Shopping Cart Reviews: Auctiva Commerce Vs Yahoo Shopping Vs OS Commerce Vs Zen Cart

If you’ve just entered the world of ecommerce you’ll first want to look at how you can sell your products.

At Chinavasion we’ve been doing our upmost to help you out in that respect and have been reviewing ecommerce platforms including OS Commerce, Zen Cart, yahoo shopping and Auctiva Commerce.

After looking at so many we thought it was time to take a look back at each of the different systems and see how each system compared to each other and which person each system was best suited to.

Ease Of Use

 

If you’re looking for a shopping cart system that is laughably easy to use then it would be a tie between Auctiva Commerce and Yahoo Shopping. They have the boxes to fill and options to select that you could expect from dealing with any online auction site/listing location.

On the more complex end of the scale sits Zen Cart, with an easy-to-use installer and a lesser need to pull things apart to get other things to work it is slightly easier to use than the bare bones OS Commerce option.

OS Commerce Max (which comes with many of the necessary plug-ins already installed) is an improvement on the bare bones OS Commerce software and may even challenge Zen Cart for ease of use.

However, regardless of whether you select Zen Cart, OS Commerce or OS Commerce max you will still need to find yourself a hosting provider and a Domain registrar.

Cost

 

Yahoo Shopping is potentially the most expensive of the four systems reviewed here if taken at pure face value followed by Auctiva Commerce.

However, it is important to take into account extra work surrounding building templates and systems, the extra cost of paying for bandwith and domain name use and building up a customer base and presence on the internet.

This too is a cost which you must consider before choosing to use free platforms like OS Commerce, Zen Cart or OS Commerce Max.

In the end it comes down to deciding whether you want higher monthly costs and a ‘commission fee’ or high time requirements and payments to experts.

Support Network

 

All four sites listed have paid employees to assist you and forums of users ready to help you out.

With Auctiva and Yahoo Shopping the focus is more on the service’s customer support team, which is there for free (or at least for a minimal cost) Auctiva DOES have a fairly strong online community ( community.auctiva.com/ ) although it focuses more on marketing and customer service tips.

The forums are the place to go for free advice at Zen Cart ( zen-cart.com/forum/index.php ) OS Commerce ( forums.oscommerce.com ) and OS Commerce Max ( oscmax.com/forums ).

You can also hire a programmer to help you out with an issue or get the developers themselves to assist you with any issues that you might be having with the software.

Flexibility

 

While Auctiva Commerce and Yahoo Shopping claim to be incredibly flexible their strength lies in not being completely flexible. If you have some type of tool or function that you’d like to plug in for example it isn’t exactly possible as the software is behinds a proprietary wall on it’s own servers.

Of the free software-based options OSCommerce Max is puported to be the easiest to plug extra applications and functions into with Zen Cart just working with Zen cart – formatted applications and OS Commerce requiring a lot of work to get the simplest things in place.

A Part Time Seller New To Ecommerce

 

A person just getting into ecommerce and isn’t planning to devote all of their time to it (perhaps because it is a sideline to their regular job) is probably going to find that Yahoo Shopping or Auctiva is their better options.

Why?

It doesn’t require you to know anything in the way of coding to set up, you will only have to worry about marketing if you want to really get more traffic and you have some time to spend.

It is very much a case of pay, plug in and play with these two systems.

A Part Time Seller With Commerce Experience

 

If you’ve sold on eBay before, or you’ve done some coding in the past and set up a simple family website for somebody then perhaps Zen Cart or OScommere Max is the best option.

Yes it will take a little longer to set up and operate and yes it does require you to register a domain, choose a host and worry about traffic just as much as you worry about merchandise but it will give you more options in the long term and give you more room to expand.

A Full Time Seller

 

Regardless of whether you’re new to ecommerce or if you’ve been doing it for a few years if you’re looking to create a name for yourself and create an ongoing community of buyers then zen cart or OScommerce Max might be your best option. Just to be sure to learn the basic processes of ecommerce through eBay and eBay alternatives.

Check out these sites now and stay tuned because in the coming weeks we’ll be taking a look at four more shopping carts.

• Magento
• CRE Loaded
• Vendio
• Amazon

And take part in our poll to let us know which Shopping system you use/like the most.