Which Shopping Cart to Choose?

While there are various shopping cart solutions to choose from in the market today, some of the key questions you must ask yourself before purchasing one can be summarised as follows:

1. How easy is it to integrate into my existing website?
2. Can i add special functionality to fit the requirements of my business?
3. Does it offer support during and after implementation?

You will not find a shopping cart that fulfills every aspect of every online business yet . However, we recommend the following shopping cart solutions based on our experience and feedback from the rest of online market:

Our Installation Services:

• OsCommerce Shopping Cart Installation
• Magento Shopping Cart Installation
• CRE-Loaded Shopping Cart Installation
• Virtuemart Shopping Cart Installation
• Zen-Cart Shopping Cart Installation

We also provide professional support for your existing script that are already installed on your website.

If you have any special script installation request, please click here to send your request to us.

• Member Registration and Forgot password
• Member area to update their profile
• Search and Advanced search
• Categories and products under each categories
• Featured Products listing
• FAQ
• Wislist items
• Online payment using Paypal or any credit card payment gateway like Authorize.net, 2checkout, google checkout
• Product reviews by registered users
• Testimonials

Administrator Section:

• Through this section new members and user groups can be created.
• Account details can be updated.
• File Access can be set for each section in the Admin Module.

Configuration Section:

By using this section, Admin can able to Change the Site Title, Minimum and Maximum values for each fields in the Admin.

• Enable the required Editor, email options.
• Enable/Disable the options to display the Product Image, Product Model, Product Price, Product Quantity, Product Weight.

Catalog Section:

By selecting Categories/Products, Admin can View the existing Categories and Products.

• Add new product/new category.
• Set the Product attributes for each product.
• View the Reviews added for each Product.
• Add the required Products as Featured Products.

Customers/Orders Section:

• View the Status, Invoice, shipping details of each Products.
• View the Customer details and their corresponding Order details.
• Able to create new Account for Customer.

Vendor Section:

• Have the option to create new Account for Vendor, and to Edit and delete

Report Section:

• Admin can view the Products Purchased, Products Viewed and Customer Orders in detail.

Content Management Section:

• An option is provided to define FAQ , and main page content.

Article Manager:

By using this section Admin can post new article, and they have the options to

• Enable/Disable the Articles link in user side.
• Set Maximum articles Per page
• Display the Author, Topic , Abstract, Date Added in Article Listing.

Vendor Module

Catalog Section:

Vendor can

• View the existing Products.
• Add new product.
• Set the Product attributes for each product.
• View the Reviews added for each Product.
• Add the required Products as Featured Products.

Orders Section:

• View the Status, Invoice, shipping details of each Products.
• View the Customer details and their corresponding Order details.

Edit Profile:

• Can update the Contact details, Password, and Header content.

Report Section:

• Admin can view the Products Purchased, Products Viewed and Customer Orders in detail.

User Module:

An User can View all the categories, and the products under each Category.

• Using Quick Find and Advanced Search Option, they can search and view the required Product details in detail.
• Able to purchase the required products by providing the Payment details.
• Can create new Account.
• Using the login Information they can login and view the cart contents, Previous orders made and edit their Account details.

• checks the database and server for requirements before installing
• installs using a built-in installation tool
• prepopulates the basic store information
• optional demo products

Customer Status Modes

• unrestricted shopping
• must register to view prices
• must register to view prices and merchandise
• showroom only

Categories and Products

• unlimited category depth
• physical merchandise
• downloadable virtual products
• products can reside in multiple categories
• product options as dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes, and text input

Promotions, Sales and Discounts

• individual special prices
• global sale reductions
• category-wide sale prices
• discount coupons
• customer group discounts
• quantity discounts
• one-time charges
• minimum and maximum purchases per product
• prices by attributes

Fully Customizable Catalog Templates

• XHTML 1.0 compliant - nearly table-less layout
• change the colors, fonts and many graphics using Cascading Stylesheets
• add, move, remove sideboxes via the Admin Tool
• template overrides that do not get overwritten during upgrades
• override functionality without having to learn PHP
• create as many different looks as you would like and choose them from the admin

Global E-Commerce Ready

• multiple language support
• multiple tax support
• multiple shipping methods
• multiple currency support
• multiple payment methods

Catalog Status Modes

• showcase mode without prices
• showcase mode with prices
• normal shopping mode
• down for maintenance mode

Customer Retention Tools

• periodic newsletter in plain text or HTML
• order status emails and records in the customer account
• referral tools
• gift certificates

Powerful Administration Tool

• configure your minimum and maximum values, image sizes and customer details
• choose which layout settings to use for the spotlight listings
• pick which details to show on your product details page
• edit your policies pages with HTML (if desired)
• add, delete, move, link or copy your products
• create and manage your product attributes
• manage product reviews, featured products, specials and storewide sales
• shipping and payment module installation and management
• price and taxation control
• banner advertising controls
• newsletter creation and sending
• content management tool, easily add new content pages

• Powerful Web-Administration Interface (Javascript-powered)
• Manages an unlimited Number of Products and Categories
• Can be used as a Shop or just as an Online-Catalog (you can even turn off Price Display)
• quick Search for Products, Categories and Manufacturers; filter by features or discounted Products
• Product Ratings & Testimonials (moderated or auto-published)
• feature specific Products by setting them “on special”
• Product Availability: show how fast a Customer can expect delivery
• Handles downloadable Products (virtual Goods)
• “Product is back in Stock”-Notification for subscribed Customers

Administration Features

• multiple Images and Files (like Spec Sheets and Flyers) per Product
• Product Attributes (like Size or Color) can be added to Product
• Product Types for Classification (like “Car”, “Motorbike” or “Music Album”)
• Shopper Groups for Customers (allows different Price Levels and Payment Options),
• multiple Prices per Product (Quantity-based and/or Shopper Group-based Prices)
• flexible Price Display (number & currency formatting; including or excluding tax)
• On-the-Fly Price Conversion between different Currencies using Live Rates from the ECB or other banks
• Shop Statistics / Control Panel with a Summary of new Customers, new Orders….
• Stock Level Control for Products and Item
• Order Management with Order History, Customer Notification and Order Edit Functionality
• basic Reporting Feature: sold Items, monthly/yearly Revenue
• Order Status Management
• manage different Currencies, Countries & States

Payment Modules

• capable of live Credit Card Processing
• pre-defined Payment Gateways like authorize.net®, PayPal, 2Checkout, eWay, Worldpay, PayMate and NoChex extend your Shop with other Payment Modules using the Payment Module API!

Shipping Modules

• flexible Shipping Carriers and Rates Configuration
• Live-Shipping Rates using Shipping Modules (e.g. InterShipper, UPS, USPS, FedEx or Canada Post; Modules can use the Shipping Rate API).
• extend your Shop with other Shipping Modules using the Shipping Module API!

Catalog Browsing

• Layered / Faceted Navigation for filtering of products
• Static Block tool to create category landing pages
• Ability to assign designs on category and product level (unique design per product/category)
• Configurable search with auto-suggested terms
• Recently viewed products
• Product comparisons
• Recently compared products
• Cross-sells, Up-sells and Related Items
• Popular Search Terms Cloud
• Filter by Product Tags
• Product Reviews
• Product listing in grid or list format
• Breadcrumbs

Catalog Management

• Inventory Management with Backordered items, Minimum and Maximum quantities
• Batch Import and Export of catalog
• Batch Updates to products in admin panel
• Simple, Configurable (e.g. size, color, etc.), Bundled and Grouped Products
• Virtual 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
• Approve, Edit and Delete Product Tags
• Approve, Edit and Delete Product Reviews
• RSS feed for Low Inventory Alerts

Product Browsing

• 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 Wishlist
• Send to a Friend with Email

Customer Accounts

• Order status and history
• Re-orders from account
• Recently ordered items
• Address Book with unlimited addresses
• Default Billing and Shipping addresses
• Wishlist with ability to add comments
• Email or Send RSS feed of Wishlist
• Newsletter Subscription management
• Product Reviews submitted
• Product Tags submitted
• Account Dashboard for overview of: recent orders, personal information, newsletter subscription status, primary billing address, primary shipping address, shopping cart, wishlist, recently ordered items, recently reviews and recent tags

Site Management

• Control multiple websites and stores from one Administration Panel with ability to share as much or as little information as needed
• Multi-Lingual
• Support for localization
• Support for multiple currencies
• Administration Permission System Roles and Users
• Web Services API for easy integration between Magento and any third-party application
• Flexible tax rate management with support for US and International markets
• Fully 100% customizable design using templates
• Customer Groups
• One-Click Upgrades
• Content Management System for Informational Pages

Order Management

• View, edit, create and fulfill orders from admin panel.
• Create one or multiple invoices, shipments and credit memos per order to allow for split fulfillment
  Print invoices and packing slips
• Call Center (phone) order creation
• Includes ability to create new customer, or select existing customer and view shopping cart, wishlist, 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.
• Email Notifications of Orders
• RSS feed of New Orders

Shipping

• Integrated for real-time shipping rates from:
• UPS, UPS XML (account rates), FedEx (account rates), USPS and DHL
• Shipping to multiple addresses in one order
• On-site order tracking from customer accounts
• Multiple shipments per order
• Ability to specify allowed destination countries per method
• Flat rate shipping per order
• Flat rate shipping per item
• Free Shipping
• Table rates for weight and destination
• Table rates for product sub-totals and destination
• Table rates for number of items and destination

Checkout

• One-Page Checkout
• 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

Search Engine Optimization

• 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

FOR complete list of features please visit Magento

• the shop stores in the database all information related to customer accounts (contact and billing info, Customer purchase history, Customer address-book, cart contents);
• customer address book allows sending purchased items to other shipping destinations;
  there is Temporary (not logged on) and permanent (logged on) shopping cart;
• products of the shop are conveniently divided into categories;
• it is possible to search or browse catalog or manufacturers;
  number of products in each category are shown;
• orders are made step-by-step, there is a possibility to correct the entered order details; customer foresees checkout procedure;
• there is a possibility for a customer to leave a product review; rate a product and get to know product reviews of other customers;
• the shop can have bestsellers list;
• customer gets e-mail notifications (e.g., account creation, order completion);
• secure transactions are possible with SSL certificate;
• customers see what other customers have bought (links to current product are displayed);
• new entries to the categories and to the shop are highlighted;
• there is a possibility to choose the most convenient payment tipe and shipping option from the list of available ones;
• for products not available in stock there are the dates of adding of the products to the stock;
  customers view specials, products sold at reduced prices;
• multi-language support (English/German/Spanish/Russian etc)

2. Administrative Functionality

• user friendly design;
• administrative Panel is not tied together with the catalog module (back-end can be installed on another webserver);
• possibility to correct the shop configuration, text files, manage modules, change the outlook of the shop via handy web interface;
• possibility to add/edit/remove categories, products, manufacturers, customers, and reviews;
• administrator decides what to display in the products listings
  products catalog is easy to be administered; it is possible to divide the catalog into categories;
• special product attributes can be added, and the prices for products can be altered according to the product attributes;
• many Payment and Shipping modules are easy to be installed and configured;
  it is possible to set product prices in more than one currency;
• multi-currency shops are connected to oanda.com’s currency exchange rate servers; also exchange rates can be manually modified;
• customers are informed by email about account creation/Order processing/appearance of new products;
• many powerful tools to make the management of the shop easier: creation of backup copies of the shop database; handy File Manager; banner management; automated mailing of messages and newsletters to customers;
• implemented feature of calculation of various kinds of tax zones, classes, and rates;
  management panel provides detailed statistics of the sold products; orders history and customers;
• creation of special discounts on certain products;
• administrator can add comments to orders;
• administrator has complete control over order processing, delivery and payment.