Our system is built around a shopping cart framework that is Open Source. This means that anyone who uses the software has the right to view and change the code as they wish. They may also write new parts to the software, and sell those if they choose – which is what we have done.

Open Source software has a great strength. It is developed by a team of developers, who then make that software freely available to the public. It is USED, by a community of users. These users report instabilities, request features, and report security issues. The development team then makes repairs and enhancements. This is a great strength in Open Source software, because it means it often develops in a more useful way than some commercial software.

We have chosen Open Source software that has an active developer team, and an active user community. This helps the software to be more usable, and makes more features available for it. Less popular software does not generally do nearly as much.

So if this starts with Open Source software, and if Open Source is available free, can’t anyone go and get this same system for free?

No.

• They can get the Original Shopping Cart software that we started with.
• They cannot get the special enhancements we have added, which automatically update your product listings.
• They cannot get access to our exclusive wholesale jewelry inventory.
• They cannot access our extensive experience in website development for the jewelry industry.

Open Source is a great starting place. Using it allows us to offer this system to you for far less than we’d have to charge if we used commercial software or if we had to completely develop our own.

But it is just the beginning… The real value is in what we have added to it, because what we added are the goodies that make it possible for you to build your jewelry business much more rapidly and affordably than you could possibly do otherwise.