How to Build an ecommerce Store – Part 1.

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By: Chad Bell
So you have decided to save some money and build your online business yourself.

Good for you!

Here is a guide outlining the logistics of eCommerce development.

1. Finding the right open-source software for your business.

Very rarely will a developer write an eCommerce store from scratch. It would be too time consuming and inefficient. This is why open-source software companies such as ZenCart, Prestashop, and OScommerce, etc. exist. They have created “eCommerce templates” which help you with the “basics” of setting up.

ZenCart, Prestashop, and OScommerce are similar and I urge you to review each one before moving forward. Not spending time to evaluate which template is best suited for your needs will cause a major headache down the road when you realize, for example, your merchant account (you do have a merchant account setup right?) or email marketing is not supported.

http://www.zen-cart.com/
(pro: strong user support forum, lots of plugins
con: very technical coding)

http://www.prestashop.com/
(pro: admin section is very user friendly
con: early stages, little support)

http://www.oscommerce.com/
(pro: strong user support forum, lots of plugins
con: very technical coding)

All of these templates are written in PHP, CSS, HTML.

Also check and make sure your hosting server can run the software – Godaddy and Blue Host have worked for us.

Once you have found the right choice, you will want to download and install the files to your server.

In the next post we will go over the information you will need  to install the files.