Analysis of Online Shopping Cart Solutions for Small Retail Businesses

Transcription

1 UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO Software Engineering Analysis of Online Shopping Cart Solutions for Small Retail Businesses Pressure Equipment Limited London, Ontario prepared by Yuguang Zhang Student ID: Userid: y279zhan 1B Software Engineering September 13, 2009

2 1828 Blackwater Rd. London, ON N5X 4J4 September 13, 2009 Charles Stross, Director Software Engineering University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1 Dear Sir, I have prepared the enclosed report Analysis of Online Shopping Cart Solutions for Small Retail Businesses as my 1B Work Report for academic credit following my work-term at Pelco Systems. This is my first work report. Pelco Systems is one of the leading suppliers of car wash station parts in Canada. It has a comprehensive catalog concerning all things related to car wash. Pelco is a Canadian company and has been in business for over 40 years. During my work-term at Pelco, my major task was to design an online shopping solution. I worked independently as a web developer on the online shopping project and had the responsibility of testing and implementing the shopping solution. The shopping cart software I decided to use played a role in the success of the project. The purpose of this report is to help web developers working for small retail businesses decide which online shopping cart software to use. The report compares two shopping cart options based on their customizability and extensibility as well as hosting requirements. I would like to thank Thomas Dimson for developing the L A TEX class used to typeset this report. I hereby confirm that I have received no further help other than what is mentioned above in writing this report. I also confirm that this report has not been previously submitted for academic credit at this or any other academic institution. Sincerely, Yuguang Zhang

3 Executive Summary This report will help web developers at small retail businesses make the decision on the shopping cart software for an online store. Pelco will have a clear idea of what shopping cart software is best suited to the needs of the company. Two open-source solutions that are able to meet the requirements are Zen Cart and Django. The recommendations in this report can be applied to any small business that wishes to have an online store, though the report focuses on the requirements for Pelco. The two shopping cart systems are evaluated by ease of customization, extensibility, and hosting requirements. The first section analyzes Zen Cart in terms of features, customizability, extensibility, and hosting requirements. The next section does the same for Satchmo. It is followed by the conclusions and recommendations based on the analysis. Both Zen Cart and Satchmo are able to satisfy all of the project requirements. Satchmo requires more programming knowledge than Zen Cart. However, Zen Cart offers fewer options for customization. Zen Cart distances itself from Satchmo in that its hosting requirements are easily met. Moreover, Zen Cart provides added extensibility through software contributions made by its users. This report recommends Zen Cart for online shopping cart development and to host information about the company. This will allow fast progress during development and ensure the needs of the customer are met. ii

4 Table of Contents Executive Summary ii Table of Contents iii List of Figures v 1.0 Introduction Background Purpose Scope Audience Outline Zen Cart Introduction Features Ease of Customization Extensibility Hosting Requirements Satchmo Introduction Features Ease of Customization Extensibility iii

5 8.5 Hosting Requirements Conclusions Recommendations References Appendix A: Shopping Flow Glossary iv

6 List of Figures Figure 1 Zen Cart Side-Box Configuration in the Administration Panel Figure 2 Satchmo Administration Panel v

7 1.0 Introduction Pelco Systems is one of the leading suppliers of car wash station parts in Canada. It has a comprehensive catalog concerning all things related to car wash and has been in business for over 40 years. Because of its reliance on retail, Pelco must ensure that customers are offered convenient and friendly service. This report aims to identify the shopping cart software that is best suited for hosting Pelco s online services. 2.0 Background A shopping cart management system allows customers to navigate the online store and purchase products. In addition, it allows the store owner to view and manage orders. Contrary to what many small business owners think, developing an online shopping cart does not require large sums of money. Completely free shopping carts management systems are available. These shopping cart systems generally come with a searchable database of products, customer accounts, and Paypal as a payment method. 3.0 Purpose Due to the differences between shopping cart systems, it is necessary to evaluate their suitability. First, the shopping cart software needs to be easily customizable to cater to regular Pelco customers. Because Pelco is a retailer for car wash station products, the store look and feel should reflect the business. It should allow modification of key visual elements of the store, such as text and buttons, with minimum changes to core code. The online store should support estimation of shipping costs through UPS to make instant payment with Pay- Pal possible. UPS is the most commonly used method for shipping within the company. The 1

8 shopping cart should have a minimum order amount required to go through the checkout, as processing each order incurs costs. Second, the shopping cart must integrate with the existing MS Access database that stores customer and product information. The data necessary for an online shopping cart includes product price, product number, and stocking. Stocking needs to be accurate to ensure products that are out of stock are not available for sale. notifications need to be set up so that customer service is notified when an order is made. Ideally, the Access database and the website database backend is synchronized, so that the website stays updated and new customers are registered in the Access database. Third, the shopping cart must have a suitable hosting solution. Web hosting for the shopping cart should be cheap and come with a database for storing catalog information. Because the initial phases of the project are experimental, there should be no cost for setting up and testing installations of the shopping cart. After the development ends, the hosting fees should be recoverable with purchases from the website. 4.0 Scope This report will include qualitative analysis of two shopping cart systems, Zen Cart and Satchmo. Both are selected because they can be extended to meet project requirements. Additionally, they represent two extreme ends of philosophy in developing software. Zen Cart is designed specifically to meet the requirements of store owners and shoppers first. However, Satchmo is intended for developers to make highly customized e-commerce sites. [1] 2

9 5.0 Audience The reader is expected to have knowledge of the typical shopping flow, as this is essential to understanding the various functions of shopping cart components. The typical set of activities that customers perform include logging in, providing payment and delivery information, and confirming the order. More detail about this process can be found in Appendix A. 6.0 Outline The different sections in this report cover the qualitative analysis of Zen Cart and Satchmo. The first section analyzes Zen Cart with respect to features, ease of customization, extensibility, and hosting requirements. The second section analyzes Satchmo in the same way. The final sections of the report cover the conclusion and recommendations. 7.0 Zen Cart 7.1 Introduction Zen Cart is shopping cart software written in PHP and requires a MySQL database to work. It allows business owners to create an e-commerce store for selling goods and services. Zen Cart is flexible and can sell both physical and digital goods. It provides an administration backend as well as a frontend for shoppers. It is designed so that navigation and checkout is easy for customers. [2] Zen Cart is distributed under the GNU General Public License. It comes completely free with many advanced features. 3

10 7.2 Features At first glance, Zen Cart satisfies all of the requirements for the project except for the ability to mass import data from Access. Zen Cart is easy to set up on a server because most web hosting providers support PHP and MySQL. It comes with an administration panel where most of the options for the store can be configured. The visual elements of the store can be customized with the templating system and within the administration panel. Due to Zen Cart s extensibility, the ability to mass import data from Access was easily implemented using an add-on contributed by other Zen Cart users. Additional programming made the synchronization of data between Access and the website catalog possible. Zen Cart comes with many features due to input from its large user base and active forum. A list of useful features that Zen Cart offers is shown below. [2] Installation through web browser that only requires a server with PHP and MySQL Simple three-step checkout process designed to reduce shopping cart abandonment Credit Card, Check Orders, Cash-On-Delivery, and PayPal are available as payment options Taxes can be defined based on the province and country UPS shipping is available as a module Invoices and delivery orders can be generated at the click of a button Tax calculations for the order total can be split into GST and PST to comply with Provincial regulations Notification of purchase through 4

11 7.3 Ease of Customization Ease of use often comes at the cost of control over the software. Zen Cart takes a different approach. Programming knowledge is optional when making basic customization. For advanced customization, Zen Cart uses a modular template system with override directories. When Zen Cart loads the files for a template, it first looks in the specified template directory. [2] If the file is not there, it loads the file from the default directory. Making a custom template only requires revising a few CSS and PHP files. Files in the appropriate locations are automatically loaded for the template. CSS files and images are organized into different folders so that the look of the store is easy to control. Moreover, Zen Cart has many freely available templates contributed by its users. [3] Installing a template package is as simple as copying the files to the appropriate directory. Layout elements are divided into separate sections and can be configured through the administration panel without programming knowledge. The layout elements used by Zen Cart include the header, footer, and side-boxes. The header shows the company logo and sales message. It also provides navigation links for log in, check out, and product categories. The footer bar contains the hyperlink to the homepage and a copyright message from Zen Cart. It can be configured to show the IP address of a site visitor and performance statistics. Performance statistics such as page parse time, number of queries, and query time are useful as a reference point for determining the effect of performance tuning. Finally, rectangular blocks called side-boxes appear on the left and right columns on the storefront. The display properties of individual side-boxes along with the footer and header can be configured in the administration panel shown in Figure 1. [4] 5

12 Figure 1: Zen Cart Side-Box Configuration in the Administration Panel 7.4 Extensibility Zen Cart provides various shipping and payment methods for store owners. Each shipping and payment module that is enabled appear as an option in the delivery information screen of the checkout process. Because Pelco uses UPS Standard for most of its shipping, we decided to use the UPS shipping module for Zen Cart. Zen Cart includes a UPS shipping module that fetches shipping charges from UPS. Delivery information is submitted to UPS where the charges are calculated in real-time. The stock UPS module is not flexible enough to support shipping estimates outside of the US. However, due to Zen Cart s extensibility, a third party module called UPS XML is available and can be used worldwide. [5] Zen Cart also has several payment options. We decided that the shopping cart should at least provide the existing payment methods. The methods already in use are manual processing of credit cards through a point of sale terminal and money or check order. Zen Cart supports all of these methods as well as other popular options such as PayPal Instant Payment Notification. Although Zen Cart is already very powerful, it also has add-ons contributed by volunteers. Zen Cart has a minimum order amount add-on which sets a minimum value for the shopping 6

13 cart total. If the value is not reached, the customer cannot proceed to checkout. Due to the large number businesses owners who use Zen Cart, mass import of product information through Excel is supported through an add-on. The entire online catalog including information about products such as weight, quantity, and category, can be edited in a spreadsheet and uploaded as a text file. This feature can be easily extended in many ways because the file format for inserting the data into the database is tab delimited. Since proper update of stock levels and prices play an important role in business, an automated way to synchronize data between the website and the local database is required. This add-on provides the means for daily update of stocking and prices. The tab delimited format used for upload can both be created by a script and edited in Excel. 7.5 Hosting Requirements Zen Cart installation is expedient. Zen Cart only requires PHP and MySQL. Many web hosting companies offer free hosing with PHP and MySQL. Some offer automated installation of Zen Cart. Nevertheless, he Zen Cart team recommends a manual install so that installation options are not overlooked. [6] Zen Cart meets the no start-up cost requirement, although advanced features still require paid hosting. Paypal Express checkout and UPS XML both require a secure connection for communication. Free hosting services often do not support SSL, which is required for secure communication. Paid hosting not only provides better support for shopping cart applications, it also gives the customer increased security with SSL. Zen Cart has a list of certified hosts that meet the requirements set by the team. [7] 7

14 8.0 Satchmo 8.1 Introduction Satchmo is shopping cart software written in Python and uses the Django web framework. The project team decided on Python as the programming language because it is more flexible, has better support for object oriented programming, and has a simpler syntax than PHP. Consequently, Python and Django are the two requirements that make Satchmo the less popular choice compared to Zen Cart. While many web hosting services offer automated Zen Cart script installers, Satchmo has so many dependencies it is usually installed on privately owned servers. [8] Despite these pitfalls, Satchmo still offers all the features of modern shopping carts. 8.2 Features Satchmo satisfies the requirements for the project through its developer friendliness. The Django framework offers signals as a way for developers to implement custom features. Store customizations are made with direct modifications to template files. Django has a templating language for modifying visual elements of the store. Minimum changes can be made to core code using the templating system. Satchmo, being built on the Django framework, offers all of the benefits of Django including: Flexible administration interface that is generated depending on the modules installed Powerful text-based templating language [9] Translation in several languages for global commerce 8

15 Flexible database backend Security enhancements to prevent common attacks Caching through database, memory, or files Google analytics for analyzing traffic 8.3 Ease of Customization Satchmo requires knowledge of Python in order to make customizations. Satchmo supports template override directories and allows customizations through changing the directories of template and CSS files. However, Python configurations files that point to the template and CSS flocations need to be manually modified. The majority of the text and style of Satchmo is in template and CSS files. The Satchmo project provides documentation on the purpose and location of its template files. [9] Template files are written in the Django templating language, which adds tags for Python to interpret. [10] Django tags are able to reduce repetitive HTML code. They can replace the document type declaration and HTML tags. Besides reducing typos, it also allows the programmer to make changes in multiple web pages by changing a single file. The templating language works by having Python interpret tags in HTML files that can be reused. [11] The Django templating language provides a scalable way of changing the look of the website. As a result, making changes to site appearance only involves editing a small number of lines in Python. Time spent on customization is greatly reduced. 8.4 Extensibility Satchmo comes with default shipping and payment modules as well as a way to define custom modules. The modules can be configured in the administration panel as Figure 9

16 Figure 2: Satchmo Administration Panel 2 shows. The Satchmo documentation describes the steps to create a custom payment module. [12] Many elements of available modules can be reused when creating a custom module. Satchmo comes with many shipping options including UPS XML, which allows flexibility in configuring shipping estimates. It supports using dimension and weight in shipping calculations, although weight can be omitted. [13] Also, Satchmo comes with a PayPal Instant Payment Notification module that can integrate into other parts of the store. [14] Although Satchmo lacks third-party add-ons, it can be extended without modifying the code. Satchmo does this through signals. Signals allow communication to take place between different parts of the online store. [15] According to the Django Signals Documentation, In a nutshell, signals allow certain senders to notify a set of receivers that some action has taken place. [16] Satchmo signals can easily be extended to write a custom module for the minimum order amount. The store can use a signal to check the total amount ordered each time an item is added to the cart. Likewise, notification of purchase through can be implemented with a signal that indicates a completed order. 10

17 8.5 Hosting Requirements Installing Satchmo requires a working knowledge of Unix and a dedicated server. Satchmo is built on the Django framework and requires Django to be installed on the server. [8] Django is written in Python and requires the Python interpreter to be embedded in the Apache web server process. The module for embedding Python is more powerful than the module for PHP and can interfere with other websites hosted with the same Apache process. [17] As a result, Django is mostly installed on dedicated hosts. [18] Likewise, because Satchmo is built on the Django framework, many Satchmo users decide to install Satchmo on their own Linux servers. [19] Besides having Django as a requirement, Satchmo requires a few Python libraries. Installing Satchmo is a long and arduous process, even though the documentation provides instructions on the installation of dependencies and sample Unix shell commands. [8] 11

18 9.0 Conclusions Zen Cart and Satchmo come close in their list of features. Zen Cart offers easier shopping cart customization. Satchmo makes a more customized shopping cart possible with programming, since many features require programming experience. On the other hand, Zen Cart presents its configuration options in the control panel so that programming is only used for advanced customization. Along with its freely available add-ons, Zen Cart allows the inexperienced programmer to easily make e-commerce websites that rival Satchmo. Though Satchmo has many of the required features, it lacks the ability to mass import product information. Zen Cart can be extended with add-ons to implement this feature without modification to core code. On the other hand, Satchmo lacks third-party extensions and requires the programmer to extend it. Even though Satchmo is built on the Django framework, its learning curve is too steep for the developer to make use of the framework. Minimum order amount and notification of purchase is not possible in Satchmo without knowledge of the Django framework and Python. Finally, Zen Cart differs from Satchmo differ the most in terms of hosting requirements. The requirements for Zen Cart are commonly available on web hosting servers, while Satchmo is harder to install on a remote server. Zen Cart installation is expedient compared to the procedure to install Satchmo. 12

19 10.0 Recommendations From the analysis in this report, it is recommended that Pelco use Zen Cart for an online shopping cart. Zen Cart allows the developer to quickly make the website usable and improve on various parts as necessary. It is recommended for the web developer to take advantage of Zen Cart add-ons that are freely available. It is also recommended for further improvements to the website to be integrated with Zen Cart. In addition, it is recommended to use paid hosting for online shopping. This will give customers a sense of security and make development of the website smoother. 13

20 References [1] C. Moffitt, Welcome to Satchmo, (current August 2009). [2] G. K. Hoek, e-start Your Web Store with Zen Cart. Singapore: Cucumber Media Pte Ltd, [3] Zen Ventures, How do I create a new Custom Template?, zen-cart.com/index.php?article=142 (current August 2009). [4] Zen Ventures, How do I remove and/or re-arrange the sideboxes?, zen-cart.com/index.php?article=48 (current August 2009). [5] T. Walker, oscommerce: UPS XML Rates and Services v1.0, oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1323 (current August 2009). [6] Zen Ventures, How Do I Install Zen Cart(tm)?, index.php?article=107 (current August 2009). [7] Zen Ventures, Zen Certified Hosting, page=infopages&pages_id=10 (current August 2009). [8] C. Moffitt, Installation, installation.html (current August 2009). [9] C. Moffitt, Satchmo Templates, templates.html (current August 2009). [10] Django Software Foundation, The Django template language, djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/templates/ (current July 2009). [11] J. Bennett, Practical Django Projects. Apress,

21 [12] C. Moffitt, Custom Payment Modules, custom-payment.html (current August 2009). [13] C. Moffitt, Shipping Module Activation, svn/shipping.html (current August 2009). [14] P. Kenjora, PayPal IPN Python Code, paypal-ipn-python-code/ (current August 2009). [15] B. Waycott, Satchmo Diaries: Part Two Satchmo Signals, com/tech/satchmo-diaries-part-two-satchmo-signals/ (current August 2009). [16] Django Software Foundation, Django Signals Documentation, djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/signals/ (current August 2009). [17] Good Web Hosting Info, Hosting for Python powered websites, goodwebhosting.info/article.py/15 (current August 2009). [18] Django Software Foundation, Django Friendly Web Hosts, djangoproject.com/wiki/djangofriendlywebhosts (current August 2009). [19] B. Kroeze, Setting up Satchmo on a Debian Server, setting-up-satchmo-on-a-debian-server.html (current August 2009). 15

22 Appendix A: Shopping Flow The typical customer learns about the website through a search engine or a link from another website. He arrives on the homepage. The homepage displays a list of products as well as categories under which the products are organized. The customer can find more information on products by clicking on their images or titles. The product detail page contains information that allows him to make a decision on the purchase. Once he decides on a product to purchase, he will be directed to the shopping cart page. The shopping cart page shows the number of items purchased and the total price. It allows the customer to change the quantity of the items in the shopping cart. This is where the items to be purchase are finalized before the checkout process begins. The customer must be logged in to his account before the checkout process can begin. If an account has not been created, he needs to sign up for an account. The delivery information page is where the customer can decide on the shipping option. UPS shipping estimates are shown on this page. At the payment information page, the customer is given several choices for their preferred method of payment. Possible payment options include PayPal, credit card, and cash or check order. The order confirmation page is where customers can review the delivery and payment information. After the customer confirms his order, he is redirected to a page indicating successful checkout. Information about expected delivery date is shown on this page. 16

23 Glossary SSL Secure Sockets Layer: cryptographic protocols which provide secure communications on the Internet. HTML Hypertext Markup Language: a set of tags and rules (conforming to SGML) for using them in developing hypertext documents. CSS Cascading Style Sheets are declarations that describe how a document should be presented on the Web. Python A simple, high-level interpreted language invented by Guido van Rossum in PHP An Open Source, server-side, cross-platform, scripting language used to create dynamic web pages. MySQL The most popular open source relational database management system. MySQL is developed, distributed, and supported by MySQL AB. E-Commerce The conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. 17