best 5 ecommerce carts review
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Take a look at the pros and cons of the 5 best shopping carts, to help you decide which one is most suitable for your business.TRANSCRIPT
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Best 5 eCommerce Cart Review
© TechAhead 2012
Best 5 eCommerce Cart ReviewWith cloud computing being the new wave, smart phones and tablets have made online shopping extremely easy, fueling the growth of the eCommerce sector. According to Forrester Forecasts, revenue from internet-based retail sales in the US alone is expected to reach $248.7 billion by 2014. So, it’s no wonder that more and more businesses are getting their products online.
During the process of setting up a website, sooner or later one is faced with the question of which shopping cart to use. Obviously, cost is an important aspect to consider, but there are other equally important features such as ease of installation, design, administration, security, shopper friendly interface, customization, payment gateways and of course, customer support.
Most of the leading shopping carts are more or less on par in terms of functionality, although one many differ from the other to a small extent in terms of a particular feature. Here is a look at the pros and cons of the 5 best shopping carts, to help you decide which one is most suitable for your website.
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An Open Source Software, osCommerce was one of the first ever shopping carts to be introduced. Although it does not have advanced features like some of the others, it is suitable if you have a basic shopping cart in mind and is an excellent option as a DIY solution for minimizing start-up costs.
1) osCommerce
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Pros Cons• As a free shopping cart so6ware, it is cost effec:ve.
• If you aren’t a technology whiz, installing add-‐ons to customize the shopping cart can prove expensive as you will have to hire developers.
• As an open source so6ware that has been around for many years, there is a large community that contributes to its modifica:ons.
• It lacks a graphic template system, which makes it difficult to modify the design of the website once it is installed.
• It can be customized. • Being an Open Source So6ware, you can’t rely on free 24x7 customer support like with other paid so6ware.
1) osCommerce
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2) Magento
Although it is one of the newer shopping carts, Magento has become popular because of the ease with which design modifications can be made. There are arguments about it being more developer-friendly than shop owner-friendly because it is stronger on back end features.
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2) MagentoPros Cons
• The Community Edition is free. • The Professional and Enterprise editions are expensive compared to other licensed shopping carts.
• The company is quick with updating code or fixing bugs.
• Its complex coding means a lot more time and money needs to be spent on customization.
• It has many add-on modules that make basic customization easy.
• Since it is heavily layered, it runs much slower than other shopping carts.
• It is well-organized at the back-end with excellent admin panels and code.
• Being relatively new, technical documentation is limited, making it difficult to modify programming.
• The Professional and Enterprise editions come with technical support.
• For the Community Edition, you have to rely on community support in case you face an issue.
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3) CS Cart
This is a standalone licensed application, which means that you have to pay for its use. However, it is easy to install and is packed with features that make it a popular option for a shopping cart. It comes in basic, professional and multi-vendor editions.
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3) CS CartPros Cons
• Although it is a licensed applica:on, CS-‐Cart is affordable with prices star:ng from $295 if you buy directly from the company (slightly lower if you buy from a reseller). The Community Edi:on is free for 12 months.
• As a novice, you may find making modifica:ons and customizing your site difficult and :me consuming as you first have to familiarize yourself with the applica:on.
• It has a host of features that makes customiza:on easy without having to deal with codes.
• You will need to hire an expert to help with modifica:ons, which will add to your costs.
• During the one-‐year subscrip:on period, you get free updates.
• Due to complex architecture, the website works much slower than with simpler applica:ons.
• Flexible, allowing easy upgrades when the business grows, without having to rebuild the site from scratch.
• Since it is not Open Source, the bank of expert developers and range of add-‐ons are limited.
• Along with the one-‐year licence, you get free 24x7 customer support.
• It has an SEO add-‐on that helps increase your site’s visibility in searches.
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4) Zen Cart
Since this application has been developed by people with experience in ecommerce, it focuses on making the process easy for novices rather than developers. While it uses OsCommerce as the base, it is independent of it, which means contributions from OsCommerce cannot be installed on Zen Cart. However, it has a nice set of features for creating a fancy online store.
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4) Zen CartPros Cons
• It is cost-effective as it is free. • Integration of add-ons is difficult. • It comes packed with features, right
out of the box, so you don’t really need add-ons.
• It is not easy to make upgrades on the website as you have to rebuild from scratch.
• It allows easy customization. • It lacks in automatic marketing tools such as new customer email registration, compared to other shopping carts.
• Access to a large community of developers.
• Slows down when a larger number of products (more than 1000) are added to the website.
• More mature and stable than other carts since it is based OsCommerce.
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5) Virtuemart
Earlier known as PHP Shop, Virtuemart is an Open Source application that works with Joomla! It comes with basic features, which can be extended using add-ons and modules to customize the site.
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5) VirtuemartPros Cons
• Easy installation and simple to use. • Still evolving and lacks certain readily available functionalities.
• Provides Search Engine Optimization since it works with Joomla!
• Dependent on Joomla for functioning.
• Templates can be modified and developed easily.
• Requirement of knowing Joomla for modifications and customization.
• Easy to upgrade.
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ConclusionIt is evident that each of these shopping carts has advantages and disadvantages. You need to decide which one is best for you depending on budget and features that you consider most important. If you have a specific functionality in mind such as being able to import data from an Excel sheet, be sure to verify if the shopping cart system offers it before you install it and start work on your website.
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