An Auckland convenience store is in the midst of an ongoing online battle after inadvertently allowing its website to be edited by the general public.
The store […] found itself advertising, among other things, a “pair of crusty socks”, a “Princess Diana Commemorative Plate”, and “National Parks to the highest bidder”.
The store’s site uses Base44, a “no-code AI platform” that allows users to build web applications, but it has been left open for the public to edit.
At one point, while items were being added for sale, the website’s operator appeared to be arguing with the public, with one item saying “stop hacking us”. An item popped up in response saying “don’t use an AI site builder then.”
I don’t understand why someone would use AI to build an e-commerce site.
For someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing, use something prebuilt and cloud-hosted like Shopify or Square. Even some major brands use it. The largest electronics store in Australia (JB HiFi, similar to Best Buy in the USA) uses Shopify Plus. I think Staples in the USA/Canada uses Shopify too.
For someone that does know what they’re doing, they wouldn’t have left it open for other people to edit it. AI still needs fundamental understanding of how e-commerce sites work.
Perhaps because AI companies’ advertisements were better suited to their CEO’s brain and saying “AI” brought in more investor money.
The thrust of your advice is good, but Shopify is part of the whole Omarchy situation, having donated to Omacom. That site recommends “WooCommerce or Openfront instead of Shopify;” I have no experience with either of those alternatives but would recommend adding them to your list of options.
That’s what these platforms are marketed as, though.
They provide a platform and expertise that allows you to build your branded website.
The problem with people who don’t know what they’re doing is that they don’t know what they’re doing.
I get that, but it’s still weird that their first reaction was “I should use AI for this” rather than “I should copy what other small stores do” or “I should Google ‘how to run an online store’”, either of which would have led to a better solution.
Why is that? With AI being the solution to everything being advertised down our thoats on the daily… you dont think AI companies would lie to us do you?
Ah, I see you’re still assuming that Google isn’t pushing their BS “AI” into anything & everything it can. (not a “they”, don’t humanize it, my fellow poors) IMHO, they’d have been just as likely to choose a bot-coded builder by searching for it. Hell, we don’t even know that they didn’t, really.
I just searched in Google and their AI says to use Wix online store builder or Square online store. Reasonable suggestions.
Even worse they dont know that they dont know that they’re doing.