Open Source Allows Businesses e-Commerce Ease

Featured article by Chris Ciabarra, CTO of Revel Systems

Supplementing your brick-and-mortar store with an e-commerce or online store increases your business visibility while improving your bottom line. And, more and more consumers are turning to online shopping to inform their brick-and-mortar decisions, with 65% of U.S. shoppers browsing online and buy in-store last holiday season, according to Internet Retailer. 73% of respondents in a survey conducted by Mashable do “at least half of their shopping online,” and 66% “prefer to shop online vs. in-store.” With trends towards online shopping ever increasing, it’s more important now than ever to implement an e-commerce platform with your brick-and-mortar store.

To streamline this process, it’s crucial that you choose an e-commerce platform that integrates with your point of sale (POS) system. This will allow you keep track of sales and inventory, and will ensure a seamless process whether a purchase is made online or in-store. One way to insure a seamless transition that also adheres to your brand guidelines is to implement an open source e-commerce platform.

Open source, as defined by Wikipedia, is a development model that “promotes a universal access via free license to a product’s design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone.” Open source allows users to access another’s code, free of charge, and make modifications and improvements. An open source e-commerce platform allows business owners to use a pre-existing structure and make minor modifications to it, enabling them to customize it as they see fit. As a business owner aware of the benefits to online or web ordering, the ability to integrate an open source e-commerce platform gives you the freedom and tools you need to create a thriving e-commerce site to complement your brick-and-mortar.

Thinking about starting an e-commerce site? Check out the following benefits to going open source for your e-commerce platform:

– Customization. An open source platform enables you to customize your online or web ordering as you see fit, in accordance with brand guidelines. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for you to build an e-commerce platform from scratch. An open source platform gives you the essential structure and allows full customization, giving you the opportunity to build upon a preexisting platform. This way, you can tailor your e-commerce site according to your business needs and style.

– Seamless infrastructure. While the benefits to an e-commerce site are numerous, problems can arise if it doesn’t communicate with your in-store system. Because you can tailor it to your business, an open source e-commerce platform ensures a seamless integration with your business’s infrastructure, both in-store and online. This also provides a cohesive infrastructure for your business as a whole, and ensures details don’t slip through the cracks.

– Comprehensive inventory. Implementing an open source e-commerce platform will allow you to maintain a comprehensive overview of your inventory. Purchases made online or in-store will sync with your POS system and back office, giving you a clear indication of stock levels and when you need to reorder.

– More secure. According to the Huffington Post, independent research has shown “that open source code has fewer defects per thousand lines of code than proprietary software code.” By integrating an open source e-commerce platform, you can rest assured that your customers’ data is more secure than it would be with other platforms.

– Better data. An open source e-commerce, when integrated with the in-store infrastructure as noted above, will give you better insight into your business data. This is because data from both your online and in-store sales will sync up, providing you with a cohesive overview of your business’s performance metrics.

Building and maintaining an online presence for your brick-and-mortar is essential now more than ever. Ensure smooth operations and better insight into your business by implementing an open source e-commerce platform.

Christopher Ciabarra is the CTO and co-founder of Revel Systems, the award-winning leader in iPad point-of-sale (POS) systems for restaurant, retail and grocery. Upon founding the company with Lisa Falzone in 2010, the team embarked on a mission to change the world of point-of-sale. To kick off this journey, Chris developed the technology behind Revel’s iPad POS and continues to lead the technological advancements and well as security of the system.

Chris’s list of invention and design precedes Revel with Interecptor.net, Scan-on-the-Go Secure, Adrenaline cell phone app and Nano-stealth. He is also an anti-hacker expert and has a strong background in PCI compliance, which helps to make Revel Systems the most secure iPad POS on the market.