VIRTUEMART, OSCOMMERCE AND CRE-LOADED COMPARISON AND REVIEWS.

The following are percept by me, when I go through the net for comparison of shopping cart.

A website with selling products is having good content, and a content site that is indexed can very easily leverage its traffic and sell products. The open source carts and CMS are somewhat related and there is a way to take the core OSCommerce shopping cart functionality and put it into the admin of a CMS.

Virtuemart is a branded version of this attempt. If you look at the admin of Virtuemart it would look like a Joomla/Mambo admin but you would see a new menu option which opens up a OSCommerce shopping cart functionality.

In short if you have Virtuemart then you have OSCommerce. If you like OSCommerce you are better off with CRE Loaded or Zen Cart (especially if your osCom does not have Easy Populate, Sale Maker, Cross Sell, Specials, Featured Products, HTML editors, etc). However, if you have good content and want to sell Virtuemart is a great option for you.

The best open source system depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it.

I have listed features of Virtuemart, OSCommerce and CRE-loaded

Virtuemart

In short:

Virtuemart is great option when the sites’ having rich contents with small and medium range shopping cart sites and also it is open source.

The followings are the some of feature of Virtuemart,

GENERAL FEATURES:

• capable of using Secure Sockets Layer (https) Encryption (128-bit)
• flexible Tax Models
• Model 1: Ship To Address-based Tax Calculation
• Model 2: Store Address-based Tax Calculation
• Model 3: EU Mode (Store Owner based Tax Calculation when Customer comes from an EU Country)
• Shoppers can manage their User Accounts (registration required)
• Shipping Address Management (Customers can enter their own Shipping Addresses)
• Order History: Shopper can view all their previous Orders (and Order Details)
• Order Confirmation Mail (customizable!) is sent to Shopper and Store Owner
• Multiple Currencies (you can allow Customers to change the Currency and buy using an alternative Currency)
• Multiple Languages.

PRODUCT BASED FEATURES:

• Powerful Web-Administration Interface (JavaScript-powered)
• Manages an unlimited Number of Products and Categories
• Can be used as a Shop or just as an Online-Catalog (you can even turn off Price Display)
• quick Search for Products, Categories and Manufacturers; filter by features or discounted Products
• Product Ratings & Testimonials (moderated or auto-published)
• feature specific Products by setting them “on special”
• Product Availability: show how fast a Customer can expect delivery
• Handles downloadable Products (virtual Goods)
• “Product is back in Stock”-Notification for subscribed Customers.

ADMIN SIDE FEATURES

• multiple Images and Files (like Spec Sheets and Flyers) per Product
• Product Attributes (like Size or Color) can be added to Product
• Product Types for Classification (like “Car”, “Motorbike” or “Music Album”)
• Shopper Groups for Customers (allows different Price Levels and Payment Options),
• multiple Prices per Product (Quantity-based and/or Shopper Group-based Prices)
• flexible Price Display (number & currency formatting; including or excluding tax)
• On-the-Fly Price Conversion between different Currencies using Live Rates from the ECB or other banks
• Shop Statistics / Control Panel with a Summary of new Customers, new Orders….
• Stock Level Control for Products and Item
• Order Management with Order History, Customer Notification and Order Edit Functionality
• basic Reporting Feature: sold Items, monthly/yearly Revenue
• Order Status Management
• manage different Currencies, Countries & States

PAYMENT MODULES

• capable of live Credit Card Processing
• pre-defined Payment Gateways like authorize.net®, PayPal, 2Checkout, eWay, Worldpay, PayMate and NoChex
• Extend your Shop with other Payment Modules using the Payment Module API!
• Shipping Modules
• flexible Shipping Carriers and Rates Configuration
• Live-Shipping Rates using Shipping Modules (e.g. InterShipper, UPS, USPS, FedEx or Canada Post; Modules can use the Shipping Rate API).
• Extend your Shop with other Shipping Modules using the Shipping Module API!

OSCOMMERCE

PRODUCT DISPLAY

• Unlimited categories
• Unlimited products
• Unlimited category nesting
• Buy-Now button option
• Products search
• Manufacturer information
• List by Manufacturer
• Product Options
• Unlimited product options (i.e. color, size)
• Unlimited product options attributes (i.e. red, blue, green)
• Options effect price
• Product Data Stored
• Name, price and description
• Product image
• Weight (for shipping calculations)
• Date available
• Model Number (for easier order fulfillment)
• Inventory counter
• Image upload tool for each product
• In stock or out of stock setting
• Automatically allows for additional languages.

SHOPPING CART

• Temporary (not logged on) and permanent (logged on) shopping carts
• Auto tax calculation
• Remove products
• Edit quantity of products in cart
• See options and option prices

Order Process

• 1. Suitable for large shopping cart functionalities. (Paid version is best)
  2. Comes CMS Features
  3. Affiliate program features
  • Checkout procedure is clear
  • Customer registers when placing order
  • Repeat customers need only login to place orders
  • Secure transactions with SSL
  • Choice of shipping options
  • Choice of payment options
  • Automatic E-mail notifications for new registration and each order placed
  • Customer is notified of customer center
  • Edit contact info
  • Customer address books (other shipping destinations)
  • Order history
  • Order status
  • Email newsletter subscription status (can easily subscribe and unsubscribe)
  • View all customers registered
  • Email specific, all or subscribed customers
  • Edit customer information
  • Temporarily set special price
  • Can be percentage or number
  • Does not effect actual price data
  • Special price is shown next to actual price
  • Specials are highlighted through out the site
  • Product reviews by site members
  • Bestseller lists automatically calculated
  • Display what other customers have brought (relating to the current product displayed)
  • Send to a friend
  • New design for user-friendliness
  • Backup tool
  • Statistics for products and customers
  • Add/Edit/Remove
  • Tax zones, classes, and rates
  • Configuration parameters in database for remote editing
  • Not tied together with the catalog module (admin module can be installed on another server)
  • CRE Loaded Standard à $95
  • CRE Loaded Professional à $295
  • CRE Loaded Professional B2B à$350

Order Confirmation

Customer Account (what the customer sees)

Customer Management (what you see)

Most shopping carts do not address marketing. OSCommerce brings high end logic to the entire shopping experience.

Specials

Customer Interaction

Administrative Functionality

o    categories

o    products

o    manufacturers

o    customers

o    reviews

Configuration

Set most aspects of store information

o    Store name

o    Email address

o    Location

o    and other settings can be easily viewed and edited

Modules

Multiple payments modules:

o    PayPal

o    Credit Card

o    C.O.D

Multiple shipping modules

o    USPS

o    FedEx

o    UPS

o    Flat Rate

o    Custom Price Table

CRE-LOADED

In short:

CRELoaded 6 – a fork of osCommerce version 2.2 MS2 – is a feature-rich ecommerce solution for new and existing store owner, and web professionals. With CREloaded the you will be able to upload product images and add text, and thus to create the storefront of your online shop. Orders and inventory are easy to manage with the shopping cart, credit card payments are processed through PayPal or Authorize.net. It is possible to set up special pricing, and to determine shipping costs. CRE Loaded also offers plenty of different templates to customize the look of the online store in order to offer a unique, easily identifiable, and fully branded shopping experience to the customer.

Price:

Brief:

CRE Loaded Standard:

CRE Loaded Standard is a scalable shopping cart for Ecommerce sites developed primarily for the SOHO (small office, home office) store owner who wants to add transactional capabilities to an existing website. You can organize, manage and ship your products, and you have the the flexibility you need to run a successful online business. It includes shipping, payment, marketing, security, design, and admin features, as well as customer and product management tools. Subscriptions are available in 1 year and 3 year options.

CRE Loaded Professional:

CRE Loaded Professional is a complete ecommerce application with shopping cart functionality and content management developed for the serious web entrepreneur. It comes complete with a content management system which allows you to create standard web pages within your store and manage, organize, and search content on a website. It includes shipping, payment, marketing, sales, design, and admin features, as well as customer and product management tools. Subscriptions are available in 1 year and 3 year options.

CRE Loaded Professional B2B:

CRE Loaded Professional B2B is a secure and scalable ecommerce application with shopping cart functionality for wholesalers and store owners who would like to display different information for separate customer groups. It includes shipping, payment, marketing, security, design, and admin features, as well as customer and product management tools.

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