When it comes to FREE open source e commerce solutions, OS Commerce and Zen Cart are the first names that come to mind. They were and still are the standard for shopping carts and online stores. But like everything else, things change and evolve over time. And one software almost nobody ever mentions is rising up to become the new standard for the next generation of e commerce platforms – Magento.
At first glance there doesn’t seem to be a big difference between Magento and Zen Cart. They are both FREE to download and use, they are highly functional, integrated, and customizable solutions. Both have sophisticated shopping carts, product catalogues, and pricing features. Both support multiple languages and currencies, secure payment gateway options, and newsletter marketing campaigns. So why choose a new software if Zen Cart has been around for so long and made so many people happy?
Well, the truth is that Zen Cart has not undergone a major change in recent years to make it user friendlier and to modernize the interface. So other programmers have jumped in and created a similar software but with better features and more modern interface. Magento was designed to be much more intuitive when it comes to setting up your products and prices, etc. It allows for easy bulk upload of your products, something you have to do manually in Zen Cart (or find a working plugin). That becomes a vital time saver when you have more than 20 products or are creating lots of new products each month. The Zen Cart interface was designed to be highly functional, but you really gotta be careful what you are doing and without programming skills you’re almost doomed. Magento not only looks more modern, but the user interface is also much more user friendly and easier to use.
There are other subtle differences that make Magento stand out from the crowd. First, you have more options in customizing your product search categories. Very important if you want to make it easy for people to find what they are looking for fast. Second, if you have a small business and need to integrate your data with say QuickBooks or your ERP Software, Magento will allow you to do that. Next, Magento’s one page checkout beats Zen Cart’s 3 page checkout any day. Finally, Magento has a built in CMS (Content Management System) that lets you customize your static pages with ease. Sure, Zen Cart has the “EZ Pages”, which are nice but you still have to put HTML code in there. With Magento you have a bult in editor that allows you to style your page without having to write HTML code. All in all, it just seems like Magento is more up to date and uses technologically advanced features.
There are of cause downsides to it. Magento, being a relatively new software on the market, doesn’t have as many extensions and plugins as Zen Cart has. To customize the software to your liking you might have to hire a programmer or web developer. Zen Cart’s Banner Manager makes it easier for you to track your advertising campaigns on your site, and there is no current lightbox feature included in Magento, if you’re a big fan of lightboxes you should use Zen Cart. But then you are probably a web designer and know what you are doing. Magento was designed for people who have little HTML or php knowledge, which of cause doesn’t mean web designers shouldn’t use it & #9786;
Whether or not Magento will become the new standard for Online Stores remains to be seen. I have been in the web design business for over 5 years and have seen many new things come and go. And one thing is certain; Magento gets me excited and motivated! These guys have taken steps into the right direction and with more people catching on (spread the word!) and developing open source extensions for this software I have no doubt it will ultimately succeed. If nothing else it’s good to see that some people still believe in a good cause and allow you to use their product for FREE. Just think how many hours or painstakingly programming, troubleshooting and testing they have put into this software, just so you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars elsewhere. Isn’t that nice?! Be thankful!
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