Zend certified PHP/Magento developer

Hard Facts on Software -A fresh look at shopping cart features

So by now you might have decided to start an online shop. But which shopping cart should you use and which features should you look for? I touched on this briefly last week – but let us explore the options in more detail this week.
Your first choice would be whether to use an opensource or a commercial shopping cart for your store. Don’t try to build one from scratch – that is not necessary and way too complex and costly.
Talk to your ERP provider – perhaps they already have a shopping cart (webshop module) fully integrated with your ERP system. Then it does make sense to evaluate that option fully. An alternative is an open source shopping cart. There are many out there that you can choose from. If you just need an easy to setup one but not too worried about having a standard shop like everybody else, then a plugin to your CMS probably works best.
You can get started easily with a hosted webshop as well. You will get opensource carts – either for free to install yourself, or as a paid for service by a hosting provider. The widest used open source shopping carts these days are Magento, Presta, Opencart and osCommerce. Each has a niche market which they are best for. Here is what I could find on the web about each:
osCommerce: This is the grand daddy of open source shopping carts and has been around for many years. Its design is a bit outdated, so I would rather consider the newer carts.
Presta: Presta has a lot of features and a community of about 30,000 supporters, so this is a good bet, although Opencart and Magento typically get better reviews online.
Opencart: This is a no-nonsense straightforward cart and a good one to get started with. It is full of features and is supported by a community of 4 000. Its design is modern and will typically satisfy first time small shops easily. If you need a more professional eCommerce solution though – go for Magento.
Magento is the gold standard (in my mind) of shopping carts. It has a solid foundation as a community edition, but also sports a commercial edition called Enterprise. Magento is built for complex shopping scenarios and is thus a preferred choice for large companies building a high volume, complex ecommerce solution.
Alright – by now you have probably made your choice, but what are the features to look for in a shopping cart?
The first issue to consider is technology. There are many ways out there to build an online shop. The consensus however seems to be that the combination of PHP with a MySQL database on an Apache server is the winner. This is the platform used by most opensource shopping carts and has been proven for many years. So think carefully before you choose anything else.
Herewith a list of features you might need in your shopping cart (adapted from www.magentocommerce.com)
Site management
Control multiple websites and stores from one administration panel with ability to share as much or as little information as needed
Administration permission system roles and users
Web Services API for easy integration between Magento and any third-party application
Fully 100% customisable design using templates
Customer groups
one-click upgrades
content management system for informational pages
Google website optimizer Integration for A/B and multivariate testing
…and this is just the start. I will list more features in my next article. If you can’t wait, then search the web for a comparison between Opencart and Magento – you will easily find a long list of features there. Until then – remember – Keep it (A)fresh