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Which Ecommerce Cart is Best?

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State of The E-Commerce?

Setting up a store online is "easier" now than it was a few years ago. Back then people had to setup databases from command line, upload necessary files via ftp, create their own security files and the ecommerce cart landscape was bare. It was not fun and because of the technical aspect, could take a good chunk of your day to put up!

Today's Ecommerce Solutions - Ahhh! More User Friendly

Yes, it's 2012 and the options have changed. More options, "One-Click" installs and, yes... No more command line scripting :) But we're not out of the wood yet. There is the question of which software to use, or better yet, which is best for my business? In this Dollar Tycoon E-Commerce Workshop, I'm going to review a few e-commerce shopping carts and give my insights into each.

Let's Get To It!

The Shopping Cart Brawl

Open Source Ecommerce Shopping Cart Review

I've been asked by many of my past clients which shopping cart they should use for their online store, and I always come back asking "What's type of products will you be selling? Estimated amount of products in your store? Will you have multiples stores?"

From my experience there is NO perfect ecommerce cart for every situation.
Each ecommerce cart has its set of strengths and weaknesses, but there are shopping carts that I believe outperform others in terms of usability, security and scalability which leads into my choices for shopping cart software (Note: the carts covered here are for self hosted solutions):

Shopping Cart Software (in no particular order)

  • Magento Commerce (www.magentocommerce.com) - Very scalable piece and powerful, but along with that is complexity. I only recommend magento for experienced website owners who are ready to get down and dirty with the backend because the customization of the cart is not for the faint of heart. The aesthetics for both the admin and frontend are modern and clean, but it is a bit slow due in rendering.

  • Open Cart (www.opencart.com) - This is great for starters and experience ecommerce veterans alike. Opencart is a fast, robust piece of software. It's administration is on the simple side but nonetheless it accomplishes what it needs to do well. As with any of the popular open source carts, there is an active community of website owners, developers and designers.

  • Zen Cart (www.zen-cart.com) - Zen has been in the ecommerce game for many years, longer than most carts out there. From my understanding Zen-cart is derived from os-commerce (probably one of the oldest and most mature carts out there). Zen-cart is good for both start-ups and established businesses, and has a loyal and dedicated following. Many of it's developers are actively communicating on the forums helping out users which is a huge positive. Out of the box, it works okay, but not too pleasing to the eye. This is easily remedied with a custom theme which is why I said "out of the box".

  • OsCommerce (www.oscommerce.com) - One of the oldest e-commerce solutions in the market when it comes to being freely available, open-source. This software is the most widely used and most active of all shopping carts in the market because of it's market reach and age. Though this e-commerce package has been on the market for a long time, it doesn't mean it's the best. I tend to recommend zen-cart over osc for both activity and security.



Which Ecommerce Cart is The Best? - The Debate Continues
I've only reviewed 4 packages in this lens and I did this purposely. With the array of e-commerce solutions out on the market, I feel it's best for you as an entrepreneur to do more research outside of what I have to say because I'm a bit biased toward packages, but I did want to share with you scripts I've used in the past to help you get started.

Good Luck Fellow Tycoon!

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Let's talk about E-Commerce Shopping Carts

  • JaguarJulie Mar 9, 2012 @ 2:59 pm | delete
    Gosh, I never really thought about my preference in eCommerce shopping carts. What does Amazon use?
  • DollarTycoon Mar 9, 2012 @ 7:24 pm | delete
    Hi Julie,
    There are so many shopping cart software out there :)

    Amazon uses proprietary software for their shopping cart. Many corporate entities will opt to use their own "built-from-scratch" applications.
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I'm an avid online entrepreneur finding ways to make money online and helping others along the way. Check out Ways to Make Money Online at DollarTycoo... more »

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