As always, there is a huge number of options when considering an eCommerce platform. Not least of all, matching the features and requirements for the running of the site – but also the theming and design, as well as handling ongoing management.
We’ve worked with many of the options available, and detailed some of the most popular platforms and products below.
When considering moving to a new platform, you may need to consider requirements of migrating your existing data. This might not just be products and stock levels, but also your user accounts and their orders. One particular consideration is with user passwords, as option encryption methods are incompatible. In the past, we’ve been able to find methods around this – particularly ‘upgrading’ password security on login, and putting an expiry on existing passwords and updating customers to login.
As always, if you have any questions or anything we can help with, do get in contact and we’ll be happy to help.
Some of the most popular options of eCommerce frameworks include;
Magento
Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. There is both an community and a (paid) enterprise edition available. Magento is one of the most powerful eCommerce platforms, requiring significant server resources, but allowing many thousands of products and orders. It also provides a powerful theming and plugin system. It’s highly recommended for large sites, and especially those which require integration with other platforms.
WordPress Woocommerce
A relative newcomer, Woocommerce is a plugin to the popular CMS and blogging platform, WordPress. It is a free plugin, with a huge number of free and paid-for plugins to support extra features. As a base, it is an excellent source for smaller stores and sites, and entirely capable up to many hundred products, if not more. It is limited by the functionality of the plugins, but is very easy to develop for and can be an excellent platform for complex websites.
PrestaShop
PrestaShop is a free, open source e-commerce solution. The software is published under the Open Software License (OSL). It is written in the PHP programming language with support for the MySQL database management system. Started as a student project, it is now popular in many middle-sized websites. PrestaShop has a huge number of plugins and themes to support and power it.
These are just some of the systems available, SelfStartr have put together an excellent article compiling almost all of the popular open source eCommerce platforms.
We have experience and are able to help with all of these platforms, with both consulting, planning infrastructure or designing your site. If you have any questions, please do get in contact.