Which Shopping Cart Should I use? That is a common question that we get when clients call. There are so many shopping carts out there it is hard to know which one to use for your web site. That is why we have written this article to help you know the advantages and disadvantages of each cart. We will be reviewing:
Oscommerce
CRE Loaded
Zen Cart
X-Cart
OSC Max
It is important to know when selecting your shopping cart what features you need. All the shopping carts below feature the following:
- Customer management
- Product management
- Variety of payment and shipping modules
- Order receipt emails
- Ability to use SSL secure layers for ordering process
However the shopping carts vary when it comes to:
- Time it takes to modify the cart to look like a current web design
- WYSIWYG ability to modify product descriptions using different fonts, colors, etc.
- Ability to import/export from Excel spreadsheet
- Wholesale/Reseller Pricing
In this review we will be going over PHP/MySQL shopping carts that run both Linux and Windows servers. We will not be reviewing pay-per-month shopping carts. We feel these offer less value because they have expensive monthly fees. Also - they usually do not allow access to the source code of the system or much customization of the shopping cart.
Oscommerce MS 2.2 - The Cart That Started Them All
Oscommerce is the basis for both Zen Cart and CRE Loaded. As such is it is simpler and does not have all of the contributions already added that Zen Cart and CRE Loaded do. It runs well though and is a good back to basics shopping cart.
Advantages +
- Has the most available number of contributions and modifications
- Recent security update brings it up to date with MySQL 5 and PHP 5.
Disadvantages -
- not possible to use Oscommerce contributions, they must be converted to Zen Cart
- Admin interface is a little messy in certain areas because there are so many contributions installed
Zen Cart - The Art of E-commerce
Zen Cart has a very nice wide array of features based on Oscommerce but has gone its own path. You can not install contributions directly from the Oscommerce web site onto Zen Cart. Some of the nice features include product attributes managers, template system, html editor for regular web page contents, built in coupon code system, ability to select what credit cards you accept, and more. An issue with Zen Cart right now is the Easy Populate contribution which would let you import products from an Excel sheet does not work yet. So if you need this feature we recommend the other shopping carts.
Advantages +
- No licensing fees
- Stable
- Many contributions from Oscommerce already installed
Disadvantages -
- not possible to use Oscommerce contributions, they must be converted to Zen Cart
- Admin interface is a little messy in certain areas because there are so many contributions installed
CRE Loaded Chain Reaction Edition of Oscommerce
CRE Loaded is like Oscommerce but with many more contributions installed. Some of the nice contributions it has are Easy Populate which lets you populate your database from an Excel file, coupon codes, administrator access levels, template system, and an affiliate manager. CRE Loaded also has one of the Oscommerce templating systems installed which allows you to more easily integrate a design into the system and control which information boxes show on the left and right columns.
Advantages +
- Well supported
- Stable
- Many contributions from Oscommerce already installed
Disadvantages -
- Contributions from Oscommerce.com can be more difficult to install, but CRE Loaded has many of its own already converted
- Admin interface is a little messy in certain areas because there are so many contributions installed
Additional Information
CRE Loaded comes in 3 verisons. The regular version is free. The Pro version adds better product attribute support and credit card encryption, and the B2B version adds seperate pricing level support.
OSC Max
OSC Max is an excellent version of Oscommerce that has many useful contributions installed. It is just as easy to use in the admin as the default Oscommerce installation.
Advantages +
- No licensing fees
- The contributions installed are very useful
- Has wholesale/Reseller pricing module already installed
- Well-documented
Disadvantages -
- Has some buggy code in certain areas
X-Cart
X-Cart is a commercial package, but one of the most competitively priced and easy to modify.
Advantages +
- Commercially supported and has very few if any bugs
- Uses Smarty Templates system which many programmers like to work with for laying out the web site
Disadvantages -
- Licensing fees (figure $800 + in just licensing fees not including any web development)
Conclusion: Our favorite of all the carts available is CRE Loaded. We feel it has the nicest combination of contributions already installed, and a template system that makes it easier to install into current web designs.
Do you need help with setting up, customizing or maintaining your E-commerce web site? Please
contact us and we would be happy to provide you the needed services.
