3 General Types of E – Commerce Implementations – Comparisons
// June 1st, 2010 // Strategy
A. Open Source & Free E-Commerce Softwares
B. E-Commerce Modules for your CMS
C. Paid Solutions
A. Open Source & Free E-Commerce Softwares
| OSCOMMERCE | MAGENTO | ZEN CART | PRESTASHOP | |
| Pricing & Licensing | Free GPL | Free GPL The Magento Community Edition is free under the open source OSL 3.0 license and is recommended for expert developers. |
Free GPL | Free GPL |
| URL | OS Commerce | Magento | Zen Cart | Presta Shop |
| Upgraded Paid Version Avail | Enterprise Version | |||
| Last Update | Mar 09 | Feb 10 | Mar 10 | |
| Number of add-on modules | 5600 | 2000 | 1000 | |
| Number of active Community Members | 200, 000 | 30,000 | 90, 000 | 50,000 |
| Site Showcase | OS Commerce | Zen Cart | Presta Shop |
B. E-Commerce Modules for CMS
| WP-ECOMMERCE | UBERCART | VIRTUEMART | |
| Brief | Most popular Wordpress commerce extention. Integrates and works smoothly with Wordpress MU. If you are a Wordpress developer this is suited to your commerce projects. | Plug-in for popular content management system Drupal allows you to sell products, digital downloads such as music, videos, software, and sell membership site access for members only Web sites, including automatic renewals and expiration of user access. . | A plug-in for Jooma! or Mambo Content Management System. Uses Joomlab’s admin interface for store administration, so if you know Joomla it’s easy. Nice Web 2.0 style. |
| Pricing & Licensing | Free GPL | Free GPU & MIT license | Free GPL |
| URL | http://www.getshopped.org | www.ubercart.org | www.virtuemart.com |
| Integrated Payment Options | Manual Payment (checks/money orders) PayPal Payments Standard PayPal Payments Pro PayPal Express Checkout Google Checkout (Level 2) Chronopay PayPal Payflow Pro (available with Gold Cart) Authorize.net (available with Gold Cart) FirstData/LinkPoint (available with Gold Cart) eWay Payment (available with Gold Cart) iDEAL (available with Gold Cart) BluePay (available with Gold Cart) DPS (available with Gold Cart) Paystation (available with Gold Cart) SagePay (available with Gold Cart) Virtual Merchant (available with Gold Cart) |
PayPal – PayPal Website Payments Pro allows you to process credit cards remotely.
Authorize.net – The current module works with Authorize.net’s Advanced Integration Method. CyberSource – The current module works with the SOAP API and Silent Order POST methods. View instructions. PayflowPro – Two versions: PHP 4 and PHP 5 PayTrace (for D6) – http://drupal.org/project/uc_paytrace LinkPoint API – http://www.ubercart.org/contrib/903 Moneris – http://www.ubercart.org/contrib/732 USA ePAy – http://drupal.org/project/uc_usaepay VirtualMerchant – http://www.ubercart.org/contrib/978 |
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| Integrated Shippping Mods | Internal Shipping Calculator: How do you want your shipping to be calculated. WP e-Commerce comes with the following options
External Shipping
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UPS – UPS Rates and Services Selection XML Tool
USPS – United States Postal Service Rate calculator API FedEx – FedEx Ship Manager Direct |
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| Upgraded Paid Version Avail | Yes. License and pricing: Standard Version is FREE, Gold cart which has extra payment gate ways and a grid module is a one time fee $195 for businesses. Additional add-ons includes a FEDEX mod for $25, drag and drop shop for $100. | No | No |
| PRO’s | Super easy to set up and admin area is well organized. Well defined groups and categories ability. Simple to add unlimited products and customization is paramount. Widgets and customization of where cart shows up. Ability to use coupons codes. Huge list of payment gateway options. All transactions are processed via SSL (Need SSL on our server). | Very powerful and flexible when installed and set up correctly. Wide variety of add-on contributions available. | Ajax Product Overview page, vendor tracking of product sources, and product availability or when customer can expect delivery. |
| CON’s | Reporting isn’t as exhaustive as say ZenCart. Documentation lacks but they have just launched a Documentation Wiki. | Must install, maintain and upgrade both systems, Drupal and Ubercart; not easy to customize; digital downloads require a third plug-in. Currently only for earlier Drupal version 5 | Stiff learning curve to run both systems, and double maintenance: both Joomla! and VirtueMart must be upgraded separately each time there is a new release. |
| Showcase Sites | http://getshopped.org/showcase/ | ||
| Security | WP offers SEVERAL Security Add-On Modules | ||
| Other Great Features | Coupons: Everyone loves a discount, and everyone loves to feel special. What better way to combine the two then through a coupon!
Display Cross Sales: When a customer views a product they will a list of other products purchased by customers who also purchased that particular product. Share This: You have probably come across the ubiquitous Share This button sometime in your browsing history. Display How Customer Found Us Survey: This is pretty self explanatory. If you select this, a short survey will appear on your checkout page asking the customer how they found your site. Knowledge is power! RSS Address: Not only can people use this RSS feed to keep up-to-date with your product list, but you can also use this link to promote your products in your facebook profile. Google Base: This is where you can grant Google Base (now called Google Merchant Center) access to your site. Google Merchant Center is a place where you can easily submit all types of content, which will be made searchable on Google. |
C. Paid Solutions
| X-Cart Gold X-Cart is one of the leading ecommerce platforms in the world today. Based on PHP Smarty templates, this shopping cart software makes managing your online store a breeze. |
X-Cart Pro (software for multi-vendor online marketplaces & web supermarkets) | Magento Enterprise Magento is an open-source ecommerce platform, created on the components of the Zend Framework. It gives you complete flexibility and control over your online store’s design, content and functionality. |
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| Pricing | One time fee $115USD | One time fee $431USD | Starts at $12,990/year |
| Licensing | Single-domain lifetime license | Single-domain lifetime license | Commercial License |
| PCI Data Security Standard | yes | yes | yes |
| Platform | Php/SQL | Php/SQL | PHP 5/zend framework |
| Security Features | HTTPS/SSL Support/ Blowfish encryption/Anti fraud module/Backup sub-system | HTTPS/SSL Support/ Blowfish encryption/Anti fraud module/Backup sub-system | Strong Data Encryption |
| Support | Have to buy $229 x-cart gold | yes | yes |
| Virtual Gift Cupons | yes | yes | yes |
| Physical Gift cards | yes | ||
| SEO urls | yep | yep | yes |
| Xhtml compliance | yes | yes | Yes |
| Real time shipping estimation | yes | yes | Yes |
| Payment gateways | Paypal, google checkout, 2C0, worldpay, Money borkers, beanstream | Supports almost any gateway you can think of. | |
| Shipping Compatibillity | UPS, FedEx, Canada Post, USPS, DHL
· Real-time USPS, FedEx and UPS shipping calculation from one location · Unlimited number of custom-defined delivery methods · Flate rate, weight, order total and per-item based shipping · Different weight limits for different delivery methods · Markups for realtime shipping · Mark your products as “free shipping” products · Promotional “free shipping” coupons to your customers · Add handling/freight charges · Handle international, domestic and local shipping · Ability to clone a zone and all zone information · Restrict shipping by location · Allow your customers to choose delivery methods · Support for downloadable goods (e-goods) · Customizable tax calculation · Product-specific taxes · Taxes & shipping fees depending on client’s location · “Tax exempt” feature · GST/PST (canadian tax system) · Canada post shipping |
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| Multi- Currency | no | no | yes |
| Export to Quickbooks | yes | yes | no |
| Showcase Sites | http://www.x-cart.com/featured_clients.html | http://www.x-cart.com/featured_clients.html | http://www.magentocommerce.com/showcase |
| Extensive Reporting | yes | yes | yes |
| Template Engine | Smarty | ||
| Multiple Admin Levels | No | Yes | Yes. Can create multiple sites and restrict roles for staff and stores |
| Private Sales/ Events and permissions | no | no | Yes, restrict catalog, create events for limited time sales. |
| One page checkout | yes | yes | yes |
| PDA Optimized | yes | yes | Iphone optimized |
| Payment features |
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Gift Certificates/Cards (Physical and Virtual) Enterprise Only
· Integrated with Authorize.net · Integrated with Google Checkout (Level 2) · Saved Credit Card method for offline payments · Accept Checks/Money Orders · Accept Purchase Orders |
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| Order Management |
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