Are you looking forward to run an online store, but not being able to figure out which Content Management System (CMS) platform is the best to go for? No worries! I am bringing you a detailed list of 6 popular CMS you can choose from to develop a professional and successful ecommerce website.

The reason behind skyrocketing popularity of CMS in ecommerce space is that it fulfills the emerging new needs of today's online vendors and gives them the much-needed control over their website. However, every CMS has its own advantages and disadvantages, which is why it’s important that you choose the one that best fits your need.

6 Popular CMS for Ecommerce Sites

• Magento

Magento offers Magento Community Edition and Magento Enterprise Edition to choose from as per the requirement of your ecommerce site. Magento Community Edition is a free open source ecommerce software and allows developers to easily customize their online stores. Developers can install extensions via “Magento Connect” to enjoy the flexibility of altering the codes, adding features and improving functionality.

Image source: elogic.co

The ecommerce software also saves you the cost of software licenses since it is based on PHP and MySQL, which is compatible with Linux. Moreover, Magento’s open source community platform continues to expand and offers customers easy access to a giant store of extensions. In contrast to many other open source platforms, Magento Community gives developers a unique option to manage multiple stores, choose their preferred language and offer buyers multiple currency options. Magento Community has many users who make continuous effort to design new plugins and extensions to further improve the functionality of an ecommerce site.

If you want even more features for your website, then you can go for paid Magento Enterprise Edition.

Benefits of Magento Enterprise Edition are as follows:

1. It can handle large catalogues and is perfect for a site that has a large number of products.

2. Allows quick loading and makes your site scalable.

3. Flexible Marketing Promotions and Tools.

4. Online Analytics and Reporting.

5. Search Engine Optimization with meta-information.

6. Allows to apply categories of products as cross sell, up sell and related products automatically.

7. Gives rise to customer-assisted shopping.

8. Unlike Magento Community, Magento Enterprise Edition offers constant support to its customers.

9. Faster, more streamlined checkout flow than that of Magento Community.

10. Enables automated calculation of costs.

11. Secured payment environment that adheres to PCI security standards council.

12. Fully customizable order management system.

• OpenCart

OpenCart is an open source solution for ecommerce site development. It’s PHP based and opens the gates for easy management of multiple shops from one admin interface. Via default downloads in OpenCart, you can offer your customers over 20 payment gateways and various shipping methods. You can use OpenCart’s extension directory if you wish to get access to more than hundreds of additional payment gateways and shipping integrations. OpenCart also gives rise to DIY, since it’s simple to set up, meaning no reliance on a developer to create and manage your online shop.

Image source: forum.opencart.com

Advantages of OpenCart for an Ecommerce Site:

1. Flexible, simple and multi-functional.

2. Easy installation and maintenance.

3. Light-weight ecommerce solution that uses Ajax technology to ensure fast load time.

4. Easy issue debugging.

5. More than 2,700 themes.

6. Simple shop navigation, one page checkout and handy search.

7. Allows you to set up different groups for retail customers and wholesalers.

8. Supports different currencies and varied tax rules.

9. More than 7000 extensions to ensure top-notch functionality of your site.

10. Easy performance tracking of your shop.

• PrestaShop

PrestaShop is one of the best free open source ecommerce platforms available for download and installation. Since Prestashop generates codes that are search engine friendly, chances for your site to be easily found increase by many folds, and so do conversion rates. PrestaShop offers support for various payment gateways, like PayPal, PayPal Payments Pro DirecPay, Google Checkout, Skrill, Authorize, Net and even EBANX Checkout.

Image source: addons.prestashop.com

PrestaShop sports more than 310 exquisite features that empower an ecommerce site owner to boost sales. You can easily use PrestaShop’s interface and manage complex inventories with its simple-click updates.

What PrestaShop has an Offer for Your Ecommerce site?

1. Responsive templates

2. Inventory management

3. High class stock management

4. Gives the freedom of choosing a numbers of products per page

5. Boosts SEO efforts

6. More than 2000 cross platform templates to fit your need

7. Over 25000 plugins to help your site achieve desired functionality

8. Easy site management without investing on huge servers and premium hosting plans

9. Multi-lingual

• ZenCart

ZenCart is a free and easy, open source solution for ecommerce. Anyone, with even rudimentary computer skills, can easily install and setup ZenCart, which is based on PHP and backed by MySQL database. The beauty of ZenCart is it offers unique options, features and support that are not available from other open sources content management systems. Industry experts, like programmers, consultants, designers and even business owners, have developed several add-ons to download and install on ZenCart system.

Features that make ZenCart Feasible Option for many Types and Sizes of E-commerce Stores:

1. Allows you to bank on cutting-edge combination of PHP and MySQL.

2. Since it is licensed under GPL2, you have the freedom to modify the source code as per the requirement of your application.

3. Easy set-up of multiple customer modes and a gamut of shipping options

4. Offers support to almost every language in the world

5. Works well with several payment gateways

6. Enables easy updation of product catalogues. No need to rely on an HTML expert to write codes just to alter products.

7. Features a sophisticated template system which allows to use both stylesheets and images.

8. Easy inventory control to create special sales and discount offers

9. Numerous design options

Image source: www.12leaves.com

• osCommerce

osCommerce is an open source based e-commerce solution that was released under the GNU General Public License. Owing to easy and quick set-up, a wide range of customization choices and a plethora of benefits for an ecommerce site, osCommerce has become one of the the most versatile shopping cart solutions among e-retailers worldwide. Similar to ZenCart, osCommerce is also based on PHP and backed by expandable MySQL. It’s easy to use osCommerce software, however, experts suggest to avail services of osCommerce pros to bring your ecommerce site to fruition.



Image source: themeforest.net

Benefits of Using osCommerce for an Ecommerce Site

1. Easy to manage categories, manufacturers, customers, reviews and addition or removal of products.

2. Database backup and restore.

3. Custom functionalities to meet varied requirement of ecommerce sites.

4. Static and dynamic banners with detailed statistics.

5. Emails, newsletters to establish communication with customers.

6. Easy option to print invoices and packaging lists.

7. Breadcrumb trails to facilitate easy navigation.

8. Offers support for both downloadable and shippable products.

9. Automatic updation of currency exchange rates.

10. Allows access only to authorized users.

11. Automatically exhibits website on homepage.

• VirtueMart (Joomla)

VirtuMart is a very popular open source ecommerce plugin for Joomla CMS, allowing to handle unlimited products and categories. It offers multi lingual support to reach out to global buyers with your offerings and give a significant boost to your sales. Besides, VirtueMart improves your site’s SERP results, a big factor to catch maximum eyeballs to your ecommerce site.

VirtueMart’s integration with Joomla opens gates to easily sell your products and services online. An ecommerce business dealing with large products find VirtueMart very useful since it allows detailed product listing. With VirtueMart, it’s a doddle to add information about the parent product, along with a child product on other additional fields. You can add images, videos, use various colors and font sizes to create a snappy product page. VirtueMart plugin boasts about over 500 features , like inventory warnings, multiple payment and shipping options, SEO integrated reviews and many more.

Image source: stscript.info

Why VirtueMart is Widely Used by Developers Across the Globe

1. Allows to sell virtual products (downloadable), like MP3s, videos, etc.

2. Allows to place products under multiple categories.

3. Live credit card processing.

4. Easy configuration/customization.

5. Complete order management.

6. Allows shoppers to add their individual shopping addresses.

7. Administrator can monitor the online shop performance.

8. Enables to add images and files to every product.

9. Excellent management of the stock level for products.

10. Supports numerous payment gateways.

CMS is not only playing a pivotal role for ecommerce development, but is also seen as the future of custom web design and development. Although there are many other free open source content management systems available in tech market, I have discussed the five most popular ones that are currently enjoying the widespread usage. However, I still suggest to go for the one that best fits your business requirement. Have you ever used a CMS for your online business and have more to add on to what has already been discussed? If yes, please share your experience with us in the comment box below.