Misses a decent and comprehensive API, particularly for product upload/download. Clear case of trying to monetise something that was unusual in say 2010 but is de rigeur in 2020. Sorry. This should be core. End of argument.
Marketplace. Tragic. Because you don't monitor the quality it is a free for all, and a complete mess as a result. Telling people you can't guarantee quality or whatever the nonsense excuse is, is just not good enough. Marketplace should be guaranteed simple one click easy install and no questions asked. If you can't sort that, fix the Marketplace or the extensions/plugins. You need some QoS for your own reputation. Be harsh on your contributors. Don't let them pull you down to their level.
Extensions. YMMV.
Personal experience..... both the killer sales pitch, and the Achilles heel. If these are awful, then opencart bears the blame, right or wrong, especially as the usual support request is via opencart itself. Your REALLY have to get this right people. (and I have some experience with plugins in an OS.....)
Often cheap and many and don't do what they say on the tin. Sometimes more expensive, but then try to foist a load of unnecessary spyware on you. If I buy an extension, give me the code. Don't make me download half of it every page load from your cheap slow server on the pretence that is it is 'cool' because like man I smoked a joint and it is all hip and trendy cloudy stuff. I am not that stupid. Tracking is tracking. I pay my money and I do my own thing which is none of your business. Lay off right? P.S. And Ts & Cs are legal. Put them in the buyers face, not buried on some FAQ in Timbuktu.
Oh. Did I mention GDPR? How does that add up? When every access to your extension page logs data back to the extension writer? Where does it mention that? When YOUR code then drags in third party code like say fonts.google that *I* don't want, but cannot change? (Try disabling Google fonts spyware - a noticeable speed increase in sites... hence the Wordpress plugin....)“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
A good extension is not really there to be a major money spinner. It is there as a sprat to catch a mackerel. It demonstrates code competence. It is your advertising hoarding to say 'I really understand this system and can do great things for you'
Some devs don't get that. One has just lost a substantial sum of money from me for developing a number of sites for me purely on this point alone because they treated me like an idiot.
They didn't get the fact that my test was not about their code, but about their attitude, competence and most importantly, customer service.
They failed, miserably.
If you have a software company then do yourself a favour. We all have strengths. Coding is yours. Sales and customer service is not (I am unusual and can bridge the divide...). Accept those facts and as soon as you can get yourself a salesman and/or customer service agent PDQ. You will have a brighter future.
Opencart is a great idea, but suffers from all the things it does not do, or does not want to do.
