Lite Survey of eCommerce Platforms

I’m helping a client get the lay of the land for ecommerce tools and platforms. If I lived in this land, I’d have to ask for directions a lot — the landscape is vast and featureless. I say “featureless” with tongue in cheek; ecommerce platforms are now bloatware, in my opinion, chock full of features, but nearly all that I have encountered have about the same feature set. They’re so similar “you could throw a hat over them,” as my dad used to say. So how did I find a standout in such a me-too field?

Before I answer my own rhetorical question, here’s some background on the platforms I considered, and how I classified them. First of all, what are these things? Some products are toolkits of software and templates with which a fairly technical person can construct an online store, while other products are complete online stores right out of the box. And some are hybrids, giving you the skeleton store plus some tools and templates for making enhancements and customizations. So are they tools? Platforms? I opt to call them “platforms” with the understanding that some of them really are just SDKs.

How did I find these things? A good starting place is at Authorize.net where they list the platforms that have been certified to work with their payment gateway. Their Certified Solution Directory is at http://www.authorize.net/certified_solution_directory.asp. I looked for “Shopping Cart” types of solutions and got over 70 choices on the day I ran the search. I was not able to exhaustively investigate all the listed solutions; I had to perform some triage and narrow in quickly on one that would meet my client’s needs. I didn’t want gigantic enterprise class solution suites that could drive commerce for a small country. I mostly cared about the ability to maintain control over all aspects of the online store, so my favored solutions were those that gave you the tools to build/maintain the store and deploy it anywhere. I specifically did not want a “just add water” solution in which a hosting provider controls the store and dictates what I can do with it while all I do is enter my product data. I realize that for non-technical proprietors, especially those operating very small businesses, the “Poof! Here’s your store!” solutions may be nirvana. If that sort of solution is what you need, I have good news. You have choices — lots of ‘em. I don’t think you can even count how many choices you have; you need to measure them by the metric ton.

As I narrowed down the field, I arrived at three categories: Worth A Second Look, Interesting Maybes, and The Rest. The grids I created appear below. These grids are sparse — I didn’t look deeply into every platform. Repeat, these grids are sparse. One more time: sparse grids below. If you know factoids about a platform that I didn’t capture, please leave a comment! Perhaps with some collaboration we can flesh out these grids (did I mention that they’re sparse?)

The platform I went with is AbleCommerce. For me, it stands out. Part of what attracted me to AbleCommerce was the feeling, before I knew it intimately, that I could get somewhere with it. And that intuition has been borne out. I easily developed a working prototype store into which I loaded sample data for 18,000+ products.

Some things I like about AbleCommerce:

• It’s feature-rich, but not over the top. It can handle product variants (e.g., size, color), product kits (the ability to build or customize something out of several parts each of which adds to or subtracts from the base price), digital products (things the customer downloads so nothing has to be shipped), promotion codes, volume discounts, customer reviews, customer ratings, marketing to a mailing list, email a friend, most popular.
• A non-programmer can customize page layout and content, and most of this can be done from within the store pages without needing to visit the administration module
• It has a nice administration module for the things that you do need to do there
• It has a flexible architecture that isn’t ridiculous. There aren’t layers and layers of abstractions that beget other abstractions that beget factories that — if you can STAND to read that much documentation — eventually beget the silly little tweak you wanted to make. I easily copied their ASPX and C# code, made my own versions of things, and extended the system. And let’s just say that nobody has ever mistaken me for a hot shot .NET programmer.
• The AbleCommerce developer forums are active — people use this platform and they help each other.
• The bulk data upload/export tool, DataPort, works pretty well and has a very nice user interface. It lets you upload from either CSV or XML, and once it has read your source file, it lets you map your columns to the AbleCommerce data model very flexibly: you can map on-screen on the fly using the importer and save what you did as a template, you can map using an existing template, or you can map using their defaults. It can get picky during import, and its error messages need work, but I loaded over 18,000 product records without pulling my hair out.

I wrote this post because I looked at, at least a little, a whole bunch of platforms, and I thought it might help someone conducting the same sort of search to see what I turned up. Have I directly used lots of tools in this field? No. So could other tools be as good as or even better than the ones I have singled out? Of course they could. And if you know things I don’t know, please leave a comment and educate us all.

Here are the products I considered.

Worth a second look…

I short-listed these because they seemed to meet my need of giving the store creator a lot of control. My technology preferences were ASP.NET and SQL Server, but I did consider platforms based on PHP, Java, or ColdFusion as well as those based on other databases. I was also interested in platforms that would allow bulk upload of product data from a file.

Product	URL	Notes	Hosted	Software	Prog. Language	Database	Pricing
AbleCommerce	http://www.ablecommerce.com	Does have bulk upload; free trial available. Easy to get going, permits plenty of customization without programming. Most source included.	x	x	ASP.NET		$995
AspDotNetStorefront	http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com	PABP certified Feature matrix at http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/t-features.aspx Bulk import only with Excel for Express; need regular ML to use XML or web services			ASP.NET	SQL Server 2005/2008	ML/Express $695; ML $1295
Click Cart Pro	http://www.kryptronic.com/Shopping-Cart-Software	Feature list at http://www.kryptronic.com/Shopping-Cart-Software-Features Demo looks nice and runs well; somewhat busy, but probably to illustrate all you can do; Demo at http://www.kryptronic.com/demo/index.php		x	PHP	SQL Server	$99 limited offer (1999 price rollback)
Interspire Shopping Cart	http://www.interspire.com/shoppingcart	Template-based with slick WYSIWYG drag-n-drop editing; Feature list at http://www.interspire.com/shoppingcart/features.php		x	PHP	MySQL	Starter ($295), Professional ($995), Ultimate($1,795)
VP-ASP Shopping Cart	http://www.vpasp.com	Free trial supports only Access database; 3 payment gateways per license Style templates $65; install with file overwrite Admin very table-based, lots of id fields floating around Admin screens are easy to understand with decent on-screen help; lots of store features are configurable Source code in VB; oldish, not .NET		x	ASP	MySQL, SQL Server	from $245-$495
X-Cart	http://www.x-cart.com	30-day trial	x	x	PHP	MySQL	Gold $229, Pro $575

Interesting Maybes…

Product	URL	Notes	Hosted	Software	Prog. Language	Database	Pricing
123 Shop Pro	http://www.123ShopPro.com	Features at http://www.123shoppro.com/feature.htm; http://www.123shoppro.com/demo.htm		x	ASP	SQL Server	Standard $550, Advanced $850
5th Avenue Shoppe	http://www.5th-avenue-software.com/	http://artists-showcase.org/phpstore/store_pages/mainpage.php http://winelovers.5th-avenue-demo.com/store/store_pages/mainpage.php		x	PHP; Windows or Linux	MySQL or PostgreSQL	$395
WebAssist	http://www.webassist.com	Various products; PowerStore seems like the right one; no free trial		x	PHP	MySQL	$299
Hostway Merchant Manager 4.5	http://www.hostway.com/ecommerce/index.html	Signed up for online demo; always get 404 error	x
OS Commerce	http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions	Open source		x	PHP	MySQL typically	Free

The rest…

The products in this grid are not necessarily inferior or weak compared to the ones in my most favored category. They mostly are just the wrong kind of product for what I wanted to do — most of these are hosted solutions geared toward non-technical people who wouldn’t want to change the programming of their online store even if learning to do so would grant them eternal life and an endless supply of donuts. No shame in that — they know their strengths. But solutions geared for that audience aren’t right for mine, so they quickly fell to the bottom of my list.

Product	URL	Notes	Hosted	Software	Prog. Language	Database	Pricing
Doba	www.doba.com	Interface to wholesalers who will drop ship	x
WordPress	http://wordpress.org/support/topic/224202	WordPress with shopping cart plugin; only good for very small shops.	x
Elastic Path Software	http://www.elasticpath.com	They say, “If your annual online revenue is less than $5 million, Elastic Path Commerce is probably too expensive for you.” Well, alrighty then.		x	Java, Velocity, Spring	Independent; uses Apache OpenJPA	Not posted
.netCART	http://www.dotnetcart.com	Seems to have the capabilities; very programming-oriented; not very pretty Latest version 2.9.2844, 10/15/2007 http://www.dotnetcart.com/demo/		x	ASP.NET		$295 per store
1ShoppingCart.com	http://www.1shoppingcart.com/		x				Basic $59/month or $599/year; Professional $99/month or $999/year
AAcart	http://www.aacart.com	Demo stores work very well; http://www.aacart.com/ecommerce-shopping-cart-software/shopping-cart-demo-store.html	x				Setup from $0-399; monthly hosting from $19-69
Advanced Cart v2.11A	http://www.bsmstore.com	Standalone shopping cart only; not catalog management
Agile Cart	http://www.eastland.com/carts.html	http://www.eastland.com/AgileDemo.html		x	ColdFusion and PHP		$395
Americart	http://www.americart.com		x
ampleShop	http://www.amplecom.com	“Our company is based in Macedonia with representatives in the US and Switzerland”
Andale Auction Management Tools	http://www.andale.com
Apple Cart	http://www.spads.com	Seems too low level for my needs
ASecureCart			x
B2I_Shopping_Cart	http://www.b2ishoppingcart.com	Looks like a one-person company	x	x
Cart Manager	http://www.cartmanager.net/		x
CartFusion	http://www.tradestudios.com/	Under new management and confusing
CashCowCart	http://www.cashcowcart.com	Could use polish	x
CatalogIntegrator Cart	http://www.CatalogIntegrator.com	Shell site; could use polish
cf_ezcart ColdFusion Shopping Cart	http://www.cf-ezcart.com/	Requires ColdFusion		x
Colehosting.com	http://www.colehosting.com	Smallish design/hosting provider
Comersus ASP Shopping Cart & Mall	http://www.comersus.com	Could use polish		x			$299 for PowerPack (free version doesn’t do enough)
CoreAve Web Design & Web Site Hosting	http://coreave.com	One man shop
CyberOffice Shopping Cart	http://www.smartwin.com.au/cybershop.htm	Could use polish		X	ASP	ODBC
DesignCart	http://www.designcart.com		x
Earth Skater Custom eCommerce	http://www.earthskater.net		x
EasyCart	http://www.easycart.com	Too canned for my needs	x
EasyStoreCreator	http://www.easystorecreator.com	Too canned for my needs	x
Ecommerce Shopping Cart	http://www.roicart.com		x
Ecommerce Templates	http://www.ecommercetemplates.com	Seems a bit simple		x
eCOMpal	http://www.ecompal.com		x
Ecompro	http://ecompro.com/content.cfm/shoppingcart		x
e-Merchanizer	http://www.lynchinteractive.com	For smaller businesses; Typo? C’mon.	x
Evocative Commerce	http://www.evocative.com	Hosting provider	x
FORT eCommerce	http://www.fortsystem.com
Fractal Commerce	http://www.rvbs.com/index_en.html	404; can’t find site
Free AFCommerce Shopping Cart	http://www.afcommerce.com	Could use polish
Freedom Networking Solutions	http://www.freedomnetworking.com		x
GoECart	http://www.goecart.com		x
GoldbarOne	http://www.goldbar.net		x
InOrder	http://www.morsedata.com	Basically an ERP for the SMB market, which can include an ecommerce module; Company is Morse Data; HQ in Dover, NH
Internet Commerce Engine 5	http://www.ice5software.com			x			$3,995 for Small Business Edition (!!)
iSell Shopping Cart	http://www.macdock.com/mac/webhosting/ecommerce/isell.php	404
King Cart Services	http://www.king-cart.com		x
Make-a-Store	http://www.make-a-store.com			x			Heavy Metal starts at $2,995
MalÕs E-commerce	http://www.mals-e.com		x
MightyMerchant	http://www.mightymerchant.com		x
MIVA Merchant	http://smallbusiness.miva.com/products/merchant	Software, but written in proprietary MivaScript		x
MonsterCommerce Pro E-commerce	http://www.networksolutions.com/e-commerce/ecommerce-pro-package.jsp	Hosted by Network Solutions	x
MyCart.net	http://www.MyCart.net		x
MyWebSiteTool	http://www.mywebsitetool.com		x
NetStores	http://www.netstores.com		x
Next Gen Cart	http://www.weaveyourwebdreams.com	Could use polish		x
PDG Shopping Cart	http://www.pdgsoft.com	Something about this doesn’t inspire confidence		x			PDG Commerce ranges from $999 to $1,799
PepperCart	http://peppercart.com	Whaaaa???
Pinnacle Cart	http://www.pinnaclecart.com	Not seeing anything compelling	x	x	PHP, Apache	MySQL	$597; $697 for developer license (includes source code)
POWERSTOREASP	http://www.powerstoreasp.com	404
Priusant	http://www.priusant.com/products_sc.htm	404; no ecommerce products on site
ProductCart	http://www.earlyimpact.com	Others seem better		x			$695
ProStores	www.prostores.com	Feature comparison at http://www.prostores.com/shopping_cart_features.html	x
Quick Cart	http://www.quickcart.com		x
QuickEStore	http://www.quickestore.com	Template-based; could be nicer looking		x
Ruby Business Platform	http://www.rubensteintech.com/ruby	Not enough info to tell
SalesCart	http://www.SalesCart.com			x	ASP.NET		$499.99
SCartFree SCartServer Online Shopping Cart Network	http://shopping.scartserver.com	Ad-sponsored	x
SecureNetShop	http://www.securenetshop.com		x
SEO-Cart	http://www.seo-cart.com		x
ShopFactory	http://www.shopfactory.com	Unclear; too hard to find info		x
Shop-Script	http://www.shop-script.com	Could use polish		x	PHP
ShopSite	http://www.shopsite.com	Mostly Hosted; can get Software but expensive; AviaDirect store uses it	x	x			Manager $690/Pro $1490
SmartCart	http://www.smartcart.com		x
StoreFront	http://www.storefront.net	To get source, need the XE version	x	x			XE is $3,295; the AE version is $1,995
SunShop Shopping Cart	http://www.turnkeywebtools.com			x			$549.99 for an “owned” license
UltraCart	http://www.ultracart.com		x
Veracart	http://www.veracart.com		x
Virtualshop	http://www.virtualshop.co.uk	Doesn’t seem industrial strength		x
VirtualStore 2000	http://www.vs2000.net	OMG – they have a Y2K banner on their home page
Volusion	http://www.volusion.com		x
Zoovy e-Commerce	http://www.zoovy.com	Seems comprehensive	x