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Best E-Commerce software?

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Owen Fry

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Oct 17, 2010
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Hi all!

Hope you are doing great! I just want to start a online store to sell my products. I just want feedback from you guys on which software is best in terms of cost and usability?
 
Tiger commerce is a very good all round package. We have two sites with them. £17.99 plus vat a month
 
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Hi Owen,

Your answers to the following questions may help in people suggesting an appropriate solution.

  1. How many products are you planning to sell online?
  2. What is the budget would ideally like to spend on creating your online store?
  3. How much would you realistically expect to pay on an annual or monthly cost for the online store?
 
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ZS Cart is the best SAAS Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software to create your online store.

ZS Cart - Create Online Store In Minutes - Browsed Based Shopping Cart Software
 
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Zencart always does a good job. Depends on both your budget and site requirements to be able to give you a more informed answer.
 
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Leading on from this, if you are looking for a payment gateway we offer some of the lowest charges in the UK...

Up to 300 transactions/month = £10.00 per month

Anything above 300 transactions/month = £0.10 per transaction

See here for the list of carts we support. We are currently adding as many carts as we can so if your desired cart isn't listed it doesn't mean we cannot support you.

If you would like further details please visit our website or contact me directly. http://payments.totalwebsolutions.com/

Thanks,

Simon
 
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Before working at Dynamics, I worked with my parents and decided to change their website to a Dynamics Media e-commerce shopping cart. I was really impressed with the ease of use and sophistication of the shop and recognising success when I see it, I now work part time for the company.

Having had first hand experience using the site, I can fully recommend the Shopping Cart to anyone looking to attract new customers by improving their website’s ranking on Google and making the process of purchasing and selling items for the customer and seller very easy and user friendly.

Like myself,you may well have been put-off by complicated eCommerce software that claims to be easy to set-up; and I don't blame you! Most online shops aren't easy, and require specialist knowledge and help even if you do manage to get it going!

Dynamics ShoppingCart is genuinely different. First of all, we will set-up your online store for you - ready to simply add your products. And once it's there, Dynamics ShoppingCart is the easiest, fastest and most manageable eCommerce system available today.

You’ll be amazed how quickly and easily you could be selling online.

It gives you full control and is bursting with all the modern features to turn surfers into customers.
Set up by professionals for you - nothing to download and configure!

Fantastic, customisable design templates included free

Change the layout of your website using simple "drag and drop"
No specialist coding knowledge required

Easy integration with payment providers plus PayPal & Google Checkout

Manage your entire store via your standard web browser
Product variations allow you to sell fully-customised products
Process orders, print invoices & packing slips from your store's control panel
Fully Search-Engine friendly, including RSS feeds and client reviews
 
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DynamicsMedia said:
Before working at Dynamics, I worked with my parents and decided to change their website to a Dynamics Media e-commerce shopping cart. I was really impressed with the ease of use and sophistication of the shop and recognising success when I see it, I now work part time for the company.

Having had first hand experience using the site, I can fully recommend the Shopping Cart to anyone looking to attract new customers by improving their website’s ranking on Google and making the process of purchasing and selling items for the customer and seller very easy and user friendly.

Like myself,you may well have been put-off by complicated eCommerce software that claims to be easy to set-up; and I don't blame you! Most online shops aren't easy, and require specialist knowledge and help even if you do manage to get it going!

Dynamics ShoppingCart is genuinely different. First of all, we will set-up your online store for you - ready to simply add your products. And once it's there, Dynamics ShoppingCart is the easiest, fastest and most manageable eCommerce system available today.

You’ll be amazed how quickly and easily you could be selling online.

It gives you full control and is bursting with all the modern features to turn surfers into customers.
Set up by professionals for you - nothing to download and configure!

Fantastic, customisable design templates included free

Change the layout of your website using simple "drag and drop"
No specialist coding knowledge required

Easy integration with payment providers plus PayPal & Google Checkout

Manage your entire store via your standard web browser
Product variations allow you to sell fully-customised products
Process orders, print invoices & packing slips from your store's control panel
Fully Search-Engine friendly, including RSS feeds and client reviews
Click to expand...

We are always looking to integrate with new shopping carts. Perhaps you could PM me so that we can discuss further?

Thanks,

Simon
 
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I was faced with the same dilema as you a while back.

Having considered the choices, I opted for Zen Cart. Now, don't get me wrong, there are some 'terrible' looking Zencart stores out there.

If you are willing to but some effort in, (that means researching, reading the ZenCart forum) you will be rewarded.

The Zencart community is excellent for assistance and best of all, many of the modules are free.

I am not a graphic / website designer. I was simply a guy that wanted to start an online store without paying anyone. http://www.reefbay.co.uk
Those initial cost savings can make all the difference for a new startup. In the end, I came up with a store that doesn't look too bad in my opinion. Of course I could have paid, 'professionals' to create graphics and content and it would look better.

For me, this is the first step on the ladder. I'm really impressed with what Magento has to offer, but I'm still taking my time to learn it. Magento will be the second phase of my store (and I may need some additional dev help with it).

Back to the free opensource modules; I have automatic submissions to Google Shopping products, reports on abandoned carts (I have already converted some lost sales with this), SEO friendly URL's.

With Photoshop and Illustrator you can easily come up with a logo and some banners for your store. For mine, I drew a palm tree by hand, scanned it then, mapped vector paths around it.

There are plenty of free tutorials on the Internet showing you have to create various effects etc.

Security patches must be kept up to date with Zencart (and all other packages).

Now, this may cause some people issues with ZenCart- you need to be able to use software such as Beyond Compare (a bit of sofware that helps you compare files for differences) in order to apply these patches if you have made your own modifications to the basic Zen Cart store.

Quick point on the automatic installers such as 'fantastico'. You are better off learning how to do your own manual install for Zencart (dead easy). Automatic installers are not going to help you when it comes to applying security patches (as they won't know how to merge updates in any files you have over-ridden).

Most webspace hosts provide you with cPanel, which is a 'user friendly' interface - so you don't really need to get your hands dirty with Linux.

I guess it depends on your budget, and to a certain extent your ability to pick up new technology / skills and apply it.

With regards to payments, I use Paypal. The payment gateway is built into Zencart and very easy to use. There is an add on module for Sage Pay (written by a very helpful guy on the ZenCart forum) which I think is around
£50.

If you do choose Zencart and need any pointers, I would gladly assist (based on my own experiences).

I hope I have shown that you don't need to spend a fortune on getting an eCommerce store up and running. I don't do 'web design' or anything related professionally. I just want to share what the Open Souce community has to offer new startups.

All the best.

Al
 
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I would put forward tomatocart - a hybrid of oscommerce3.

Why?

Having spent around 6 months reviewing other carts this came out top.

There are major issues with oscommerce2.2 for PHP version 6 - it will not work when servers start using PHP6. oscommerce3 was supposed to over come these issues but has never been released.

Think your cart is ok? Think again - many of the carts are straight hybrids of oscommerce2.2...
 
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depends on your budget, technical knowledge and the size of the business, if you have the money one of the best companies is www.paraspar.co.uk but i can assure you that they are not cheap, magento is a great platoform but takes a lot of work to get it running as a shop which is ok if you know what you're doing but if you have to pay a pro to do it then it will cost a lot. if you just want a simple and easy to use platform that you can get running your self or with low costs then i'd say tiger commerce www.tigercommerce.co.uk is the way to go, with a sagepay payment system in place.

Good luck :)
 
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upnorthal said:
...but Zencart v2 (in development) is compatible with PHP 6 according to their site.
Click to expand...

"in development" is the issue!

oscommerce3 has been in such a state for years! Dont get me wrong we have supported oscommerce for the last ten years, but I think its now time to move on.
 
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OpenCart and ZenCart are both good. There are many paid/commercial products available too. Look to the developer forums to see how much the 'community' is involved -- you don't want to use a free cart where you can't get some support.
 
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I've tried a few carts, even written one.

Magento is my current favourite at the moment - very powerful, lots of extensions available and you can get it looking exactly how you want.
 
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upnorthal said:
I was faced with the same dilema as you a while back.

Having considered the choices, I opted for Zen Cart. Now, don't get me wrong, there are some 'terrible' looking Zencart stores out there.

If you are willing to but some effort in, (that means researching, reading the ZenCart forum) you will be rewarded.

The Zencart community is excellent for assistance and best of all, many of the modules are free.

I am not a graphic / website designer. I was simply a guy that wanted to start an online store without paying anyone.
Those initial cost savings can make all the difference for a new startup. In the end, I came up with a store that doesn't look too bad in my opinion. Of course I could have paid, 'professionals' to create graphics and content and it would look better.

For me, this is the first step on the ladder. I'm really impressed with what Magento has to offer, but I'm still taking my time to learn it. Magento will be the second phase of my store (and I may need some additional dev help with it).

Back to the free opensource modules; I have automatic submissions to Google Shopping products, reports on abandoned carts (I have already converted some lost sales with this), SEO friendly URL's.

With Photoshop and Illustrator you can easily come up with a logo and some banners for your store. For mine, I drew a palm tree by hand, scanned it then, mapped vector paths around it.

There are plenty of free tutorials on the Internet showing you have to create various effects etc.

Security patches must be kept up to date with Zencart (and all other packages).

Now, this may cause some people issues with ZenCart- you need to be able to use software such as Beyond Compare (a bit of sofware that helps you compare files for differences) in order to apply these patches if you have made your own modifications to the basic Zen Cart store.

Quick point on the automatic installers such as 'fantastico'. You are better off learning how to do your own manual install for Zencart (dead easy). Automatic installers are not going to help you when it comes to applying security patches (as they won't know how to merge updates in any files you have over-ridden).

Most webspace hosts provide you with cPanel, which is a 'user friendly' interface - so you don't really need to get your hands dirty with Linux.

I guess it depends on your budget, and to a certain extent your ability to pick up new technology / skills and apply it.

With regards to payments, I use Paypal. The payment gateway is built into Zencart and very easy to use. There is an add on module for Sage Pay (written by a very helpful guy on the ZenCart forum) which I think is around
£50.

If you do choose Zencart and need any pointers, I would gladly assist (based on my own experiences).

I hope I have shown that you don't need to spend a fortune on getting an eCommerce store up and running. I don't do 'web design' or anything related professionally. I just want to share what the Open Souce community has to offer new startups.

All the best.

Al
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick introduction on starting a online shop! I too would like to start my store by using Zencart as backend.
 
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Owen Fry said:
Thanks for the quick introduction on starting a online shop! I too would like to start my store by using Zencart as backend.
Click to expand...

Download an Xampp package (php/mysql bundle) and install ZenCart into that. Xampp is great for doing local dev work - it litrerally all runs from inside one folder.

I'd definatley recommend downloading the ZenCart user manual (think it costs £10).

Best of luck with it. :)
 
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I definitely would NOT recommend zencart as it does not support PHP6 so will stop working when PHP6 is installed on your web hosting account.

There are lots of other carts which are not PHP6 ready too, so check with the cart provider before investing money and time that it supports PHP6 in its current state, it no good them saying: yes it will one day...
They may never release the next version!

It would be like:
buying a new car that only runs on leaded petrol, so needing to patch it to make it run on UNleaded.

You can not completely future proof any application but you can take reasonable steps to keep the known-headaches (in this case incompatibility with PHP6) to a minimum.
 
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thnk u guys for telling so many solutions its really helpful for me as my father is looking forward to start online store of shipping industry spare parts
 
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I definatley would recomment ZenCart if you are starting out on a small scale. Its not going to be ideal for everyone.

If you are happy to pay £20 a plus month software fees for a bespoke app as a new start up then so be it. I'm certainlly not.

I personally doubt the Zencart community is going to let the current 1.3.9 thread of the app die just because PHP 6 starts to get more popular. As someone else stated, its not just the current ZenCart version that is not compatible with PHP 6.

There are thousands of members on the ZenCart forum with many posts each day. If anything, - whichever solution you choose - I would be sure to check out the forums and support they have on offer.

Also, I'd make sure your DNS records are hosted seperately from your hosting provider. That way, if you need to move your domain - its a simple process that your provider cannot obstruct.

In the worst case scenario, I can host my domain on my own server against our static IP. Zencart is not exactly resource intensive.

I'm saying the ZenCart in my opinion is an excellent entry level system for those starting up in eBusiness. Its not going to be my long term solution, but its enabled me to get up and running without (in my opinion) excessive software fees and other 'hidden' charges (I make no reference to any company here).
 
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seiretto said:
I definitely would NOT recommend zencart as it does not support PHP6 so will stop working when PHP6 is installed on your web hosting account.
Click to expand...

PHP6??

Not actually out yet - do you mean PHP 5.3?

From what I know, PHP6 probably isn't going to happen for a while - most of its features were rolled out with 5.3 which is a significantly different version of PHP to the 5.2 branch.
 
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edmondscommerce said:
From what I know, PHP6 probably isn't going to happen for a while - most of its features were rolled out with 5.3 which is a significantly different version of PHP to the 5.2 branch.
Click to expand...

Functions deprecated in PHP5.3 show only a warning message (which can be turned off and often is!) but in PHP6 there is no warning, just a fatal error.

Better to make ready now, changes come along all to quickly when you are having fun, and just when you do not need the extra work...
 
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seiretto said:
Functions deprecated in PHP5.3 show only a warning message (which can be turned off and often is!) but in PHP6 there is no warning, just a fatal error.

Better to make ready now, changes come along all to quickly when you are having fun, and just when you do not need the extra work...
Click to expand...

But the point is, PHP 6 is not out yet. And when it does come out, ZenCart will release a patch to make it work, just like they did when PHP 5.3 came out.

Rob
 
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No problem if you can drop everything at the time and fix it.

My point is that you might as well use something that is right now. Out of all those we tested only a few came out OK, zencart was not one of them. Tomatocart came out as one of the better open source carts around today.

Having supported oscommerce for a decade I know what a pain it is to upgrade/patch, and I fail to understand why anyone anyone would want a new ecommerce site built on technology where there is already a known patch required.
 
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I think you have to accept that if you are running an Open Source cart solution then you *must* expect to have to patch it (I'm referring to the non host managed apps). Secuirty updates are going to get released as well as general improvements to the software. Its critical that we keep up to date with these as we are holding personal data on customers.

I appreciate its not a solution for everyone, but if you can handle beyond compare - how hard really is it to patch a site?

I managed the 1.3.9 d,e,f patches in minutes. If I can do it, I'm sure others can too.

If the patch is a little more involved, then you simply pull a copy of your site and run it locally to test the patch.

I don't think the fact that a patch is forthcomming, is an exclusive reason to avoid a solution. I don't know about all Open Source solutions, but I have found people have bent over backwards to assist me with Zencart.

Its a nice feeling knowing that people are prepared to help each other...
 
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HI Owen Fry, as you're finding out there are many free and paid e-commerce apps available. That's the good news; the bad news is that to find the one that's best for "you", you really should test/trial a few of them (and with your technical person, if not you) to see what works best for your product.
 
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As per a previous poster.

Take a look a the products available to you (open source or paid for). Make your own informed choice and don't be pressured by anyone with a financial interest in one particular product.
 
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Hey

I know a friend who runs a E Commerce website, they specify getting through areas such as deleivery Matrixes, Payment gateways etc, there website is Plugandplay/southampton, go onto the e commerce link and the information is quite good, In terms of software they can deal with all your e commerce material so it makes it easier for you.

Hope this helps

Ben
 
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dingbat said:
Only used a few but I like Zen Cart. Tried Magento but while feature rich was very slow between loading pages.
Click to expand...

Although I use Zencart and agree it is fast - I too was concerned over the speed issues with Magento.

From reading responses on here, I believe it is possible to get a half decent site speed wise without spending a fortune. I understand part of the issue is having a host that configures their boxes with Magento in mind.

I'm sure some of the others on here would be able to advise on that. For the future, I do have my eyes on Magento.
 
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upnorthal said:
I understand part of the issue is having a host that configures their boxes with Magento in mind.
Click to expand...

that's it basically

its not rocket science to optimise a server for Magento but it does make a massive difference if it is done properly or not.

It's simply a case of choosing a host that knows what they are doing with Magento.

Down the line, hosting with someone that knows the platform as opposed to someone that just offering bog standard hosting with no knowledge or interest of what you are actually going to be running on it will pay dividends in a huge way, especially if anything ever goes wrong.

check out this demo store
http://dx3webs.com/magento/

these guys have become our hosting partner of choice for smaller clients
 
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Thanks Joseph.

If you get the same speed on a production site as you do on their demo setup, then that looks like a very reasonable offer indeed.

Perhaps I need to look again at Magento now. The feature lists is certainly impressive.

Would you say the template system in Magento is similar / harder than the 'over ride' template methodology one has to follow in Zen Cart?

Cheers
Al
 
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