Top 5 Most Used E-Commerce Solutions

OsCOMMERCE: It can be used on any web server that has PHP and MySQL installed. OsCommerce allows the user to set prices in different currencies and accept all popular payment methods: PayPal, checks, credit cards, etc.

Most popular features:

• Unlimited products and categories support;

• Multicurrency support;

• Shippable and downloadable products support;

• Multiple payment options.

MAGENTO: Magento is the technology behind numerous e-commerce websites. It is a professional open-source platform that offers control over the look, content and functionality of the online shop. Magento enables online businesses to operate several online stores through a single administration dashboard.

Most popular features:

• Intuitive administration interface;

• Advanced analytics and reporting;

• Marketing promotions tools;

• Catalog and product browsing;

• Multiple language support.

ZEN CART: Zen Cart is an open source and user-friendly shopping cart. It was branched from osCommerce and includes additional features and architectural enhancements. One of the key features is the gift certificate module which allows one to create, send and manage digital coupons.

Most popular features:

• Multiple sales and discount options;

• Multiple display modes;

• Newsletter manager;

• Quantity discounts.

VIRUTEMART: It is an open source e-commerce solution designed as an extension of Joomla CMS. It is written in PHP and requires MySQL database environment for storage. It is best suited for low to medium level traffic web-sites.

Most popular features:

• unlimited number of products and categories;

• powerful web-administration interface;

• quick search for products, categories and manufacturers;

• filter by features or discounted products;

• Product ratings and testimonials.

UBERCART: Ubercart is the e-commerce platform developed for Drupal, the leading open source content management system. Ubercart integrates PayPal Website Payments Standard, Website Payments Pro, and Express Checkout.

Most popular features:

• Configurable product catalog;

• Multiple product image support;

• Product stock level tracking and notification;

• Sales, product, and customer reports.

For more details about E-Commerce Consulting, Website development and maintenance please feel free to contact Prevaj Consultants at prevaj@prevajconsultants.com or call +91-8144760745.

PayPal alternatives for easier E-Commerce

• Google Checkout: Google Checkout is Google’s attempt at a replacement for PayPal, and is still very much an inferior product, with only a small subset of the features offered by others.  Checkout is a middle man solution, storing credit and debit cards in its system, and then using those to transfer funds to a bank account.
• Money Bookers: They offer a number of benefits including sending money securely worldwide to anyone with an email address – even if the recipient does not have Money bookers account yet, and accept business from lots of different currencies. They hold all payments in limbo prior to transferring through to the final recipient, giving you some amount of protection. All previous transactions can be found in the history section of your account which can be accessed at any time and the data can be easily exported to an excel file if you want to maintain a digital backup.
• Paymate: Paymate provides secure, reliable and innovative Internet-based payment services to buyers. You can use Paymate to receive online payments via credit card, and like PayPal – you don’t need to have a merchant facility with a bank. Although this is a service exists inside particular locales, it is still a worth competitor to PayPal, and has performed particularly well on EBay Australia – where EBay were forced to accept it as an alternative payment provider for fears of anti-trust litigation.
• OboPay: Obopay is one of the first mobile payment systems to make it to the web, enabling customers to transfer money to one another right from the mobile phone.  Technically this is achieved using a combination of the technologies offered on mobile devices – traditional SMS, WAP,  HTML / Web apps and bespoke iPhone applications – allowing them to cover all bases regardless of  the handset capabilities.
• Amazon Payments: Amazon have a number of interesting products under their ‘Payments’ banner. All of Amazon Payments uses their databases stored internally to aid with the checkout process, essentially giving sellers less hassle with the checkout process, also giving access to Amazon’s patented ‘One Click order’ services. They also offer cut and paste HTML code for their Simple Pay product, which can get you up and running quite quickly if you only have a handful of digital products to sell.
• Notable Mentions – Digital Software Carts: These other links and systems may be suitable for a variety of scenarios, including digital shopping carts, card processing and digital wallet solutions. Some of them mirror the free software features found in PayPal, some of them are just bare bones solutions, but hopefully they will be useful for you to review.
• E-Junkie: Provides shopping cart software which integrates with PayPal and other card processing gateways.
• Kagi: Kagi offers a digital goods delivery, and integrated shopping cart experience solution for those looking to get up and running without the hassle of setting up a full e-commerce store.
• Digital River: Digital River’s Element 5 product is also used across the web for digital software delivery, and its shopping cart is well respected.
• Bit Coin: Bit Coin is a peer-to-peer network based digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. 

For more details about E-Commerce Consulting, Online Payment and Payment Gateways please feel free to contact Prevaj Consultants at prevaj@prevajconsultants.com or call +91-8144760745.

Types of E-Commerce Platforms

There are three types of ecommerce platforms that are common and widely-used.

• Open Source E-commerce Solution: It consist of following main features which can be customized and integrated with your website, which will perfect match to your requirements. They are Catalog & Products Features, Search Engine Optimization Features, Administration Features, Order / Shipping Management, Customer Convenience, Security & Encryption and Payment Gateways.
• Hosted E-commerce Solutions: Hosted solutions guarantee quick start-up and turn around. These are reliable, scalable, continuously monitored with full support. Hosted solutions are ideal for small to medium sized business. It's a more simple and affordable way to safeguard your sales without the excessively costly investments.
• Licensed E-commerce Solutions: A licensed solution is a combination of the two types of solutions mentioned above. Here, you get the flexibility that open source solutions can give. It can also integrate third party solutions as your business spreads. This can be a very significant tool to secure you a place in the competitive market. Most licensed ecommerce solutions usually go for a less price than hosted solutions, despite the start up cost to be higher.

For more details about E-Commerce Consulting, Website development and maintenance please feel free to contact Prevaj Consultants at prevaj@prevajconsultants.com or call +91-8144760745.