Ecommerce today:
Though Amazon and eBay were initiated in 1995, ecommerce dates back to 1979 when Michael Aldrich demonstrated the first experiment of online shopping. In 2012, worldwide online shopping market topped 1 trillion USD.
Ecommerce platforms:
The first ecommerce web application came in 1997 when mambo-phpShop was introduced as component of then-popular Mambo CMS (Content Management System). When Mambo fork evolved into Joomla!, phpShop rebranded itself to VirtueMart. Today we have more than 10 ecommerce management applications.
» Magento
Magento and ecommerce are almost synonymous now. We believe it is one of the best online shopping platforms out there. Initially started in 2008, Magento now powers more than 150,000 online retail stores around the world.
Magento comes in three varieties. Its community edition is free and open source while professional and enterprise versions are paid ones.
Pros:
Magento’s biggest advantages are its community and flexibility. A large number of users, developers and service providers can provide with you tips and tricks to manage your Magento site. Similarly, all the business and marketing tools one might expect are available in this platform. The variety of promotion techniques and payment methods found in Magento is hardly to be found elsewhere.
Cons:
Since its first stable release, Magento never stopped adding new features. This has turned Magento highly complex to handle. Moreover, Magento requires a purpose-built hosting environment with continuous store and database management. This all can take a lot of time of yours.
» KonaKart
The Java written ecommerce platform is maintained by UK-based DS Data Systems UK Ltd. KonaKart is completely focused to cater enterprise needs, and it has surely managed to do it to some extent. It provides community edition for small businesses while enterprise editions comes with multiple features.
Pros:
KonaKart is customer centric. You can give reward points to your customer while they will have an option to reorder and return. Plus it supports multiple data storage system like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL and Oracle.
Cons:
KonaKart is expensive, in fact, very expensive. Its enterprise edition comes at a price of GBP3,600 per year. Secondly, KonaKart lacks a few security and search engine tools like captcha generation and XML sitemap.
» OpenCart
As the name suggests, OpenCart is an open source software. And unlike the above mentioned two, it does not have a paid version. It was launched in 2009 by an independent developer Daniel Kerr and has been helping small and medium sized businesses since then.
Pros:
Setting up an ecommerce store can be no easier than it is on OpenCart. It provides easy installation and is fast and light weight. Secondly it has a growing community and new add-ons are added regularly. If you need something that is quicker to set up and put into running, OpenCart is the ultimate choice for you.
Cons:
With all its benefits, OpenCart is not as powerful as Magento. It has limited API functionality, and many core SEO/SEF functions need to be added as an add-on.
» Shopify
Shopify is one of the ecommerce platform that is entirely paid. However, it’s worth paying for. Shopify provides all that you need while letting you keep the ultimate control. Since its launch in 2006, it is well received by tech websites and is loved by many large enterprises.
Pros:
Shopify has all the features necessary to make a fast and secure online retail store. It provides step-by-step guidance with 24/7 customer support. It has a good collection of free themes, and you can make your store as creative as you want.
Cons: Shopify is excellent for well-established ecommerce stores but if you thinking to try your luck in online retail, then Shopify might not be the answer. Firstly, Shopify is proprietary and secondly it takes a 2% transaction fees from their basic level customers. Also, being closed source can lock you in, this can have adverse effects on your operations.
» osCommerce
osCommerce is one of the earliest open source shopping cart software written in PHP. It was initiated in March 2000 as The Exchange Project. Today more than 12,000 sites are using osCommerce, worldwide.
Pros:
osCommerce is an open source and is providing eCommerce platform for more than a decade. These two features have attracted hundreds of developers that are constantly adding features to the software.
Cons:
osCommerce is an excellent platform to create a custom cart solution. However, it requires a professional developer with reasonable knowledge of SEO. It can take hours to install and setup an osCommerce-based website, turning it into a complex option for small and medium sized business owners.
» PrestaShop
In open-source platforms, PrestaShop is a relatively new entrant; yet, it has managed to become a choice for more than 135,000 stores online. This eCommerce solution provider has a highly active community of developers and volunteers while the software itself has 310 features by default including multi-store management.
Pros:
Open source softwares are known for being difficult to install and manage. PrestaShop has specifically targeted this issue and provides detailed resources in terms of design, development and SEO. It is this reason that PrestaShop is highly popular among small businesses.
Cons:
You need to purchase modules in order to manage a large-sized store on PrestaShop. These modules can turn out to be extremely expensive; at times costlier than Magento modules.
» Zen Cart
Zen Cart branched itself into osCommerce in 2003. It currently holds the second largest share in eCommerce platform though it is continuously losing its user base due to new entrants.
Pros:
Having basic knowledge of PHP means you can easily customize Zen Cart to create a robust online store. Plus, Zen Cart has been tested and used by web developers for over a decade, and this provides stability to the software.
Cons:
Zen Cart has not updated itself with the changing horizon of eCommerce. Therefore, it has some serious SEO and mobile compatibility issues with bugs and problems that can take ample amount of time to fix.
» Spree
Spree is an open-source eCommerce platform written in Ruby on Rails (RoR). Starting in 2007, it has managed to get investment from AOL and TrueVenture.
Pros:
Spree has a clean and easy to use design interface for both front-end and back-end. Moreover, Spree provides free and premium level support for managing the store with ample amount of resources and documents.
Cons:
You can always find PHP developers, but Ruby experts are not easily available. Also, Spree does not offer Q & A and multiple currency functionality.
