eCommerce Solutions for Website

With e-commerce, web design really starting to take off, it's never been more important to choose a platform which suits the developer and one that will provide your clients with the features that they need to run a successful online shop.These platform to be easy for them to manage, update, and also track sales and related finances. Features are a necessity for a client, but even more important is security, stability, and expandability from a development perspective.

Lets have a look into pre-made solutions or premium services, open-source solutions or the option of creating custom e-commerce systems built to fit each website.

Custom eCommerce System

• osCommerce

osCommerce is an open-source shopping cart solution with a variety of common and useful features. From a design and development standpoint, many agree that this is the easiest platform to work with. There are customer accounts, an extensive admin back-end, HTML product descriptions, several payment options, real-time shipping quotes, and more.
OsCommerce has a number of store owners on its books, notable customers include Truffle Shuffle and Linux Uk.
There are multiple payment Gateways to choose from including (but not limited to) – 2Checkout.com,Authorize.Net, ChronoPay, iPayment, PayNova, Paypal, PSIGate, SecPay and TrustCommerce.
As expected from a platform such as this its jam-packed with features.

Notable Features

• Supports unlimited products and categories
• Multicurrency support
• Support for physical (shippable) and virtual (downloadable) products
• Object oriented PHP backend
• Web Browser Install and Plugin support

ZenCart

Zen Cart website doesn’t do justice to the professionalism of the end product, and although it doesn’t not offer as many payment processing options as OsCommerce and other e-commerce platforms it is a more mature product, with OsCommerce often taking quite a long time to release fixes for important issues such as security. ZenCart is a fork of OsCommerce it has very similar sorts of features, it's also easier for the newbie developer to get into than Osc. Payment gateways include LinkPoint, Authorize.Net andPaypal.

Notable Features

• User frontend is validated to XHTML 1.0 Transitional
• Any PHP coding changes can be protected during upgrades by using the built-in override protection system
• Integrate with phpBB
• Meta Tags keywords and descriptions can be controlled at the per-product level

Opencart

Opencart is a 100% open-source and free shopping cart system with a great community behind it. It is fully expandable with unlimited products, categories, pages, and more. It also has some nice features for a more community-based online shopping experience like product reviews, ratings, and customer accounts. The back-end interface is clean and well organized, and the front-end templates are open-source too. There are several extensions available plus an API for further development customization and a theming guide for custom design as well. There is even an area where developers can sell extensions and templates specifically for this platform to earn some extra cash flow.

VirtueMart

VirtueMart is an Open Source E-Commerce solution designed to be used with Joomla! (but also works with Mambo). Joomla and VirtueMart are written in PHP and made for easy use in a PHP / MySQL environment.

Notable Features

• Stock Level Control for Products and Item
• Ajax-powered Product Overview allows to quickly add Products to the cart
• Product Attributes (like Size or Color) can be added to Product
• Manage different Currencies, Countries & States
• Product Availability: show how fast a Customer can expect delivery.

Payment Gateways supported include Authorize.net, PayPal, 2Checkout, eWay, Worldpay, PayMate and NoChex. If you have an existing Joomla based site, integration is particularly easy. Virtuemart uses Joomla’s admin interface for store administration, and because it is implemented inside an already rich CMS, administration will come very easily to Joomla users. Given that Joomla is (probably) one of the best CMS systems out there, it may easily give OsCommerce and others a run for their money.

Magento

Magento, one of the more exciting e-commerce platforms available for free on the market today. Dripping with features, they really have thought of everything. Wish Lists, shop by price and category, item comparison – all the things we’ve come to expect from professional web stores. Its software as good as this that really keeps licensed software on their toes..
Just some of the features, for a full list download the pdf
Notable Features

• Integrated with Google Analytics
• Multiple Images with Zoom
• Add to Wishlist
• Send to a Friend
• Batch Import and Export of Catalog
• One Page Checkout
• Multi Lingual

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is an open source solution with over 250 features, and integrates with many of the most common forms of payment: PayPal, Moneybookers, and direct credit card payments. It is easily and completely customizable from a design perspective, and even the backend admin area is customizable. There are also plenty of other features that are not standard on other shopping carts that can be beneficial, such as a Customer Loyalty program with a points system.

TomatoCart

TomatoCart is an innovative open source ecommerce solution, branched from osCommerce. Aiming at creating the best online shopping platform, TomatoCart is devoted to blending all flexible functionalities for users even with the basic software knowledge. Notably, innovation can be found in our admin panel, which is based on Rich Internet Applications combined with Ajax, contributing to our creative web desktop, one of central means by which we provide easy management of your store and intuitive interface. Various payment processing options are available, including Authorize. Net, Ogone, PayPal, Saferpay, Wire Card and Google Checkout.

Notable Features

• RIA based Administration Pane
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Web Analytics (Piwik)
• Lightweight Framework
• Content Management System
• Email System.

• eCart

eCart is another open source solution with easy templating for designers and plenty of the standard features any shopping cart would need. It also features a sleek AJAX powered admin backend for handling customers, orders, products, and statistics. It's designed to be SEO friendly, and is perfect for online stores that will have a lot of products as it carries advanced catalog and search features.

Premade Solutions

• Volusion

Volusion is a premium solution that offers all the quality features a client company would need, with great support and extensive add-ons. The company also offers a number of services from design and code customization, to marketing, and to training. There are also a number of premium quality templates that can act as a base to your own design for customization, or just as the design overall. Pricing depends on the number of products needed, data storage, and support features. The cheapest starts at $29/mo. and can upgrade easily - perfectly suitable for most clients budgets.

• Shopify

Shopify is another premium software, with plenty of free themes and extensions. It comes with its own iPhone App for the store, support, analytics, and a great interface. They also offer cheap hosting for a Shopify store that can make the website easier to maintain in terms of support. The hosting offers features that are perfect for ecommerce websites, such as unlimited bandwidth, fast servers, automatic backups and more.

• Big Commerce

Bigcommerce from a design and development standpoint offers fully customizable design, and also a drag and drop interface for design features on the client's end. Just style the "widgets" and the client can also have more control without endless updates, tweaks, and maintenance from you, the designer. Big Commerce offers features for social media, marketing, product options, checkout options, multi-currency support, and more. There is also an API and documentation as well that allows developers to have further customization.

For more details about eCommerce website development, please feel free to contact  Prevaj Consultants at prevaj@prevajconsultants.com or call +91-8144760745

Prominence of Mobile website for the business

The days of needing a big chunky PC are far behind us and the Internet has moved from just being at the desk to being in every part of our lives. Internet access has expanded dramatically, with WiFi, GPRS, 3G and 4G being accessible from almost any part of a developed country.

According to Neilson research, mobile Internet usage is growing 30% every year. By 2013, it is expected that there will be 134 million mobile web users in the United States alone, up from 73.7 million mobile web users in 2009. Here are the key reasons why your business should have a mobile website in 2012.

Business Require a Mobile Website Right Now

Mobile search is becoming a trend for customers to do their shopping especially for local products and services. As a result, mobile optimized web design is going to be a necessity for your success. Statistics reveals that 71% of users search after seeing mobile ad, 53% purchase due to mobile search and 90% of mobile search results in action. There are 4 Billion local searches on Google per month, 61% of all local searches result in a purchase, and 55% of consumers use their mobile device to buy local products/services.

By 2014, it is projected that more users will access the internet from their phone than from a computer. Does this mean that all of those fancy flash-based, heavy content sites will become obsolete? Will you drop an egg from a mad duck on the submit button to send a form? Probably not, but it does mean that if you do not have a mobile presence you’ll be missing out on over half of all web browsers.

Reason to have mobile website

Google indexes mobile content differently than regular search. Ranking on mobile is easier because Google has a much smaller index of content under mobile, as this segment is still in its infancy.
People who are first to market have a significant advantage. Therefore, if businesses get a mobile site today, they can be ranked quicker than their competition. If for no other reason than to Rank High on Google, you should build your mobile site before your competition does.

The good news,If you have a website, then you have a site that can be accessed by any mobile device with a browser. Now, the bad: Chances are, that site looks pretty crappy on said mobile device.(Have a look at the below images.)

Creating a mobile version of your site doesn’t have to be painful or expensive. In fact it’s typically a smaller version of your existing website with a more simplistic design. The important thing is to identify the key actions you want your customers to take when accessing your mobile site.


In short, when creating your mobile presence, simpler is better. Reduce the content and file size, limit the amount of typing your customer is required to perform, take advantage of smart phone capabilities by adding click to talk numbers and location finders. Follow these steps and you will be primed for mobile Web success.

For more details about Mobile website development, please feel free to contact  Prevaj Consultants at prevaj@prevajconsultants.com or call +91-8144760745

Do Small Businesses Need ERP?

This is one of the main misconceptions prevailing among some small and medium sized companies. This is due to the unawareness of the functioning of an ERP system. Mainly what is to be understood is that an ERP system automates business processes across an organization and thus eliminates inefficiency caused by a legacy system.
It is true that there are some big players in the market that may be taking care of business process of huge organizations. But today, medium and small sized companies are benefited from automation and streamlining of their business process with efficient and affordable web-based ERP solutions.

It is natural that the big players in the market will charge very high even if the organization falls under the small and medium sized category. But nowadays some providers develop ERP system to fit the needs and budget constraints of small businesses.

In the early years of ERP, the implementation process took more time. In some cases the implantation took years to complete and involved a huge financial investment by the companies. However, with the changing technology scenario the implementation of ERP system also become an easy process. Now the web-based ERP solution could complete the implementation within a short period under its guaranteed on-time implementation method.

Why should SMBs consider implementing an ERP system?

Globalization and IT sophistication are forcing even small businesses to automate processes and integrate applications to facilitate stronger communication, data collection and analysis. ERP software systems are integrated business solutions intended for the planning, managing, controlling, and accounting for all of a company's resources.
It is the administrative and operational requirements, not the size of the company that determines if an ERP solution is required or not.
The key things driving small businesses to ERP seems to be 1) growth of the small business sector, and 2) more focus on the small business market from ERP software vendors. Most of of the small business clients are considering or implementing ERP because of the rapid growth and the corresponding strain to puts on their legacy systems. In addition, large ERP vendors that typically focused solely on the Fortune 500 market are now developing lower-cost solutions with more appropriate functionality for smaller businesses.

A third and final possible reason is because many niche ERP players have entered the marketplace to provide functional solutions for specific industries. Open technologies have reduced barriers to entry into the ERP market, so many smaller, industry-specific niche players are able to fill the voids left by the big ERP companies at a lower cost.Although this increasing focus on small business is good for companies with limited capital budgets.

ERP is suitable for all businesses that use a lot of resources, or complicated resources that can benefit from advance planning, such as manufacturing using a lot of parts. In Conclusion, ERP is NOT for big businesses only.

For more details about Web based ERP development, please feel free to contact  Prevaj Consultants at prevaj@prevajconsultants.com or call +91-8144760745