About three years ago I was faced with the challenge of putting together an e-commerce site that would not require online credit card processing.

Open Source Shopping Cart

Open Source Shopping carts software are will matured these days and can be used to run online shopping portal of any size. If you are a small company and looking for setting up your own shopping portal then you can choose any of the good open source shopping cart software, download, install, customize and add products on it. After adding the products and categories you add your payment details for accepting the credit cards from your users. Once all these things are done, your online shopping portal is ready to go live.

Choosing the right Open Source shopping cart is very important factor in determining success of your e-commerce business. Good software will help you in growing your business. But if due to some reason wrong shopping cart software is selected, then it will add a burden on you. You won't be able increase your business. You may face server down time or slow performance of website. So, choosing a right shopping cart is very important factor in determining the success of online business.

There are many Open source shopping cart developed by many organizations. These open source shopping cart can be downloaded from their websites. The source code of these shopping carts are also available and can be downloaded from respective distribution websites. Availability of source code is a big advantage of using any open source shopping cart. You can download and modify the source code to support your specific business requirement. Now you are not vendor locked, you can modify source code of shopping cart as per your needs.

The open source shopping cart is now very advanced software system which provides following features:

• Scalability: Modern shopping cart system is highly scalable and can handle your growing business.
   
• Integration with other software. It provides xml and other format export and import of data. So, it can well integrate with existing ERP system of the company.
   
• SEO: Most of the open source shopping cart is SEO enabled.
   
• Extensible: It can be extended to add new features and functionality
   
• Template support: These are based on template which makes much easier task to change the design of store font easily.
   
• Plugin support: There are many plugins developed by developers which can be used to add extra features on the top of base shopping cart system
   
• Web 2.0 based design: Most of the shopping cart software is based on the Web 2.0 design principles.
   

Advanced feature of Open source shopping cart system:

• Marketing Promotions and Tools: Most of the modern shopping cart software is equipped with marketing promotion tools.
   
•  Analytics and Reporting: There are various types of report to view the overall performance of the e-commerce portal.
   
• Search Engine Optimization: Search engine optimization is very important since most you will be getting lot's of traffic from search engines. These tools help the e-commerce portal owners to take the full advantage of search engine and natural traffic.
   
• Site Management: Helps the web master to manage the e-commerce portal well.
   
• Catalog Management: Well designed and developed Catalog Management  system is an integral part of open source shopping cart system. It helps the admin to manage products easily and efficiently.
   
• Catalog Browsing: Finding the products in products is very important. It comes with good search functionality to find the products and catalogue easily.
   
• Product Browsing: Good product browsing is developed and included in open source shopping cart system.
   
• Mobile Commerce: These days people are using mobile devices for internet access and also for e-commerce purchase. So, its important to have mobile commerce support in the open source shopping cart solutions. Mobile commerce module is also available with major open source shopping cart solutions.
   
• International language modules: Many shopping cart software provides many language support.
   
• Checkout and Payment: The Checkout  module is will developed and supports multiple payment methods.
   
• Shipping: The shipping module automatically calculates the shipping price based on the shipping zip code.
   
• Customer Service: This modules is important and major open source shopping cart provides this module.
   
• Order Management: We designed and developed order management system enhances the productivity of the staff.

General features of open source shopping cart

Front Office:

The font office is used to manage the products that will be displayed on the portal.

• Special deals (price reductions, gift vouchers)
  E-commerce webmaster can display the special deals on premium location of the website. This will increase the sales of the product. This feature is one of the most used on different e-commerce portals.
   
•  Featured products on homepage
  This feature can be used to promote featured products for increasing the sales.
   
•  Top sellers on homepage
  Application identifies the top selling products and displays on the home page.
   
•  New items on homepage
  Most of the e-commerce shopping cart portal displays new products on the homepage of shopping portal.
   
•  'Free shipping' offers
  You can display the free shipping offers on the premium location of the website. It also also allows the users to find the products with free shipping.
   
•  Cross-selling (Accessories)
  The cross-selling module is also an important feature of many open source shopping cart software.
   
• Product image zoom
  Providing different images sizes in the system and then allow the users to zoom the product image is also very interesting feature of the system.
   
•  Order out-of-stock items
  If the items are not in stock, e-commerce shopping cart software display the message to the user.
   
•  Customer subscription & user accounts
  E-commerce shopping cart software should allow the users to create user account.
   
•  Unlimited payment methods
  E-commerce shopping application should provide integration with almost all the available online payment system.
   
•  Payment by bank wire
  The payment by bank wire transfer feature is also a good feature.
   
•  Googleâ?¢ Checkout module
  E-commerce shopping portal should provide support for Googleâ?¢ Checkout.
    
•  Cash-On-Delivery (COD)
  This can be another optional feature.
   
•  Preconfigured for Paypalâ?¢
  Almost all the open source shopping cart system provides Preconfigured for Paypalâ?¢ payment module.
   
•  Multiple-recipient contact form
  This allows the uses to send product to different address.
   
•  Product tagging & tag cloud
  This feature is a must have feature of any shopping cart portal.
   
•  Search
  Must have module for searching the products.
   
• Order tracking
  Customers should be able to track the status of the order.
   
•  Loyal customer program
  Good module
   
•  Affiliate program
  Can be useful if store owner is taking part in Affiliate programs.
   
•  Customer product reviews
  This will allow the customers to post the products reviews.
   

Back Office features

The back office of the e-commerce shopping portal should be fast and easy to use. It should have tools to increase the productivity of the employees of the e-commerce portal.

• Unlimited categories & subcategories
  E-commerce admin module should allow the admin to add unlimited categories & subcategories.
   
•  Full-featured WYSIWYG text editor
  Not all employees are aware of HTML, so  Full-featured WYSIWYG text editor is very useful. It increases the productivity of the employees.
   
•  Unlimited product attribute combinations
  Good feature to manage and display the product on the portal.
   
• Unlimited product specs
  Most of the open source shopping cart software supports Unlimited product specs.
   
•  Unlimited images with automatic resizing & file optimization
  Automatic image resizing is another good feature of e-commerce system.
   
•  Unlimited currencies
  It should at least support 36 language motioned below.
   
•  Unlimited tax settings
  Every country have different rules for tax, e-commerce shopping cart software should support unlimited tax settings.
   
• It should also provide support for setting  tax by state, country, both, zones, or no taxes
   
•  Digressive pricing (Quantity discounts)
   Digressive pricing  or Quantity discounts is an important feature of e-commerce shopping portal.
   
•  Real-time currency exchange rates
  This is another good feature which can display the real-time currency exchange rates.
   
•  Inventory management
  Shopping cart system must have Inventory management modules.
   
•  SMS/Text-message alerts
  This very good module which can increase customer loyalty.
   
• Bar codes
  Should support bar codes.
   
•  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  SEO module helps the webmasters to increase search engine ranking.
   
  
•  Content Management System (CMS)
  A good CMS is necessary for adding pages to the website.
   
  
• Reports
  Should provide different types of report.
   
  

Support for different Languages

A good open source shopping cart software must support following languages:

• Arabic
• Argentina
• Bulgarian
• Catalan
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• Estonian
• English
• Finnish
• French
• Galician
• Georgian
• German
• Greek
• Hebrew
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Iranian
• Italian
• Latvia
• Lithuanian
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Portuguese-Brasilian
• Romanian
• Russian
• Slovak
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Thaï
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese

Here is the list of best open source shopping cart software:

1. Magento

Magento is open source e-commerce shopping cart developed in PHP programming language. It is modular and very extensible. It provides a lot of flexibility. The magento is available in community edition, professional edition 1.8.0.0 and enterprise edition. Community edition is free while enterprise edition is targeted for big online stores. Magento comes with many features and it is SEO friendly. It also provides webservices for accessing the data from another programs.

2. osCommerce

osCommerce is another open source shopping cart software powering more than 244,800 online stores. It is developed in PHP can be easily installed on PHP enabled Apache web server. It is easy to install and comes with many plugins. You can download and install plugins available for osCommerce. The osCommerce open source shopping cart software supports multiple currencies. It also allows the users to print invoice from the order screen. It also provides database backup utility for easily backing up the valuable data.

3. Prestashop

 

The PrestaShop is another Open-Source e-commerce shopping cart that can be downloaded from it official website. It is multilingual and any number of languages can be added to the system. It is based on Web 2.0 design principals. It is based on template and many companies are developing good design for PrestaShop store. The PrestaShop shopping cart supports 38 languages.

4. OpenCart

Opencart is an open source shopping cart solution developed in PHP and runs on PHP enabled Apache server. It is feature rich, very easy to install, easy to use and SEO friendly e-commerce shopping cart solution. It provides support for unlimited categories, products and supports 20+ payment methods. It it Templatable which means many different kinds of designed templates can be developed and can switch to any design template. Many companies are developing designing templates for opencart e-commerce solution. It also supports 8+ Shipping Methods.

5. AgoraCart

 

The AgroCart is another open source, feature rich e-commerce software system for running online shopping store. It is very powerful, customizable shopping cart software which allows the users to edit the design by changing the headers, footers, product layout, email templates etc.. It provides limitless flexibility as far as design is concerned. You can implement any time of type of design asked by your client. Supports real-time shipping rates calculation for USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, Canada Post, AUS Post  FedEx, DHL, Canada Post and AUS Post.

6. Zen Cart

 

Zen Cart is free, user friendly open source shopping cart system developed in PHP.  MySQL database is used as backend for Zen Cart e-commerce solution. Zen Cart also support multiple payment methods, discounts and coupons. It is also very easy to install on the PHP enabled Apache server.

7. StoreSprite

 

The StoreSprite is e-commerce solution for the web designers. It is developed in PHP and can run on PHP enabled web servers. It is open source, highly customizable e-commerce shopping cart solutions for running web store. It provides features such as automatic tax calculation, customer reviews and delivery cost calculation.

8. Ubercart

Ubercart is another open source e-commerce solution for running online e-commerce store developed in PHP programming language. It also provides paid file download support. It can also be integrated with Drupal, which is leading open source CMS (content management system) software. It comes with lot of features inluding configurable product catalog, Flexible product creation system, Flexible product attributes system, Single page checkout and Simple order processing.

9. Open For Business â?? Apache

The Apache OFBiz is advanced e-commerce, catalog management, order management, CRM, Stock management, Accounting, Manufacturing management, CMS and POS software system. That can be used in big enterprise for running all the business process on this software system. The OFBiz  is and open source enterprise automation software which is licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0.  It is developed in Java and can run on any Java enabled servers. It includes Party, Product, Order, Facility, Shipment, Accounting, Marketing, Work Effort and Human Resources management components. Its huge system which can be used in enterprise for managing their businesses.

10. ZenMagick

ZenMagick is yet another very powerful open source e-commerce solution with many professional features such as unlimited products/categories, multi currency, multi lingual etc.. It is PHP 5.3 ready software which takes full advantage of PHP 5.3 features. It is originally based on Zen cart software and now evolved into robust e-commerce system. It also supports theme/templating system which makes it more developer friendly due to separation of code and design.

11. nopCommerce

The nopCommerce is another open source e-commerce shopping cart software with store front and administrative panel. It is developed in ASP.NET 4.0 and  runs on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. It requires MS SQL Server 2005  or above as back end database server. It has everything for running online shopping portal.

12. TomatoCart

TomatoCart is another open source shopping cart solution which is originated from osCommerce 3 as a separate project. It is full featured, lightweight, easy to use, easy to administrate shopping cart solution. The TomatoCart provides support for social networking sites. It integrates with various Social Network Sites like Twitter, Facebook and Book Marking Sites. This helps the shopping cart owners to increase sales from social networking websites.

13. Digistore

Digistore Ecommerce is free, full featured open source shopping cart system developed in PHP. It is highly customizable shopping cart solution. It includes WSIWYG editor to create HTML pages without any knowledge of HTML and CSS. It provides addressbook for multiple shipping and billing addresses while ordering a product. Digistore Ecommerce  has Multilingual and Multicurrency support.

14. Spree Commerce

Spree Commerce is cloud ready open source e-commerce software with many features such as customized logic for taxation, shipping, discounts and coupon.

15. Zeuscart

Zeuscart is one source shopping cart software that supports multiple payment gateways and many more advantageous features. It is very user friendly and allows a non-technical person to create own online shopping portal with minimal efforts. Its features includes Attribute Driven Product Catalog , Comparision Shopping , SEO Friendly URLs, Google Base Integration Gift Cards, Coupons & Guest Checkout and much more. It very good shopping cart software for non technical guys.

16. Jadasite

Jadasite is open source e-commerce solutions that supports BIRT reporting, products import/export etc. JadaSite is released  under GNU General Public License (GPL) V3. It can be downloaded from its official website and installed on any J2EE enabled application servers. It is developed in Java programming language and provides good performance benefits. Its source code is bundled with the download file.

17. Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software

Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software is developed in PHP and runs of PHP enabled server. It requires MySQL database server. Its features includes Basic Store Settings, Advanced Store Settings, Searchable Customer Detail Collection, Shipping & Packing Options, Product Listing Options, Inventory / Stock Settings etc.. This software can be easily installed and used on any PHP enabled server.

18. VirtueMart

VirtueMart is another Open Source E-Commerce solution which can be integrated with Joomla CMS. It is high performance, highly usable and secure e-commerce shopping cart solution.

19. jCart

The jCart is free open source shopping cart software based on jQuery and PHP programming languages. It is easy to install and use shopping cart application. It integrates with the paypal  payment system. It can be easily customized with css and text.

20. CREloaded

CREloaded is open source, secure e-commerce shopping cart software which is fully compliant with all Payment Card Industry (PCI) security rules.

21. closedShop - The Open Source Shopping Cart

The closed Shop, an open source shopping cart. Over the past three years, there have been over 13,000 downloads spread across 9 releases. Basically, closed Shop is a free shopping cart written in Perl, using the mySQL database as a back-end, that allows anyone to set up shop with no online credit card processing necessary. They can process the credit cards manually, as most businesses already have a manual credit card processor. After downloading, unzip the contents into your cgi-bin directory. Make sure the all the files have 755 permissions (closedShop doesn't work very well on Windows-based servers, only *nix types). Most FTP programs allow you to change permissions (via the 'chmod' command). You'll want to make all the files read-write-execute for the owner, read-execute for the group, and read-execute for everyone else. 

closedShop is an open source, free shopping cart. Based on Perl and MySQL, its aim is to provide all the features a commercial shopping cart offers at no cost. It is easy to setup, use and manage. Many months after the last release, version 2.2 comes out with much better shipping support and some other options built in. 
1. confirm deletion for admin things with javascript 
2. receipt printing when viewing orders 
3. can choose if you want search results in thumbnail form or not 
4. merchant gets an email with order details for each new order 

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