Ecommerce is a booming market and today there are a plethora of open source options to choose from for a person looking to build their own eCommerce website. I myself experimented with various open source platforms such as osCommerce, VirtueMart, ZenCart, DashCommerce, X-Cart, but none caught my attention as much as the nopCommerce software. This software, although new, has managed to create a lot of buzz in the market and in a short period of time it has shot up the popularity charts. In this article, we explore the various features of nopCommerce that have helped it stand out from the crowd.
Unlike most other open source platforms that have been coded in PHP or Perl, nopCommerce is written exclusively in Microsoft’s proprietary ASP.NET 4.0. The developers also provided a back-end database of MS SQL 2005 and it is the coupling of these two features that has made the platform so powerful. Because of this, the software is able to provide a catalog front end while allowing full management on the backend, giving the user everything they need to quickly set up a fully functional store front.
Another highlight of the nopCommerce software is its ease of use. Almost anyone with basic computer and administrative knowledge can install, configure, and maintain the software. The nopCommerce customization is also extremely easy to use and the provided features can help you set up as many item categories and subcategories as you want. Other aspects of the software worth mentioning are its one page checkout procedure (which ensures a low bounce rate), anonymous checkout procedure which helps maintain user privacy, SSL chat, live chat integration, notifications by SMS, multi-currency support, detailed billing and shipping in a configurable list of countries. Assigning products to more than one category was also a feature that really impressed me.
nopCommerce software is also backed by a rapidly growing user community that provides excellent technical support and valuable information. It is also capable of handling multiple languages and is compatible with almost all popular gateways.
This is also one of the few software that has also been created with search engine optimization strategies in mind and provides features where you could have search engine friendly URLs. Although you could easily run the software yourself, it is recommended that, at least during the initial setup phase, you hire a professional nopCommerce developer. Once you fully understand the various nuances of nopCommerce customization from them, from there you can handle the software yourself.