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There is a really nice free app called "Discourse" for making forums but no such nice app for launching an e-commerce website with free plugins ecosystem. Is t

There is a really nice free app called "Discourse" for making forums but no such nice app for launching an e-commerce website with free plugins ecosystem. Is there a specific reason that free high quality forum software can be built but not e-commerce?

bishalb 6y ago
There's woocommerce/wordpress. You need not use paid plugins while starting out, the free ones should be sufficient. One might argue it's not "nice" enough but there are thousands of successful businesses built on top of it.
- econcon 6y ago
  If you go to /r/WooCommerce you'll see growing pains and that people are not happy in general with WooCommerce and plugin developers have to work extra hard to support ever changing WordPress. There is a need of stable (not frequently changing) e-commerce app that can be hosted and supports stripe/PayPal and "shipment tracking". WooCommerce requires yearly payment for shipment tracking. When discourse is available for free, there is no reason why WooCommerce alternative which can provide more out of box support can't be free. Today what options people have? WooCommerce, Shopify (SaaS) and legacy apps like Magento, Presto, Opencart. This is not enough - most e-commerce development happens on agencies selling their services. We can certainly provide more out of box features with help of open develop model.
  - bishalb 6y ago
    Which platform doesn't have issues? I am sure if you go check discourse's official forum, you will see it has its fair share of problems and shortcomings too. I just did a quick search and found that there is a plugin called advanced shipment tracking for woocommece which seems to be free and gets the job done(i am sure it has a paid version too but the free one seems to be good enough, judging from the reviews) Also e-commerce site owners are entrepreneurs and the primary goal of any e-commerce site is to make money. The primary goal of a discourse forum isnt making money. E-commerce owners are more likely to invest in tools that help them grow their business, unlike someone who runs a forum, where there might not be such a motivation.

bishalb 6y ago

There's woocommerce/wordpress. You need not use paid plugins while starting out, the free ones should be sufficient. One might argue it's not "nice" enough but there are thousands of successful businesses built on top of it.

econcon 6y ago
If you go to /r/WooCommerce you'll see growing pains and that people are not happy in general with WooCommerce and plugin developers have to work extra hard to support ever changing WordPress. There is a need of stable (not frequently changing) e-commerce app that can be hosted and supports stripe/PayPal and "shipment tracking". WooCommerce requires yearly payment for shipment tracking. When discourse is available for free, there is no reason why WooCommerce alternative which can provide more out of box support can't be free. Today what options people have? WooCommerce, Shopify (SaaS) and legacy apps like Magento, Presto, Opencart. This is not enough - most e-commerce development happens on agencies selling their services. We can certainly provide more out of box features with help of open develop model.
- bishalb 6y ago
  Which platform doesn't have issues? I am sure if you go check discourse's official forum, you will see it has its fair share of problems and shortcomings too. I just did a quick search and found that there is a plugin called advanced shipment tracking for woocommece which seems to be free and gets the job done(i am sure it has a paid version too but the free one seems to be good enough, judging from the reviews) Also e-commerce site owners are entrepreneurs and the primary goal of any e-commerce site is to make money. The primary goal of a discourse forum isnt making money. E-commerce owners are more likely to invest in tools that help them grow their business, unlike someone who runs a forum, where there might not be such a motivation.