Market Builder: designed specifically for work at home moms to give you a solution to manage your entire websie with, not just the ecommerce shop. With Iris Market Builder you can easily (just a few clicks!) create a professionally formatted frequently asked questions page, article library, links page, events calendar, guestbook, site map, custom error page, and more. It also creates and formats your catalog pages for your categories and products, and within just two clicks you can change the template or layout of any of the categories. So you can use multiple product layouts and customize each category. We purchased a wonderful, powerful WYSIWYG editor to integrate into Iris Market Builder so it's easy to professionally format your text and you don't have to learn HTML to do it.

Open Source Cart Systems: usually created by programmers and can be complicated to learn to use. They generally manage only the ecommerce part of a website, sometimes with basic support for creating a few pages. Some include basic WYSIWYG open source editors or have plug-ins available to add them and some require you to use HTML to format your product descriptions.

3. Support Options

Iris Market Builder: Help from a real person who's committed to supporting you is only a help ticket away. You can also find a searchable knowledgebase, flash tutorials and step by step pictoral tutorials on the support pages. The comprehensive user guide for Iris Market Builder is free for clients. So support won't cost you anything extra and you're guaranteed to get a response to your questions.

Open Source Cart Systems: Support is not included for open source cart systems. Most carts offer user to user forums where you can ask questions, but there is no guarentee of a timely response, or any response at all. Paid user guides are available for some carts for additional costs. With open source carts if something strange happens or you accidentally crash your shop, you'll have to hope that one of the volunteers on the support forum will have time to help you, or you'll have to pay a programmer to fix it for you.

4. Easy to Customize

Iris Market Builder: created to be quick and easy to customize. You have 38 built in templates to choose from so you can get started fast. And there's no uploading files or unzipping downloaded template packages to use the built in templates, it takes just a few clicks to switch the template. You can also easily add your own design -- create your design, add some basic plug in codes, and you're all set.

Open Source Cart Systems: depends on the cart. Zen Cart is now using Smarty Templates. If you have the time and desire to learn some basic php codes and are willing to research which files to edit where to get the changes you want, it's customizable with a moderate learning curve. osCommerce is tougher to customize, has a steeper learning curve, and you'll have to spend time tracking down which file contains which pieces and what text. Just to edit the front page, you'd need to edit the separate files for the stylesheet (CSS code), the header, the footer, the left side bar, the right side bar, the main page template, and then the language files are split into multiple files as well as the boxes in the side bars.

5. Total Costs

Iris Market Builder: because Iris Market Builder is bundled with hosting and support, your only costs are the initial $99 license fee, and the $9.99/month hosting fee. You can use a built in template free, design your own, or hire a designer to create one for you (costs vary). Because customization involves only one file, many designers can create and implement your template at a more afforable cost. Since Iris Market Builder's checkout is through the secured, PCI-Compliant Mal's E-Commerce you don't need to pay for SSL or PCI-Compliance scanning.

Open Source Cart Systems: your cart may be free, but you need to budget for some additional costs. Monthly hosting at a reliable host that can run the cart is generally about $10/month. Customization of open source carts is tricky with the multiple files that need editing and pricing for custom designs will vary based on who you hire to create the design. Since the majority of web hosts will not provide support for software/scripts such as carts installed on their servers, you'll need to either spend time searching for answers through Google or online forums, depend on a friend or designer to help you, purchase a user guide book at additional cost, or hire a programmer to help you with questions. If you accept credit cards you will need to purchase an SSL certificate which is a yearly fee depending on your host (generally ranges from $50 and up), make sure that the store checkout and admin are safely secured, and pay for PCI-Compliance scans quarterly (for example with HackerSafe which is $149/year). As you can quickly see, the costs add up.

Iris Market Builder

osCommerce or Zen Cart

License Fee	$99 One Time	None
Monthly Hosting	$9.99	Varies
SSL Certificate Required if you accept credit cards	Secured Checkout Included	$50 + per year for SSL Certificate, also may be an additional monthly fee for the required static IP address
PCI Compliance Required if you accept credit cards	PCI-Compliant Checkout Included	$149 per year
Built in Templates	38 and just a few clicks to change	Varies but may require downloading, unzipping, FTP, etc
Customization of Design	Simple and just ONE file to edit	Complicated, many files to edit, and requires php knowledge
Support	Priceless, and Included!	You're on your own...
Total Cost of Cart? Not including Designer Fees	$99 license fee, $9.99/month	No License Fee, No Guaranteed Support "Free" might not be as "Free" as it seems...

Is Iris Market Builder the right cart for you?

We love Iris Market Builder and have a financial stake in offering support and keeping our customers happy, so you can be sure we'll be here to answer questions and stay repsonsive to our clients needs. It's a great entry-level website management system that offers basic features and a gentle learning curve so you can be up and running quickly. But it's not perfect for everyone. And we'd rather you pick the right cart system for you and be happy and successful than we would try to sell you something that isn't quite right for your needs. So, here are some situations where other carts might work better for you, followed by some in which we think Iris Market Builder is perfect for you.

When might an open source system be the best choice for you?

Here are some situations in which osCommerce, Zen Cart, etc might be a better choice.

You like tinkering with code, understand HTML, have a basic grasp of PHP, and are willing to invest a fair amount of time into getting the cart to do what you want.
You have very specific advanced needs such as interfacing with a drop-ship distributor for automatic product updates or a brick and mortar store inventory system.
You need multiple language or multiple currency support.
You have an extremely specific tax setup that requires multiple levels of taxation on only some products (you will likely need to hire a custom programmer to set this up, and have them integrate it with an open source cart).
You have a fantastic designer that you can rely on to provide continuous support for the cart, you have the budget to afford it, and you want to spend your budget that way.

When might another paid cart be a better choice for you?

Here are some situations where another paid cart might be a better choice for you.

If you are selling only downloadable products I recommend www.e-junkie.com —and I use it myself at The Muses Guide.
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If you are setting up a congo or shopping mall type website and need to have access levels per user, payment splitting, and advanced shipping options, take a look at something like www.HyenaCart.com (check the "Congo" offering there), www.X-Cart.com (but notice you'll need some extra modules and pay attention to the way support credits for purchase work there) or www.CongoCart.com. Be sure to know what features you want when comparing these solutions.

So, when is Iris Market Builder the right solution?

If you're looking to step up from using Mal's buttons or PayPal buttons to a cart that manages your inventory and gives you an easier way to manage your site.
If you have tried osCommerce or Zen Cart and found it to be too complicated with too many complex options and just want something simpler so you can spend less time trying to figure out your website and more time running your business and with your family.
If you are just getting started and want to be able to use a powerful site management system, but only have basic HTML knowledge and you want to customize your cart yourself (so learning php or finding 10 different files to edit is out of the question right now).
If you want a site management system with a gentle learning curve and included support.
If you just want to be able to update and manage your own website, but have a designer handle the graphics and layout at an affordable price (check out our designers page for some suggestions of both custom and ready to go templates that work perfectly with Iris Market Builder).

Still on the fence?

Have a question that this page hasn't answered? Ask us!

P.S. If you do decide to go with an open source ecommerce store, check out the hosting packages at Elemental Muse (the parent company of Iris Market Builder). Elemental Muse provides rock-solid dependable hosting accounts on premium servers, and a full cPanel with Fantastico is available for every package so you can install the open source ecommerce stores like Zen Cart, Agora or osCommerce in just a few clicks. You can also host WordPress blogs or basic brochure style infomational sites at Elemental Muse.

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