e-Commerce Sites

If you've decided you'd like to sell products on-line then you've probably started looking at the e-commerce platforms available.

The platform you choose decide on will have a big impact on your entire site and it's unlikely it will be changed in the future; therefore it's important to know the various options available to you.

There are lots of e-commerce platforms to choose from, some with hefty price tag,  but some fit under the software banner of 'Open Source' software.  Open Source products are free to download and use as long as the customer abides by the General Public License (GPL).

Open source products are a great way of implementing a shopping cart without the huge overheads that surround some of the 'paid' e-commerce solutions.  Some paid e-commerce software can cost in the region of £2000 before you've even uploaded a single product.

Before deciding on which shopping cart will work for you, you need to work out just what you're trying to accomplish. e.g. How many products you want to sell?, how you're going to be taking payment and how you'd like your shopping cart to look. All of these questions are very important and will have a big impact on the cost and time to implement on your chosen platform.

Magento E-commerce

Magento is a feature-rich e-commerce platform built on open-source technology that provides on-line merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their e-commerce store.

Magento’s intuitive administration interface features powerful marketing, search engine optimization and catalogue-management tools to give merchants the power to create sites that are tailored to their unique business needs.

Magento is a great platform but can take a little time and training to be able to use its 100's of features. If you looking for a multiple language store front with the capability of being able to grow with your business then this is the platform for you.

There are 1000's of templates already created which you can apply to your store to make it look how you want it to.

ShopperPress for Wordpress

ShopperPress is a downloadable plug-in for the renowned CMS tool Wordpress. Wordpress is a content management system that allows users to set-up and maintain websites without the need to use any form of code.

ShopperPress is a little less complicated that Magento but is very powerful and comes with around 20+ templates right out of the box. Its quick to set-up and integrates with lots of the existing Payment Gateways.

ShopperPress comes with all the features you would expect from an e-commerce platform, a comprehensive control panel, SEO built in, Sales Analysis and tracking and unlimited products.

If you’re just starting out or are looking to turn your Wordpress site into an e-commerce platform, then this is definitely the cart for you.

Websauce recommends ShopperPress as their choice for any small-medium business.  Why not take a look at some of the demo's available.