Open source e-commerce software would be a good cost effective solution for your business. Choosing and installing the most appropriate shopping cart is the most important aspect of any e-commerce website. After you have decided on your product type, the next step would be to choose your shopping cart. There are many powerful and established shopping cart platforms available. Some of the popular and widely used shopping cart platforms are OpenCart, Magento, and Prestashop. Shopify is also popular but it is not open source, it is a paid shopping cart solution.
A shopping site’s design should focus on the products not on the site design. As soon as you open the site, your immediate attention should fall on the products. Background color and font type and colors should be carefully chosen so that they do not make products look dull. Site should be easy to navigate and users should be able to find their products quickly and conveniently. There should be sufficient information about each product regarding its features, price and other specifications.
Other important features that a shopping site should have are:
Wish list: This feature allows your customers to save and create the list of the products that they liked on the website. They might not buy these products but can consider them in the future when they again visit your site. Users can share this list with their friends also who want to buy a gift for them.
Facility to Track Shipped Items: There should be some feature by which your customers can track their shipment. They should be able to know the status of their ordered products and services.
Ability to Download Downloadable Products as soon as the Payment is processed: Don’t make your customers wait. They would like to download their products or services immediately they have paid for. Don’t involve any kind of offline process at that time.
Add to Favorites: With this feature, logged in users can add a record or page to a personal list of favorites by clicking on “Add to Favorites” feature.
Ability to Share Products on various Social Media Sites: Users should be able to share any product they find interesting on popular social media platforms such as Facebook. It will give extra publicity to your products.
Product Reviews on Product Pages: There should be a column for product reviews. Buyers should be able to comment on a product. Or you can ask your customers for a product review. Many customers look for product reviews before they buy a product.
