5 Best Open Source Platforms to set your cash counter ringing again

Are you eager to push your eCommerce sales to new horizons? Is your online store offering limited features and functionalities to your customers? Or Are you thinking about migrating the back end platform of your eCommerce store? If the answer to these questions are in affirmative, it is certainly time to think about a power packed eCommerce store.There are plenty of options available in the form of eCommerce platforms for fulfilling your customer expectations and business aspirations. However, the problem arises due to the steep prices that arrive with these platforms.

If the price of the platform is your ultimate concern, here are the list of free open source eCommerce platforms that can help out the sagging fortunes of your online store. Take a look at them one by one.

1. OpenCart– 

If you are an owner of a small company who don’t have a staff with an expert programming knowledge, OpenCart is the ideal platform for you. The eCommerce platform comes with a simple easy to use interface and functionalities for any beginner involved in the field of eCommerce business. It is a PHP based open source eCommerce software that can offer amazing services to online merchants. Some of the wonderful features of this OpenCart platform are as follows:

• It is easy to manage, install and configure.

• The platform has an active community of OpenCart developers and users that can provide the support for various issues on your site.

• It ensures secure and easy online payment through its more than 20 payment gateways.

• The platform can ensure quick and timely product delivery to customers through multiple shipping options.

• It has the capability to handle multiple stores through a single admin interface.

• This open source platform can enhance the functionality of your OpenCart store with around 2,700 themes and numerous other OpenCart extensions.

2. PrestaShop–

PrestaShop is an open source eCommerce platform which is based on the PHP and Smarty template engine. This open source platform is very popular in the field of online business as it is used by over 250,000 stores around the world. Take a look at some of the wonderful features and functionalities of this PrestaShop platform.

• This open source eCommerce platform is easy to install and configure.

• The platform has a bundle of 310 integrated features along with 3,500 PrestaShop Addons and templates.

• It offers multiple features like cross selling, downloadable products, one page checkout, exporting of product, shipping discounts and much more.

• It is one of the widely used open source software among various eCommerce platforms with around 4 million downloads and an active 600,000 community members.

• This open source PrestaShop platform supports translation facility in 63 languages and has been used in around 160 countries worldwide.

3. Magento Community Edition– 

It is one of the most popular open source and free eCommerce platform that has made a significant impact on the online businesses around the world. This platform is definitely a major step ahead from its competitors when it comes to wonderful features and functionalities. It is constantly expanding due to its flexible structure, high scalability and diverse range of Magento extensions. Inspite of the wide range of functionalities of this free version, if you are looking for more advanced features for your business, you can avail the expert services of Magento Enterprise Edition. Here is a brief study of the various features and functionalities of this Magento platform.

• It provides a wide range of themes and Magento extensions to Magento store owners with the help of Magento Connect marketplace store. For other third party extensions for Magento site, you can avail the help of various Knowband extensions that are packed with wide range of features and functionalities.

• Although, Magento Community Edition does not offer technical support but Magento users can find their solutions through Magento user forums.

• It is one of the most preferred eCommerce platform that supports more than 200,000 customer sites.

• This platform provides a wide range of features like easy store management, compatibility with multiple languages/currencies and other such features.

4. osCommerce– 

This osCommerce is one of the most trusted open source eCommerce platform that has gained much popularity in the last fifteen years. It consists of more than 7,000 addons created by the osCommerce community that can help in improving the performance of your eCommerce store. Some of the amazing features of this eCommerce platform are:

• The platform has become the first preference for more than 260,000 store owners, developers and service providers due to the presence of its extensive support.

• It has a vast community strength of approximately 280,000 members that have made their contribution in 1.5 million forum postings for ensuring a quick issue resolution.

• The platform is used by around 13,000 registered sites and the number is continuously increasing.

• It also offers direct communication with other osCommerce community members with the help of Live Chat room facility.

5. Zen Cart–

It is another open source eCommerce platform that is based on the PHP language. This eCommerce platform is a sub division of the osCommerce platform that was launched in year 2003 and arrived with a more template based solution. The platform offers a good product management facility to its numerous store owners around the world. Some of the various features that are provided by this Zen Cart platform are as follows:

• This eCommerce platform arrive with more than 1,800 addons that are available in 16 categories for optimizing the performance of Zen Cart store.

• It can provide a quick solution to customer issues with its huge 150,000 community support members and 200,000 threads.

• The platform can help in handling an online store in a better way through facilities like easy inventory control, creation of special sales and other such store activities.

Don’t just choose anything in the name of eCommerce platform for giving a new direction to your online store. You need to be vigilant, informed and sensible enough to make a quiet introspection of the various available eCommerce platforms to make the right choice.

For any added functionality in your eCommerce store based on Magento, PrestaShop or OpenCart platforms, you can grab the amazing Magento extensions, PrestaShop Addons and OpenCart extensions from our Knowband store. Do send us your valuable comments about this blog.