D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms WP3 Version /11/2013

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1 PECOS4SMEs D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms WP3 Version /11/2013 Project PECOS4SMEs Author(s) CCS EBN Reviewer(s) FC This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This document reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

2 Circulation List Person Name Gianluca Coppola Christos Anthis Onno Hansen Kenny Payne Robert Sanders Małgorzata Mikłosz Dimitris Diamantis Organization Name Eurocrea Merchant CrystalClearSoft OHENNENNOH BV OAKE Associates European Business & Innovation Centre Network (EBN) DANMAR COMPUTERS FAVINOM Consultancies Revision History Version Date Author Description Action Pages /09/2013 CCS Creation of the document C /09/2013 CCS, EBN Update of the document U /11/2013 CCS, FC Update of the document U 33 (*) Action: C = Creation, I = Insert, U = Update, R = Replace, D = Delete Referenced Documents ID Reference Title LLP-2012-GR-Leonardo-LMP PECOS4SMEs Proposal LLP-2012-GR-Leonardo-LMP Evaluation Comments Applicable Documents ID Reference Title 1 FAVINOM Consultancies QMS Quality Procedures D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 2 of 33

3 Executive Summary This document forms the D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms for the Implementation of the PECOS4SMEs Project (henceforth, Project ). Southern Europe SMEs lack the needed knowledge to take advantage of the e-commerce potential resulting in Southern Europe lagging within the e-business area. PECOS4SMEs will develop a training programme concentrated on the provision of suitable knowledge and tools, which the SMEs can use to increase cross border ecommerce revenue. This includes changing sales and marketing strategies and new types of organisation and knowledge about e- Commerce technologies in a future world dominated by pervasive Internet. The promotion of useful e-commerce strategies for SMEs includes transfer of knowledge and practices from top performing countries in e-commerce to lagers thus bridging the cross border sales gap between Northern and Southern Europe and helping the economic recovery of the hard hit South. As a consequence of the introduction of new technologies and concepts facilitating cross border e-commerce, (e.g. effective link building, search engine user attitudes etc.), SMEs will make their businesses more profitable and improve their ICT and methodological competence for interactive and collaborative learning. The project is co-funded by the Education and Culture DG under the Lifelong Learning Programme, Leonardo Multilateral projects. The present document contains information regarding OSS tools regarding e-commerce platforms. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 3 of 33

4 Document Glossary Term Description B2B B2C CRM ERP IT LN SEM SEO SME SMS WP Business to Business Business to Consumer Customer Relationship Enterprise Resource Planning Information Technology Learning Need Search Engine Marketing Search Engine Optimisation Small Medium Enterprise Short Message Service Work Package D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 4 of 33

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.1 PURPOSE OF THE D3.5 LIST OF BEST OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE E-COMMERCE PLATFORMS SCOPE OF THE PROJECT PROJECT OBJECTIVES FLOSS/OSS TOOLS Pros and Cons of FLOSS e-commerce Solutions ONLINE STOREFRONT KEY FEATURES METHODOLOGY E-Commerce Platform Selection Criteria E-COMMERCE PLATFORM: MAGENTO General characteristics Advantages and limitations E-COMMERCE PLATFORM: PRESTASHOP General characteristics Advantages and limitations E-COMMERCE PLATFORM: OPENCART General characteristics Advantages and limitations E-COMMERCE PLATFORM: OSCOMMERCE General characteristics Advantages and limitations E-COMMERCE PLATFORM: ZEN CART General characteristics Advantages and limitations OVERALL CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Online Store Key Features Table 2: General characteristics - Magento D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 5 of 33

6 Table 3: General characteristics - PrestaShop Table 4: General characteristics - OpenCart Table 5: General characteristics: OsCommerce Table 6: General characteristics: Zen Cart LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Google Trends regarding e-commerce Software for April Figure 2: Magento Platform Logo Figure 3: Prestashop Software Logo Figure 4: OpenCart Software logo Figure 5: OsCommerce Software Logo Figure 6: Zen Cart Software Logo D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 6 of 33

7 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of the D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e- Commerce Platforms The purposes of the current D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms are the following: To propose a selection process for the identification of e-commerce platforms To identify best OSS e-commerce software This list is intended to serve as an additional incentive for SMEs to improve their e-commerce solutions or adopt an e-commerce solution that best suits their needs without excessive cost. It is expected that for SMEs that do not currently have an e-commerce solution or that want to improve their existing solution while also implementing the actions that will help them fulfil their strategy for e-commerce will need guidance on what is available and what best suits their needs. The partners are committed to FLOSS and they believe there are excellent Open Source platforms available to facilitate efficient e-commerce solutions. Hence, the current listing will provide what is available with pros and cons. It is expected that this list will be an additional dissemination tool for creating awareness for the project as it will be made available from the project website, but also popular OSS community portals (e.g. and it will also be distributed to the members of the chambers of commerce in the partner countries and to the EBN network. 1.2 Scope of the project PECOS4SMEs will develop an innovative training system bringing new types of organisation and knowledge about e-commerce technologies and trends and concentrated on transforming Internet trends into applicable tools for SMEs to change sales and marketing strategies. The approach to training SMEs is based on their situation (sector, financial capability, educational background, geographical location, existing infrastructure, etc.). After completion of the training, SMEs are expected to be able to engage foreign consumers by successfully implementing e-commerce strategies designed specifically for them. 1.3 Project Objectives The specific purpose of the proposed project is the development of e-commerce oriented material delivered through a training system targeting solely SMEs and the deriving needs (e.g. websites friendlier to the foreign consumer, order tracking process, clear dispatch and return policies, etc.) with respect to effective use of the Internet as a sales channel. This includes changing sales and marketing strategies and new types of organisation and knowledge about e-commerce technologies in a future world dominated by pervasive Internet. PECOS4SMEs, in particular, aims to support European SMEs to: Raise awareness and interest about cross border e-commerce. Learn more about the risks associated with online payments. Learn more about the uses of the Internet as a revenue channel. Analyze the knowledge development in the SME and see the strategic perspectives of this knowledge in the context of the business strategy. Integrate e-commerce in business planning and innovation strategies. Get the strategies written down, so they are not just ideas, but an active choice, which D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 7 of 33

8 can be communicated and understood by SMEs. Get the strategies incorporated in practical procedures that can be constantly updated. Be aware of the European cross-border trade legislation and provisions of consumer rights. An additional goal is to make it easier and less costly for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to do business abroad and to enable consumers to reap the full benefit of the Single Market. This goal is aligned with the Europe 2020 strategy launched on 3 March 2010 (IP/10/225) and with which the Commission is currently tackling bottlenecks in the Single Market to drive economic recovery. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 8 of 33

9 2 FLOSS/OSS e-commerce List 2.1 FLOSS/OSS tools Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software that can be classified as both free software and open source software. That is, anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright and the source code is hidden from the users, so that the rights holders (the software publishers) can sell binary executables. Free, open-source operating systems such as Linux and BSD are widely utilized today, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones (e.g. Google Android), and other devices. Free software licenses and open-source licenses are used by many software packages Pros and Cons of FLOSS e-commerce Solutions FLOSS e-commerce solutions constitute a valuable tool for SMEs that wish to kick start their online presence at a low cost. There are many important advantages that derive from the use of FLOSS tools, some of which are: Higher stability Low or close to none license costs Installation and administration cost savings Open and/or modifiable source code A wide user community: Technological innovation: this is because each user can contribute their knowledge and experience and thus decide together where they should drive the evolution and development of software. This is a major breakthrough in the technology world. Constant adaptation and renewal of the software Broad language variety. The main disadvantages that derive from the use of open source software are the following: The main disadvantage of open-source software is not being straightforward to use. Open-source operating systems like Linux cannot be learned in a day. They require effort and possibly training from SMEs side before they work as expected. An SME may encounter problems during the installation of the software as well as during the optimization of the graphic environment of the open source e-commerce solution. Incompatibility of the open source solution with business current software and hardware Potential problems and confusion regarding the latest software updates and/or versions. The decision of adopting open-source software should not be taken just on the basis of the low-cost involved. It entails a detailed analysis and understanding of the requirements before switching to open source to get full benefits of it. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 9 of 33

10 2.2 Online Storefront Key Features Below are the technical elements which were taken into consideration in order to examine the best open source e-commerce platforms. An online store should be composed of a number of basic elements to operate successfully on the Internet: Table 1: Online Store Key Features Features of an Online Store Product Catalogue Shopping Cart Mechanism and promotion offers Search engine Check-out process Payment options Taxes on purchased products Documentation Using a product cataloguer the online store can display a variety of products per categories and facilitate the shopping procedure. Ideally product registration should be performed easily. The shopping cart facilitates the shopping process. The users choose the items they wish to purchase and they are stored on their online baskets. When users wish to finalize their purchases they use the online check out. One of the basic elements of any store, whether online or physical, is the possibility of promotions, special discounts or offers following various parameters. Is important for e-commerce solutions to offer several options for discounts, deals based on coupons or special offers for a temporary period. From the moment the user does not have a physical access to the shop, the website tools should provide search mechanisms that facilitate access to products from the store. Online customers finalize their purchases by visiting the online checkout section of the online store and they choose the purchase and product details. One of the fundamental aspects of an online store is the steps a user must take to make a successful purchase. For this reason, it is important that the registration process, product selection and payment process is flexible and non- restrictive. A web shop should offer various payment methods. These alternatives are designed to improve the purchase process, as there are many potential customers who have different preferences towards payments. Limiting these possibilities restrain the capacity in which customers end up making purchases in the store, thus lowering the conversion rate. An online vendor adds to his own credibility and reliability by implementing transparent procedures regarding online checkout process. When it comes to local taxation or additional product fees the online customer need to be notified accordingly. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 10 of 33

11 Product delivery Corporate information and Data Privacy Customer Relationship (CRM) An online store may encounter potential physical limitations associated with product distribution. The tool should allow the handling of shipments through transportation systems management and provide pricing based on different variables (weight, destination etc.). Corporation information should be available to customers at all times, information such as company data and reassurance that the data the online consumer provides are safe. Finally, the last element to be considered as part of an online store, are functionalities associated with customer accounts. The ease of registration for example, the ability to make purchases as an anonymous user or the control of purchases made. One must remark that should be valued those tools that facilitate the hierarchical of recommended products based on preferences or customers who have made similar purchases, as it facilitates access to store products by customers. 2.3 Methodology E-Commerce Platform Selection Criteria Among the e-commerce platforms available, five were selected for further analysis, based on the following criteria: Popularity and trend of using the Internet platform and search engine ratings. Presence in the European market. Since, there is a large number of open source e-commerce platforms available, apart from the two aforementioned criteria, the above 5 platforms were selected and also in terms of user community size and number of deployments. For each one of the aforementioned platforms, the following features will be presented: General characteristics, such technical requirements for software installation, advantages and limitation etc. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 11 of 33

12 Figure 1: Google Trends regarding e-commerce Software for April Using the Google Trends tool in order to examine the popularity of open source software platforms, it was concluded that the most popular open source e-commerce platforms was by far Magento and up next followed Prestashop, OpenCart, OsCommerce and last was Zen Cart. The aforementioned e-commerce platforms will be analysed in detail in the following section. 2.4 E-Commerce Platform: Magento Figure 2: Magento Platform Logo 1 Google Trends Analytics: US#q=prestashop,+oscommerce,+zen+cart,+magento,+opencart&cmpt=q D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 12 of 33

13 2.4.1 General characteristics Table 2: General characteristics - Magento General characteristics Documentation Technical requirements Supported Operating Systems: Linux x86, x86-64 Supported Web Servers: Apache 1.3.x Apache 2.0.x Apache 2.2.x Nginx (starting from Magento 1.7 Community and 1.12 Enterprise versions) Supported Browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and above Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and above Apple Safari 5 and above on Mac only Google Chrome 7 and above Adobe Flash browser plug-in should be installed PHP Compatibility: Required extensions: PDO_MySQL simplexml mcrypt hash GD DOM iconv curl SOAP (if Webservices API is to be used) Safe_mode off Memory_limit no less than 256Mb (preferably 512) MySQL: EE or later: MySQL or newer EE or earlier: MySQL or newer CE (all versions): MySQL or newer D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 13 of 33

14 Redis NoSQL (optional for CE 1.8 and later, EE 1.13 and later) redis-server version or later (required to use Redis with Magento) Redis PHP extension version or later (optional to use Redis with Magento) SSL:If HTTPS is used to work in the admin, SSL certificate should be valid. Self-signed SSL certificates are not supported Server - hosting - setup: Ability to run scheduled jobs (crontab) with PHP 5 Ability to override options in.htaccess files 2 Site Magento's usable interface allows for efficient management of online channels. Manage multiple stores from one administration panel, including the ability to manage localized/international versions of sites. Magento's one-click upgrade process allows for seamless upgrades to new Magento version, while the Web Services API and pre-packaged integrations allow Magento to fit the way the business needs. Catalog Private Sales including Events, Invitations and Category access permissions Feature available to Enterprise Edition only Inventory with Backordered items, Minimum and Maximum quantities Batch Import and Export of catalogue Batch Updates to products in admin panel Google Base Integration Simple, Configurable (e.g. size, color, etc.), Bundled and Grouped Products Virtual Products Downloadable/Digital Products Customer Personalized Products - upload text for embroidery, monogramming, etc. Tax Rates per location, customer group and product type Attribute Sets for quick product creation of different item types Create Store-specific attributes on the fly Media Manager with automatic image resizing and watermarking Advanced Pricing Rules and support for Special Prices (see marketing tools) Search Results rewrites and redirects 2 Magento Features, Available at: D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 14 of 33

15 Product Marketing, Sales and SEO Approve, Edit and Delete Product Tags Approve, Edit and Delete Product Reviews RSS feed for Low Inventory Alerts Multiple Images Per Product Product Image Zoom-in Capability Product Reviews Related Products Stock Availability Multi-Tier Pricing Upsell Product Option Selection Grouped Products View Add to Wish list Send to a Friend with 100% Search Engine Friendly Google Site Map URL Rewrites give full control of URL's Meta-information for products and categories Auto-generated Site Map for display on site Auto-Generated Popular Search Terms Page Checkout One-Page Checkout Order SSL security support for orders on both front-end and back-end Shipping to multiple addresses in one order Checkout without account/guest Checkout Shopping Cart with tax and shipping estimates Checkout with account to use address book Option to create account at beginning of checkout Accept gift messages per order and per item Saved Shopping Carts with configurable expiration time View, edit, create and fulfil orders from admin panel. Create one or multiple invoices, shipments and credit memos per order to allow for split fulfilment Print invoices and packing slips Call Center (phone) order creation Includes ability to create new customer, or select existing customer and view shopping cart, wish list, last ordered items, and compared products list, as well as select addresses, give discounts and assign custom prices Create re-orders for customers from administration panel. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 15 of 33

16 Notifications of Orders RSS feed of New Orders Advantages and limitations Advantages Community. It's big, it's talented, and it's growing. Support. Minimal for the free Community Edition (CE), but ebay did buy Magento as the e-commerce platform of choice for their forthcoming X.commerce suite. If code were stock, the half Magento community would be wealthy. Architecture. Code re-use, maintainability, debugging, support, etc. are all huge, expensive problems that e-commerce solutions providers must tackle. Magento makes them all a breeze. Out-of-the-box feature set. Magento handles concepts properly and in an organized manner. Stock Magento comes with Simple, Configurable, Grouped, Bundled, Virtual and Digital Products. You can use it to sell amusement park tickets and digital music at the same time, without any extensions. Extensions. Already available, and most of these extensions are dirt cheap (unless you're looking for integration with, say, an ERP) Disadvantages It runs PHP. Magento is architected like an enterprise Java application, but it s codebase is written in PHP. Most of the biggest issues I've had with Magento are a result of running PHP. The Magento application can consume gigabytes of RAM during heavy processes, and PHP often simply cannot handle the load, regardless of how much hardware is thrown at it (we use Amazon Cloud services to power Magento, but no amount of servers overcomes the i/o issues with PHP). It tends to be slow, particularly on smaller, single servers. This is mitigated by more powerful servers and caching layers (Magento actually uses 2-3 caching systems simultaneously). Magento also builds indices of large amounts of data and compiles this data into flattened tables for performance (where storage is compromised). Finally, Magento also has compilation, which mashes the application source code together so that it can be interpreted by PHP more quickly (i.e., eliminating PHP auto loading can help speed up Magento by reducing i/o and PHP's "thinking" time). It's not hacked together. So if you're used to OsCommerce, get used to the idea that there's a right way to do things, and a wrong way, and everything you did in OsCommerce was the wrong way. Learning curve. If you aren't familiar with OOP/Java, or if you hate/don't know the PHP Zend Framework very well, then go buy some books and spend a month or so learning the ins and outs of the system. Even an experienced programmer will need some time to learn Magento. This also includes skinning / creating designs for Magento. The design/layout system is unbelievably (and beautifully) sophisticated, but learning how to implement a combination of "layout XML," PHP templates (.phtml files), and Blocks to bring functionality, structure and design all together can make for an interesting course in "What's the smartest possible way to abstract content, from design, from code?" D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 16 of 33

17 Complexity. From a user/admin standpoint, it's complicated. You can do a TON of things out-of-the-box, but most of the time, the way to do them is not obvious. For example, products have a one-to-many relationship with categories, and although they are typically presented hierarchically on a store's front end, categories and products are not "nested" in a traditional tree-like sense. 2.5 E-Commerce platform: Prestashop Figure 3: Prestashop Software Logo General characteristics Table 3: General characteristics - PrestaShop 3 General characteristics Technical requirements Documentation To install PrestaShop on a computer: Supported operating system: Windows, Mac and Linux A prepared package: Wamp (for Windows) or Xampp (for Windows and Mac) or Web server: Apache 1.3, Apache 2.x, Nginx or Microsoft IIS PHP 5.1+ installed and enabled MySQL 5.0+ installed with a database created OPTIONAL In the PHP configuration ask your provider to set memory_limit to "64M" and file_max_upload_size to "16M" Optional PHP extensions: GD, curl, SimpleXML, SOAP To install PrestaShop on the Internet: A domain name Web server: Apache 1.3, Apache 2.x, Nginx or Microsoft IIS PHP 5.1+ installed and enabled MySQL 5.0+ installed with a database created 3 Prestashop Features, Available at: D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 17 of 33

18 FTP access (ask for your credentials) OPTIONAL In the PHP configuration ask your provider to set memory_limit to "64M" and file_max_upload_size to "16M" SSL certificate if you plan to process payments internally (not using PayPal for instance) Optional PHP extensions: GD, curl, SimpleXML, SOAP To improve performances: MemCached, mcrypt PHP extension Site Administration Permissions and Users Fully Customizable Design Using Templates Customize Logos on an Invoice, Favicon and Header Choose Languages to Display Edit Content through the CMS Manage Performance (speed, cached cookies) One Click Update Web service - CRM, ERP... integration Override: Customize your store without modifying the core Multistore Catalog Catalogue Manage a dynamic product list through the PrestaShop back-oce. Whether the shop has one product or thousands, this incredible administrative interface lets merchants manage the most complex inventory easily and update with a single click. Import and export quickly, set attributes, sort products, bulk discounts, and much more. Choose product states Upload CSV -les of products Create catalogue mode Bulk uploads Select products unavailable Layered navigation Display unit prices on products UPC code management Inventory archives Restocking notices Minimum purchase quantity Unlimited categories and subcategories Unlimited attributes (sizes, colours, etc.) D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 18 of 33

19 Unlimited product combinations Automatic combination generator Unlimited product characteristics Catalogue reminders (empty pages, inactivated products) Segment product categories to specific groups. Product and accessory packs Quantity discounts in percentage Quantity discounts by -axed amount Product references (ISBN-EAN13) PDF invoices and delivery slips Upload manufactures product list Manufacture management Supplier management Customize products individually or in bulk Cross selling Filter product by attributes, search term, or statistical data Edit product tags Return management Report of products added to wish list Sell downloadable products: MP3 s, software, etc. Export orders and invoices Product Product Displays Display products in a unique way and provide customers with numerous options to view their desired products. Providing multiple views will help boost conversion rates. Merchants can reduce customer doubt by putting them at ease with zoom in features and multiple product views. Compare products Add products to a wish list Send wish list by Send to a friend option Unlimited pictures with automatic resizing Multiple pictures per product Zoom-in on product photos Watermark on product pictures Quick product search Customer comments on products Customer reviews D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 19 of 33

20 Alias search Ajax search Double price display: with or without taxes Choice of number of products to display per page Out-of-stock notifications Display available quantities Layered navigation Sort products by relevance, price, etc. Printable product pages Attach documents to products (user guides, etc.) Display products in the same category Export products to major search engines Multi-tier pricing Build product attributes Bookmark products Product page stats: Last purchased date Display cart content Display product categories Marketing, Sales and SEO Search Engine Optimization One of the best forms of marketing is search engine marketing. Optimize a site and ensure major search engines are indexing the store. Simply through placing high tracked keywords in site tags, a store can be placed on the first page of Google. Search engine friendly URL re-writes Dedicated URL for each product Google sitemap Auto generated site map Automatic robot.txt -les Automatic.htaccess -les Permalinks Edit product tags Title tags, meta tags, meta description, etc. W3C Compliant RSS feed Tag cloud Reduce load time of products D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 20 of 33

21 Canonical URL: preventing duplicate content Marketing PrestaShop offers a variety of marketing and promotional tools built in. A successful merchant is the key to PrestaShop s growth and guaranteeing effective marketing tools will build a path for online success. Videos with Treepodia ing with Mailjet Retarget your visitors with Critéo Google Adsense Export product to major search engines with Shopping Flux Export product to Twenga Export product to ebay Automated follow-up Newsletter subscriptions Loyalty programs Refer-a-friend program Bundle products Recently viewed products Coupons and vouchers Integrate Google Adwords Affiliate programs Product presentation videos Postage coupons Promotional tools SMTP s Checkout An executive checkout page will push conversion rates through the roof! PrestaShop offers a one-page checkout among other features. Merchants can customize fields to gather certain information. From design to shipping, PrestaShop checkout process makes purchasing easy for customers. One page checkout Guest checkout Renew an order in one click Customize order statuses Predefined order messages Set minimum order amount Order products out-of-stock D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 21 of 33

22 Order PDF invoices and delivery slips Special offers Ajax cart Ability to upsell Gift wrap Billable gift wrap Saved shopping cart configured via expiration time Place sales conditions at checkout Automatic form filling with ReversoForm PrestaShop is integrated with numerous payment options and business owners can install a desired payment option with one-click. Ensure payment is received and customers are comfortable providing their information. Authorize.net PayPal pre-configured Moneybookers/Skrill pre-configured Google checkout DIBS Hipay Ogone PaysafeCard Allied Wallet Klarna Set pricing rules Advantages and limitations Taxes set by country, state, county Unlimited payment options, including check and bankside Filter payment by country or currency Filter payment by customer groups Payment upon delivery (COD) Advantages Administration: When compared to systems like Magento, PrestaShop's administration panel is quite intuitive and easy to master. It's especially important for those who are just starting their Internet adventure. Community: There's a large group of users contributing to a good support system in discussion boards and the like. Installation and modification: The script is based on a popular template system called "Smarty". It's well known to many designers and programmers what will make graphics D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 22 of 33

23 modifications easy for them. If you're not the programmer type you'll easily find one to do whatever you need to be done for you. Functionalities: There are many functionalities built in PrestaShop. Many of them are no match for Magento, but in most cases they are sufficient for beginners and intermediate online shop owners. Many of the functionalities you would miss can be installed, they often are free. If you still can't find what you need, you can surely find a programmer who knows the system to add options you require. Efficiency: PrestaShop is quite efficient and does not put high demands on server resources, especially when considering how much it has to offer. A built-in page indexation system is an advantage. It's not as efficient as Quick Cart but works definitely faster than Magento. The script's efficiency to offered functionalities ratio is quite good Disadvantages Large number of bug fixes: The script programmers release bug fixes and new options about twice a month. An update is requires especially when it comes to security issues. Unfortunately applying those fixes takes a considerable know-how. Releasing bug fixes makes it known to everybody what kind of vulnerabilities there are in older versions, so someone could use it on older scripts. On the other hand frequent fix releases are a pain for the shop owners. This vicious circle could only be broken by automatic updates, which, as of yet, are not available in PrestaShop. Paid functionalities: Built-in functionalities in other free scripts can often turn out to be payable in PrestaShop. That's why it's worth considering if the paid functionality you're after is really that necessary. Scalability: Though the application aspires as a large shop base, it does not do as well as Magento. The script architecture can at some point hinder or even completely prevent a programmer from further developing the cart. 2.6 E-Commerce platform: OpenCart Figure 4: OpenCart Software logo General characteristics 4 4 OpenCart characteristics, Available at: D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 23 of 33

24 Table 4: General characteristics - OpenCart General characteristics Technical requirements Site Catalog Product Marketing, Sales and SEO Documentation OpenCart requires certain technical requirements to be met for the store to operate properly. First, a web server must be created to make the OpenCart store publicly available on the web. Domain names and hosting services can easily be purchased for an affordable price. When selecting a hosting service, you should check to see that these server requirements are provided and installed on their web servers: Web Server (preferably Apache) PHP (at least 5.2) MySQL Curl OpenCart's administration side of the store is where you can modify features, upload images, add products, keep track of customers, manage payments, and much more. Customization in the admin affects how the customer will interact with a store: by modifying the look, structure, and content of the store front. For stores managing a variety of product, organizing product data may seem like a daunting task. Fortunately, the OpenCart Catalogue sections in the administration panel make it relatively simple to manage a store's inventory. OpenCart has multi-store abilities which allow you to manage multiple stores from one admin interface. There are many advantages in being able to set up multiple stores: Theme each store differently to match the products that are being sold. Set products to appear on specific stores. Localise each store by setting a different default language, currency and tax class. You can set different prices for each store you have setup. Setup a default customer group for each store allowing you to have some stores setup for retail customers and others as wholesale Having a high search engine ranking for your the keywords related to your products can mean the difference if your store takes high number of sales or not. OpenCart is search optimised allowing pages to be indexed by all major search engines and includes support for custom product and category META tags. Checkout OpenCart has a guest checkout feature so that customers don't have to sign up for an account and can simply just enter the minimum amount of details required to process their order. Below you will find a list of payment gateways that are included in the default OpenCart download. If you require additional payment gateways you can try our extensions section. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 24 of 33

25 Order Order Tax rates: Preview orders and orders details Change order status Filter orders by time period Save orders as XLS, XML, HTML, TXT file OpenCart allows you to setup multiple tax zones so that the correct taxes are paid depending on which country the goods are going to be paid from or shipped to Advantages and limitations Advantages Large number of plugins: Free version of the script is not as rich when it comes to functionalities as PrestaShop or Magento, but it's, at least in part, balanced by about 1600 free and 4000 paid plugins. Unfortunately it's not so great when looking at it more closely. These numbers include plugins for all versions. If you're looking just at the latest version, you get "only" 1500 plugins. Many programmers creating the plugins compete against each other. It means the number of unique functionalities is much smaller than the number of plugins. On the other hand it also means, that when you need to buy/download an advanced client reports plugin, there's about a dozen to choose from. Community: Technical support you can get from discussion boards and a number of users contributing to it is not as impressive as in case of PrestaShop. Nevertheless the community of OpenCart is substantial. MVC and XHTML: First of all, the script architecture is based on a popular program model called MVC (Model-View-Controller). Secondly the script, just as Quick.Cart and Magento, is XHTML compliant. Modifications: MVC model used in the script makes it quite easy to "get around" the code and modify it by programmers. Especially by those programmers, who've worked with MVC before. The script, unlike PrestaShop, is not based on a "Smart" style template system, but there's a clear structure of graphics templates. That's why there should be no problem setting up the shop's look. Efficiency and server resources: In OpenCart there are not as many built-in functionalities as in PrestaShop or Magento. But that's what makes it much less demanding when it comes to server's RAM. Of course adding too many plug is could eventually lead to a drop in speed and efficiency. Administration: Neat, clear and easy to manage administration panel is one of the biggest advantages of OpenCart. It may not be as advanced as PrestaShop or Magento, but it's a better choice for the first-timers Limitations Updating and plugins: It often happens, that when buying some plugins for your OpenCart and then updating the script to a newer version, some of the functionalities will not work or show errors. Many plugin authors releases updates, but sometimes it could take a while. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 25 of 33

26 CSS and JavaScript: Basic un-optimized version of the script makes the client to download about 500 KB of just CSS and JavaScript code. It's about the same amount as for Magento, several times as much as for PrestaShop and almost 13 times more than for Quick.Cart. But OpenCart isn't as developed as Magento. Fortunately it's easy to remedy for a programmer. HTML code to amount of presented contents ratio is quite nice. Functionalities: The script being one of those not short on functionalities lacks some options like reporting related ones. So if you're looking to have a large shop, you should first check if OpenCart offers the functionalities you will need. If it doesn't, try to look for them on a free and paid add-ons list. It's often the case that what Magento and PrestaShop offer for free, you need to pay for in OpenCart. 2.7 E-Commerce platform: OsCommerce Figure 5: OsCommerce Software Logo General characteristics Table 5: General characteristics: OsCommerce General characteristics Technical requirements Site General Functionality 6 Documentation Compatible with all PHP 4 versions All features enabled by default for a complete out-of-the-box solution Object oriented backend (3.0) Completely multilingual with English, German, and Spanish provided by default Administration / Backend Functionality Supports unlimited products and categories Products-to-categories structure Categories-to-categories structure Add/Edit/Remove categories, products, manufacturers, customers, and reviews 5 OsCommerce Standard Features website Shopping Cart features, FM Enterprises, Available at: 6 OsCommerce Requirements, Available at: library.oscommerce.com D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 26 of 33

27 Support for physical (shippable) and virtual (downloadable) products Administration area secured with a username and password defined during installation Contact customers directly via or newsletters Easily backup and restore the database Print invoices and packaging lists from the order screen Statistics for products and customers Multilingual support Multi-currency support Automatically update currency exchange rates Select what to display, and in what order, in the product listing page Support for static and dynamic banners with full statistics Catalog Product Marketing, Sales and SEO Design / Layout 7 Template structure implementation to: allow layout changes to be adaptive, easy, and quickly to make (3.0) allow easy integration into an existing site (3.0) Support for dynamic images Product Functionality Dynamic product attributes relationship HTML based product descriptions Automated display of specials Control if out of stock products can still be shown and are available for purchase Customers can subscribe to products to receive related s/newsletters Customer / Frontend Functionality All orders stored in the database for fast and efficient retrieval Customers can view their order history and order statuses Customers can maintain their accounts Address book for multiple shipping and billing addresses Temporary shopping cart for guests and permanent shopping cart for customers 7 Best contribution for catalog management, OsCommerce Forums, Available at: D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 27 of 33

28 Checkout Fast and friendly quick search and advanced search features Product reviews for an interactive shopping experience Foreseen checkout procedure Secure transactions with SSL Number of products in each category can be shown or hidden Global and per-category bestseller lists Display what other customers have ordered with the current product shown Breadcrumb trail for easy site navigation Order Payment Functionality Accept numerous offline payments processing (cheque, money orders, offline credit card processing,..) Accept numerous online payments processing (PayPal, 2CheckOut, Authorize.net, ipayment,..) Disable certain payment services based on a zone basis Shipping Functionality Weight, price, and destination based shipping modules Real-time quotes available (UPS, USPS, FedEx,..) Free shipping based on amount and destination Disable certain shipping services based on a zone basis Tax Functionality Flexible tax implementation on a state and country basis Set different tax rates for different products Charge tax on shipping on a per shipping service basis Advantages and limitations Advantages Trusted: OsCommerce is well known and widely used. It has a large support community and a long history behind it. Cost effective: Open source software is free to download and use, and existing code/contributions are also free. Easy to use: The software features a familiar shopping cart model, with a number of ways to access the product catalogue. Suitable for a wide range of stores: Clients can choose whether to build/modify their own site or use an experienced developer, and the software suits a wide range of store types. In D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 28 of 33

29 addition, OsCommerce supports international stores, as it includes facilities for multi-language and multi-currency shops. Flexible: OsCommerce is customizable and expandable by someone with the right skills or the desire to learn. Secure: The software allows the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. Other features in the Administration area allow greater precautions. Well supported: There is a strong community of OsCommerce users and developers. Increases effective selling: There are several ways OsCommerce optimizes selling. For example, it allows product catalogues that can be browsed and searched, product specials, reviews, newsletters, as well as the Related Products feature and the What's New feature. Facilitates promotion of customer base: OsCommerce helps merchants build up a customer base by being customer focused and by providing extras such as reviews, newsletters, and the a Friend feature. Customer focused: Customers find OsCommerce easy to use. They can receive newsletters and notifications about products, and they can read and create online product reviews. Customers also appreciate the secure accounts that protect their personal data, allow access to their purchase history, and provide updates on the status of their orders. Merchant focused: OsCommerce is an affordable option for merchants and it caters for a wide range of languages, currencies and store sizes. It provides a wide range of features, including report generation, payment processing and backup tools, as well as invoices and packing slips. OsCommerce features a straightforward administration area that is easy to secure, and merchants have control of catalogue content and structures, products, and shipping cost calculations Limitations 8 No inbuilt way to password protect the administration area of OsCommerce. There is no inbuilt way to password protect the administration area. There are a number of easy enough ways to do this, but they aren't supplied in the default installation of OsCommerce. Information on about password protection can be found on the OsCommerce site, or you can discuss it with whoever installs your cart. OsCommerce is not template driven: Although OsCommerce is not template driven, there are style sheets and you can also quickly change the shared header, footer, left and right column files. Even so, changing how the site looks may not be as fast/flexible in OsCommerce as in a template driven solution. Customization without a developer may be slow: If customization is required and you don't use a developer, it can take time to make changes to code. While this is true, you don't have to do your own customization. It is cost effective to use or extend the work of other OsCommerce users, or to find a developer who has experience with OsCommerce, like Attitude. The attribute system: OsCommerce has a limited attributes system. For example, by default there is no stock control on attributes and no SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) identifiers. If you are heavily reliant on attributes, you may need to seriously look at modification or consider using another cart system. 8 Disadvantages of OsCommerce, Available at: D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 29 of 33

30 Limitations of large product catalogues: Large product catalogues (perhaps over a few hundred products) will require modules for the input/management of data if product information is changing frequently. A catalogue of over a few hundred products may need modification to elements of product administration, and very large catalogues (maybe ten thousand products, depending on the server) may need modifications so they can be searched and browsed effectively. 2.8 E-Commerce platform: Zen Cart General characteristics Table 6: General characteristics: Zen Cart General characteristics Figure 6: Zen Cart Software Logo Documentation Technical requirements Site Catalog Hardware and Software Requirements: If you host the most recent version of Zen Cart on your own server (V1.5.1) you'll need the following minimum requirements: PHP or higher, or PHP or higher. Specifically, you should be using the latest PCI Compliant version as per PCI Standards. Apache 2.x or newer (Specifically the latest PCI Compliant version) MySQL 5 or higher (again, use a PCI Compliant version) If you host Zen Cart through an outside hosting platform you'll essentially need web access and a standard browser like Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer or Firefox. Web Design: As mentioned above, the default Zen Cart skin is an aesthetic wasteland. I can't imagine most people would want to use it. You can change colors and fonts and add new headers and logos without too much effort, but you're way better off customizing a template or hiring a designer. Zen Cart has a decent selection of out of the box features, but to really make your website dynamic you'll want to take advantage of some of the hundreds of custom, downloadable plugins and integrations. The amazing range of customizable options is one of the things that makes Zen Cart so popular. I'll briefly review the standard, out of the box features here and then go over some of the options for add-ons a little further down. Product Zen Cart meets all the basic requirements for an Ecommerce shop. You D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 30 of 33

31 Marketing, Sales and SEO Checkout Order can add an infinite number of products and categories and you have a lot of control over the parameters of your products. Put your products on sale, sell downloadable products such as music or PDFs, and assign product attributes like colour or size. Add banners, send newsletters, define coupons and gift cards, and monitor who's online with some of the built-in marketing tools. Define shipping options according to zone, weight, and item. Choose from a variety of shipping carriers. Process payments with any of the default payment gateways or install a plugin for the payment processor of your choice. Customize your shop according to country and zone--adjust currency, taxes and language. Keep an eye on products and sales with the basic reporting functions, which include products purchased, products viewed, low products, and customer order totals Advantages and limitations Advantages FREE - Yes, Zen Cart is free and that's a big count in its favour. In theory, anyone with a server and an internet connection can open up a Zen Cart Ecommerce shop without pulling out their credit card. That's a pretty remarkable service. Open source software in itself is an incredible thing that is definitely worth supporting. Competitive with Commercial Carts - Zen Cart might not be as attractive or finely tuned as some commercial carts, but it does provide a lot of the same services at absolutely no cost and that's hard to argue with. Customizability - The ability to customize is one of Zen Cart's biggest advantages. If you can think of an option it's probably out there waiting for you to install it for free. Plus, the open source software creates an incentive for users to experiment and customize, which generates new capabilities for everyone. If you know what you're doing, Zen Cart can be configured in almost any way you can imagine. Stability - Zen Cart has been around for over a decade, and it has been developed and tested by a giant community of users. All of this communal time and energy has resulted in a product that is fairly stable. Here are some other positive Zen Cart aspects: Zen Cart is aimed at the global community and has many international options. There are hundreds and hundreds of add-ons and features. The Zen Cart forum is a tremendous support resource Limitations Negative Reviews and Complaints: While free, open source software is not without its challenges. See below for the most common negative reviews and complaints against Zen Cart. Difficult Learning Curve - Lack of user-friendliness is one of the most frequent charges lodged against Zen Cart. If you're not a programmer, be prepared to invest considerable time and energy into learning the interface. This is not the most intuitive software out there by a long shot. D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-commerce Platforms Page: 31 of 33