Archive for the ‘eCommerce’ Category

• Batavi

  Date: 2010.05.04 | Category: eCommerce | Response: 3

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  Latin for Batavians – is an open source webshop under the GNU General Public License. The development of Batavi started in 2007 inspired by a preliminary osCommerce 3.0 version, a version that seemed to be never finished by the osCommerce team. In Batavi, an Object oriented design model is adopted, and on a functional level XML-EDI integration with the systems of suppliers is a lead theme, as most merchants don’t run ‘standalone’ webshops. This distinguishes Batavi also from other webshops like PrestaShop, Zen Cart and Magento.

  Batavi is developed on LAMP (software bundle), especially PHP and MySQL, and adopts a three layer model in which design objects, code and the database are strictly separated. From a designer perspective, this creates the advantage of easy manipulation of template objects, without the need of adapting code.

  Key Features (0.9 beta version)

  * Fully flexible template system, including pages/boxes groups layout and page access limitation
  * Full content management including menus, texts, mails, pages etc
  * Robust architecture to process vast numbers of products, visitors, customers and orders
  * Customer/group specific pricing, payment or shipping modules
  * Related products for cross- and upselling
  * Unlimited product segmentation to present products
  * Product price rules for pricing vast numbers of products
  * Fully automated integration with product content providers: Open ICEcat interface available
  * Interface for multi warehouse and multi supplier (including stock and purchase prices) support
  * Advanced batch price list import and order export & status feedback facilities (e.g. interfaces to ICEimport/ICEorder)
  * Standard Open Catalog Interface to Open ICEcat XML.

  History

  The Batavi development team was formed in 2007 by osCommerce core-team members and ICEshop, an ecommerce service provider active since 1999. The name Batavi was chosen, as this refers to a partly mythical Germanic tribe which revolted against The (Roman) Empire, and whose living territory overlaps with the present-day Netherlands. It also refers to the Golden Age of The Republic of The Netherlands, in which Batavian myths were used for inspiration. The Batavi core team made use of an unfinished pre-release of osCommerce 3.0, and reworked it completely, and added the much needed high-end business-to-business functionalities that were already present in ICEshop’s ecommerce solutions.

  

• Satchmo

  Date: 2010.05.03 | Category: eCommerce | Response: 4

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  Satchmo is an open source online store management system using the Django web application framework. It was initially designed as a Python based project in order to avoid some of the perceived common pitfalls and shortcomings of similar PHP based projects. The Django framework was chosen as a foundation because it provides a number of useful, robust, tested features. It is freely available under the BSD License.

  Features

  Satchmo has a large list of features thanks in part to its Django underpinnings. It is highly flexible being able to use any database system that Django supports including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite, as well as the ability to leverage Django’s power internationalization framework. Satchmo also supports several different product types including downloadable products, subscription products, custom products, and gift certificates.

  Some important features listed on their website include:

  * multiple payment models
  * flexible shipping options
  * unlimited number of images per product
  * automatic thumbnail image generation
  * inventory tracking
  * tax tables
  * customer accounts
  * user comments and ratings for products
  * flexible discount codes
  * included translations for seven languages
  * date and currency formatting based on locale
  * encryption of credit card information
  * cacheing
  * a suite of included unit testing
  * generation of PDF invoices, packing slips, and shipping labels
  * full store product searching
  * Google analytics integration
  * Google adwords support
  * Google base feeds
  * newsletter support
  * recently viewed items
  * wishlists

  

• PrestaShop

  Date: 2010.04.26 | Category: eCommerce | Response: 3

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  PrestaShop is an e-commerce solution which is both free and open source. It is available under the Open Software License and officially launched in August 2007 for small to medium-sized businesses. The software, which is based on the Smarty template engine, has approximately 24,000 active stores as of August 2009.

  The software PrestaShop was founded in Paris, France by Igor Schlumberger and Bruno Lévêque. Over 15 languages are available to varying degrees, with only English and French having full support in all release versions. While official support is not provided, many answered questions are available on the official forum. The software makes extensive use of AJAX in the admin panel, while module blocks can be easily added to the store to provide extra functionality; these are normally provided free of charge by independent developers. The makers of PrestaShop have an official marketplace for priced modules and themes entitled PrestaStore.

  Minimum requirements

  PrestaShop is available to download as a ZIP file, approximately 6MB in size. Additionally, the merchant must have a domain name and an Apache web server or IIS web server already configured which features:

  * Web server (Apache web server 1.3 or later, IIS 6 or later)
  * PHP 5.0(*) or later
  * MySQL 5(**) or later
  * Linux, Unix or Windows installed operating system

  (*) Some PHP 5 versions are bugged and prevent PrestaShop from working correctly:

  * PHP 5.2.1 (authentication is impossible)
  * PHP 5.2.6 (authentication is impossible under 64bits servers)
  * PHP 5.2.9 (image management/upload broken)
  * PHP < 5.2 (invalid date timezone)

  (**) PrestaShop is working from MySQL 4.1.14 to 5.0 too but some features are not working (e.g., product duplication) or have strange behaviors

  General feature list

  Front Office:

  * Special deals (price reductions, gift vouchers)
  * Featured products on homepage
  * Top sellers on homepage
  * New items on homepage
  * ‘Free shipping’ offers
  * Cross-selling (Accessories)
  * Product image zoom
  * Order out-of-stock items
  * Customer subscription & user accounts
  * Unlimited payment methods
  * Payment by bank wire
  * Google™ Checkout module
  * Cash-On-Delivery (COD)
  * Preconfigured for Paypal™
  * Multiple-recipient contact form
  * Product tagging & tag cloud
  * Search
  * Merchandise return (RMAs) & credit slips
  * Package tracking
  * Offer gift-wrapping & recycled packaging
  * PDF customer invoice
  * Shopping Cart recall
  * Sale of services & virtual goods
  * Custom Favicon
  * RSS feed
  * Newsletter opt-in
  * ‘Pick up in-store’ option
  * Customized product (text and images)
  * Wishlist
  * Loyal customer program
  * Affiliate program
  * Sponsor-a-friend benefit program
  * Customer product reviews

  Back Office:

  * Unlimited categories & subcategories
  * Full-featured WYSIWYG text editor
  * Unlimited product attribute combinations
  * Unlimited product specs
  * Unlimited images with automatic resizing & file optimization
  * Unlimited currencies
  * Unlimited tax settings
  * Unlimited carriers & destinations
  * Tax by state, country, both, zones, or no taxes
  * Digressive pricing (Quantity discounts)
  * Real-time currency exchange rates
  * Inventory management
  * SMS/Text-message alerts
  * Add/delete function modules
  * Bar codes
  * Contextual help
  * Attribute Combo Generator
  * Delivery status notification e-mails (customizable)
  * Unlimited languages & dialects
  * Import/export language translations
  * 13 default language translations
  * Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  * Friendly URLs / Permalinks
  * 100% modifiable graphic themes
  * Back Office users & permissions (ACL )
  * Maintenance Mode
  * Minimum order amount
  * Newsletter contact export
  * Alias search
  * Bulk lister/import .CSV files
  * SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption
  * Visitors online
  * Content Management System (CMS)
  * Reports
  * Customer groups

  Languages

  PrestaShop is now translated into 38 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 and Vietnamese.

  Releases

  PrestaShop 1.0 was released on July 31, 2008.
  PrestaShop 1.1 was released on December 19, 2008,
  PrestaShop 1.2 was released on July 29, 2009,
  PrestaShop 1.3 alpha was released on January 26, 2010,
  PrestaShop 1.3 beta 1 was released on March 9, 2010.

  

• Magento

  Date: 2010.04.21 | Category: eCommerce | Response: 0

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  Magento is an open-source ecommerce web application launched on March 31, 2008. It was created by Varien, building on components of the Zend Framework.

  Magento is available under the Open Software License version 3.0. Since version 1.1.7 some parts are licensed under the Academic Free License version 3.0.

  Magento Enterprise Edition, a paid for version of Magento aimed at larger companies, was launched on April 15, 2009. This version provides a service agreement with Varien and starts at $11,125 USD per year.

  History

  Varien, the company that owns Magento, formerly worked with osCommerce. They originally planned to fork osCommerce but later decided to rewrite it as Magento.

  Magento officially started development in early 2007 Seven months later on August 31, 2007, the first public beta version was released.

  The German magazine t3n featured Magento in the December 2007 edition.

  In March 2008, Magento was selected to present at the Under the Radar: The Business of Web Apps conference, where it won the audience favorite.

  Magento 1.0 was released on March 31, 2008.

  Magento 1.1 was released on July 25, 2008. This version provided fixes for many bugs and also makes Magento faster, with more responsive UI.

  Magento 1.2 was released on December 29, 2008. This version provided release highlights of downloadable products, many bug fixes, fulltext search and upgraded Zend Framework libraries.

  Magento 1.3 was released on March 30, 2009. This version provided fixes for many bugs, speed optimisations to make Magento faster.

  Magento 1.3 Enterprise was released on April 15, 2009.

  Magento 1.6 Enterprise was released on October 20, 2009. Magento Enterprise Edition Version 1.6 now includes the BridgeConnect module

  Magento 1.7 Enterprise was released on January 19, 2010. Magento Enterprise Edition version 1.7 features the all new reward points system. This version provides a service agreement with Varien and starts at $11,125 USD per year.

  Minimum Requirements

  Apache:

  * Apache 1.3, 2.0, or 2.2

  PHP Compatibility:

  * PHP 5.3

  Required PHP extensions:

  * PDO_MySQL;
  * simplexml;
  * mcrypt;
  * hash;
  * GD;
  * DOM;
  * iconv;
  * SOAP (if Webservices API is to be used);
  * Safe_mode off;
  * Memory_limit no less than 256Mb (preferably 512Mb).

  MySQL:

  * 4.1.20 or newer;
  * InnoDB storage engine.

  SSL:

  * If HTTPS is used to work in the admin, SSL certificate should be valid. Self-signed SSL certificates are not supported.

  Magento Connect

  Magento supports installation of modules through a web based interface accessible through the administration area of a Magento installation. Modules are hosted on the Magento eCommerce website as a PEAR server. Any community member can upload a module through the website and is made available once confirmed by a member of the Magento team. Modules are installed by entering a module key, available on the module page, into the web based interface.

  There are three categories of modules hosted on Magento Connect:

  * Core Modules
  * Community Modules
  * Commercial Modules

  Core and Community modules can be installed via the administration area. Commercial module pages provide price information and a link to an external website.

  

• osCommerce

  Date: 2010.04.19 | Category: eCommerce | Response: 0

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  osCommerce (“open source Commerce”) is an e-commerce and online store-management software program. It can be used on any web server that has PHP and MySQL  installed. It is available as free software under the GNU General Public License.

  Key Features

  osCommerce MS2.2 provides a basic set of functionality that meets the common needs of online businesses. Beyond the basic functionality, osCommerce is able to be augmented, via either community-supplied add-ons or custom code, meaning that it can be customized to meet the specific needs of any business.

  The following is a list of key features of osCommerce MS2.2 as stated on the osCommerce site:

  * Compatible with PHP 4 and MySQL – easily portable to version 5.
  * Compatible with all major browsers.
  * Multi-lingual English, German and Spanish by default.
  * Automatic web-based installation.
  * Unlimited number of products and categories.
  * Automatic setup of e-commerce payment systems: Authorize.net, Netbilling.com, 2Checkout.com, iPayment.de, PayPal.com, PsiGate.com, SECPay.com, and TrustCommerce.com; Many other add-on ecommerce payment systems, off-line (manual) credit card payments, and on-line payment processing.
  * Multi-currency support via manual update from exchange rate server.
  * Support for dynamic images (one image per product).
  * Supports physical products as well as product downloads.
  * Web-based administration module.
  * Database backup and restore.
  * Temporary and permanent shopping carts.
  * Secure transactions with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) support.
  * Many shipping options including by weight, price, or destination.
  * Real-time shipping quote integration with UPS, USPS.
  * Zone-based shipping options as well as a free shipping option as part of Order Totals Module.
  * Full tax functionality, included compounded taxes, different zones for different products.

  In implementing an osCommerce-based site one key decision is how to integrate the design. Unlike its forks, osCommerce MS2.2 does not come with a template system, though third party osCommerce templates are available. This has been seen as a negative for some. However it does mean that designs can be hand-coded or a template system installed. There are several well-known template systems, including STS, BTS and SMARTY.

  Limitations

  Since its release in 2003, a number of issues regarding its functionality have been identified by the user community and recognized, in part, by the development team. For example:

  1. UPS is no longer a standard shipping module but can be added.
  2. The manual Credit Card payment is not PCI Compliant and should be used for testing only.
  3. Downloadable products are not fully secure but can be secured via Add On.
  4. Image thumbnails are in fact full size images reduced for display which impacts bandwidth.
  5. The PSI Gate module is no longer operable and needs to be replaced with an XML version.
  6. Stock is not applied to product options but there is an Add On that will allow this

  Criticisms

  There are some minor security vulnerabilities regarding possible SQL injection via unchecked PHP code. Patches are available for effected programs.

  Customization via Add On or Custom Code means that installation of additional Add Ons may require manual rather than automated installation.

  History

  osCommerce was started in March 2000 in Germany by project founder and leader Harald Ponce de Leon as The Exchange Project. While osCommerce is still officially in its development stage, the current Milestone 2.2 release (Release Candidate 2a) is considered stable. As of August 2008 the osCommerce site says that there are over 14,000 ‘live’ websites using the program. This number is almost certainly conservative, given the inclusion of osCommerce in hosting panel application installers such as Fantastico (web hosting) and its dependency on osCommerce users linking their sites into the osCommerce Live Stores listings.

  The planned Milestone 3.0 is expected to be a major re-write of the program to incorporate an object-oriented backend, a template system to allow easy layout changes, and inclusion of an administration-area username and password definition during installation. An early release candidate of osCommerce 3.0 (osCommerce Online Merchant 3.0A4) has been available for download since Mar 31 2007, 03:11 AM

  On 29th of October, 2008 it was announced by Harald Ponce de Leon (Project Leader) that the goal is to get v2.2 finalized and to release v3.0 Alpha 5 as soon as possible.

  On March 15 2009 osCommerce made the first official release of osCommerce Online Merchant V 3.0 as a stable, production ready alpha release. Introduced along with this release is a new “Social Coding on Github” initiative introduced by osCommerce to liven up a previously slow development cycle.

  Branches

  Distributed under the GNU General Public License, osCommerce is one of the earliest PHP based Open Source shopping cart software distributions. As such, it has spawned a number of forks including ozEcommerce, CRE Loaded, osCMax, Zen Cart, Suocommerce, and Batavi.