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

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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.

PECOS4SMEs

D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce

Platforms

WP3

Version 1.0 – 11/11/2013

Project PECOS4SMEs Author(s) CCS EBN Reviewer(s) FC

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 2 of 33

Circulation List

Person Name Organization Name

Gianluca Coppola Eurocrea Merchant

Christos Anthis CrystalClearSoft

Onno Hansen OHENNENNOH BV

Kenny Payne OAKE Associates

Robert Sanders European Business & Innovation Centre Network (EBN)

Małgorzata Mikłosz DANMAR COMPUTERS

Dimitris Diamantis FAVINOM Consultancies

Revision History

Version Date Author Description Action Pages

0.9 18/09/2013 CCS Creation of the document C 18

0.9 26/09/2013 CCS, EBN Update of the document U 34

1.0 11/11/2013 CCS, FC Update of the document U 33

(*) Action: C = Creation, I = Insert, U = Update, R = Replace, D = Delete

Referenced Documents

ID Reference Title

1 507562-LLP-2012-GR-Leonardo-LMP PECOS4SMEs Proposal 2 507562-LLP-2012-GR-Leonardo-LMP Evaluation Comments

Applicable Documents

ID Reference Title

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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.

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Document Glossary

Term Description

B2B Business to Business

B2C Business to Consumer

CRM Customer Relationship Management ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

IT Information Technology

LN Learning Need

SEM Search Engine Marketing SEO Search Engine Optimisation SME Small Medium Enterprise

SMS Short Message Service

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Online Store Key Features ... 10

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Table 3: General characteristics - PrestaShop ... 17

Table 4: General characteristics - OpenCart ... 24

Table 5: General characteristics: OsCommerce ... 26

Table 6: General characteristics: Zen Cart ... 30

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Google Trends regarding e-Commerce Software for April 2013 ... 12

Figure 2: Magento Platform Logo ... 12

Figure 3: Prestashop Software Logo ... 17

Figure 4: OpenCart Software logo ... 23

Figure 5: OsCommerce Software Logo ... 26

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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. www.ellak.gr) 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.

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 8 of 33 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.

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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.

2.1.1 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.

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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

Documentation

 Product Catalogue 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.

 Shopping Cart 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.

 Mechanism and promotion

offers 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.

 Search engine 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.

 Check-out process 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.

 Payment options 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.

 Taxes on purchased products 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.

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 Product delivery 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.).

 Corporate information and

Data Privacy 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.

 Customer Management

Relationship (CRM) 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

2.3.1 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.

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Figure 1: Google Trends regarding e-Commerce Software for April 20131

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: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=prestashop,+oscommerce,+zen+cart,+magento,+opencart&cmpt=q

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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: 5.2.13 - 5.3.24 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 1.13.0.0 or later: MySQL 5.0.2 or newer

 EE 1.12.0.2 or earlier: MySQL 4.1.20 or newer

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 Redis NoSQL (optional for CE 1.8 and later, EE 1.13 and later)

 redis-server version 2.6.9 or later (required to use Redis with Magento)

 Redis PHP extension version 2.2.3 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 files2

Site Management

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 Management

 Private Sales including Events, Invitations and Category access permissions Feature available to Enterprise Edition only

 Inventory Management 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

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 Approve, Edit and Delete Product Tags

 Approve, Edit and Delete Product Reviews

 RSS feed for Low Inventory Alerts Product

Management

 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 Email Marketing,

Sales and SEO

 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

 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 Order

Management _ 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

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 Email Notifications of Orders

 RSS feed of New Orders

2.4.2 Advantages and limitations

2.4.2.1 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).

2.4.2.2 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?"

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 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

2.5.1 General characteristics

Table 3: General characteristics - PrestaShop3

General

characteristics Documentation

Technical

requirements 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

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 18 of 33 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

Management _ 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 Management Catalog

Management Catalogue Management _{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.)

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 19 of 33 • 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

Management 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 e-mail • “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

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 20 of 33 • Alias search

• Ajax search

• Double price display: with or without taxes • Choice of number of products to display per page • Out-of-stock e-mail 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

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 21 of 33 • 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 • E-mailing 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 email • 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 e-mails

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

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 22 of 33 • 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 Order

Management 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

• 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)

2.5.2 Advantages and limitations

2.5.2.1 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

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 23 of 33 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.

2.5.2.2 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

2.6.1 General characteristics

4

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Table 4: General characteristics - OpenCart

requirements 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 Site

Management 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.

Catalog

Management 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.

Product

Management 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 Marketing,

Sales and SEO 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.

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 25 of 33 Order

Management Order Management _ _{Preview orders and orders’ details}

 Change order status

 Filter orders by time period

 Save orders as XLS, XML, HTML, TXT file Tax rates:

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.

2.6.2 Advantages and limitations

2.6.2.1 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.

2.6.2.2 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.

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 26 of 33 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 Logo5

2.7.1 General characteristics

Table 5: General characteristics: OsCommerce

requirements General Functionality 6

 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

Site

Management 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: www.fmeos.com

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 Support for physical (shippable) and virtual (downloadable) products

 Administration area secured with a username and password defined during installation

 Contact customers directly via email 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

Management 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

Management

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 emails/newsletters

Marketing,

Sales and SEO 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:} http://forums.oscommerce.com

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 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 Checkout

Order

Management 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

2.7.2 Advantages and limitations

2.7.2.1 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

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 29 of 33 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 Email a Friend feature.

Customer focused: Customers find OsCommerce easy to use. They can receive newsletters and email 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.

2.7.2.2 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.

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 30 of 33 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

Figure 6: Zen Cart Software Logo

2.8.1 General characteristics

Table 6: General characteristics: Zen Cart

General

characteristics Documentation

Technical

requirements 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 5.2.14 or higher, or PHP 5.3.5 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.

Site

Management 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.

Catalog

Management 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.

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 31 of 33 Management can add an infinite number of products and categories and you have a lot

of control over the parameters of your products. Marketing,

Sales and SEO 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.

Checkout 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.

Order Management

2.8.2 Advantages and limitations

2.8.2.1 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.

2.8.2.2 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.

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 32 of 33 Lacks SEO Capabilities - Compared to other shopping carts, Zen Cart really suffers in the marketing department. Information on SEO enhancement is hard to find. There are SEO plugins available, but they don't exactly have raving success reviews. It's 2013 and SEO is so integral to online marketing that it should be included in any basic Ecommerce structure. Mobile Device Compatibility Same story here. There aren't many robust mobile device add-ons available for Zen Cart yet. There are some mobile device plugins available for purchase, but the open source versions are lagging, mostly because developing a responsive mobile app requires a lot of code modification. Many commercial carts are already offering mobile compatibility as a basic feature and Zen Cart developers are going to have to try to keep up if they want to remain a viable Ecommerce solution.

Issues with Upgrades - With any software upgrade there is typically a period of ironing out the bugs. However a Zen Cart update often goes beyond bugs and creates fundamental issues for its users when custom coding is lost or erased. There are many complaints of difficulties with upgrades.

Here are some other common issues to keep in mind:

 Problems with lagging in shops that have more than 1,000 products.

 Interface feels old and outdated.

 Add-ons and plugins are sometimes difficult to integrate and properly operate.

 If you want to look for other complaints about Zen Cart, be sure to Google Zen Cart reviews, Zen Cart complaints, Zen Cart comments, Zen Cart scam, Zen Cart testimonials, etc.

2.9 Overall Conclusions

Magento is used by many e-Commerce merchants as their main ecommerce website since it is eye catchy and very easy to use shopping cart. Magento is quite flexible solution which can be customized in terms of the design as well as functionality and can meet your business requirements. Magento helps variety of businesses requirement. The basic out of the box features in Magento is quite successful making Magento as leading e-Commerce platform for every kind of business.

Another reason Magento is one of the fastest growing ecommerce platform is that it is Open source which means cost effective option for those merchants who don’t want to spend much on having a separate platform for their business. The development time for Implementing Magento is quite low as there are various plugins available which can make your website functional as per your requirements.

Magento community is quite strong and active being in open source community there are expert and experience developers from across the world. There are thousands of designs available on the community which can be used to make your whole store cool apart from that you can also opt for custom design as per your requirement with the help of professional designers.

It is quite better to have Magento as an online store for selling your products since multi store functionality in Magento add and advantage, where you can manage several stores from one admin panel which reduce your time and money.

The admin panel is simple and quite easy to understand therefore you don’t need to be dependent on professional to make changes in your ecommerce store. Further it is quite easy for the customer to do shopping which is important part as it creates a good shopping experience for the customers.

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D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce Platforms Page: 33 of 33 PrestaShop is also a good choice since the script works as well with medium and large number of products. If there are few products and a lot of traffic, other scripts like Quick Cart would work better. PrestaShop's efficiency when there's a 100 products isn't any better than when there are 1000.

As we all know, the appetite grows with what it feeds on, but what PrestaShop lacks in built-in functionalities, can be made up with free or paid plugins. It's rare that an online shop owner is hanging out to dry, since the PrestaShop programmers' community is ever growing.

2.10 References

I. 15 Best Free Open Source Ecommerce Platforms, WebAppers, Available at: www.webappers.com

II. Best contribution for catalog management, OsCommerce Forums, Available at: forums.oscommerce.com

III. Disadvantages of OsCommerce, Available at: www.oscommerce.co.nz IV. Magento Official Website, Magento, Available at: www.magentocommerce.com

V. Free/Libre Open Source Software Metrics, Available at: flossmetrics.org

VI. Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Survey and Study, Available at: www.flossproject.org

VII. FLOSSMetrics: Free / Libre / Open Source Software Metrics, http://flossmetrics.org VIII. Free/Libre Open Source Software Metrics, Guide for SMEs, Available at:

http://flossmetrics.org

IX. Google Trends Analytics, Google, Available at:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=prestashop,+oscommerce,+zen+cart,+magento,+opencart&cmpt=q X. Prestashop Features, Available at: ww.prestashop.com

XI. OpenCart characteristics, Available at: www.opencart.com

XII. OsCommerce Standard Features website Shopping Cart features, FM Enterprises, Available at: www.fmeos.com

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

PECOS4SMEs

D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software e-Commerce

Platforms

WP3

Version 1.0 – 11/11/2013

Circulation List

Revision History

Referenced Documents

Applicable Documents

Executive Summary

Document Glossary

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Online Store Key Features ... 10

Table 3: General characteristics - PrestaShop ... 17

Table 4: General characteristics - OpenCart ... 24

Table 5: General characteristics: OsCommerce ... 26

Table 6: General characteristics: Zen Cart ... 30

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Google Trends regarding e-Commerce Software for April 2013 ... 12

Figure 2: Magento Platform Logo ... 12

Figure 3: Prestashop Software Logo ... 17

Figure 4: OpenCart Software logo ... 23

Figure 5: OsCommerce Software Logo ... 26

1

Introduction

1.1

Purpose of the D3.5 List of Best Open Source Software

e-Commerce Platforms

1.2

Scope of the project

1.3

Project Objectives

2

FLOSS/OSS e-Commerce List

2.1

FLOSS/OSS tools

2.1.1 Pros and Cons of FLOSS e-Commerce Solutions

2.2

Online Storefront Key Features

Features of an Online Store

Documentation

2.3

Methodology

2.3.1 E-Commerce Platform Selection Criteria

2.4

E-Commerce Platform: Magento

2.4.1 General characteristics

2.4.2 Advantages and limitations

2.5

E-Commerce platform: Prestashop

2.5.1 General characteristics

2.5.2 Advantages and limitations

2.6

E-Commerce platform: OpenCart

2.6.1 General characteristics

2.6.2 Advantages and limitations

2.7

E-Commerce platform: OsCommerce

2.7.1 General characteristics

2.7.2 Advantages and limitations

2.8

E-Commerce platform: Zen Cart

2.8.1 General characteristics

2.8.2 Advantages and limitations

2.9

Overall Conclusions

2.10

References