What Is E-Commerce Software?

Shopping cart software (a.k.a. e-commerce software, e-store software, online store software or storefront software) is an operating system used to allow consumers to purchase goods and or services, track customers, and link together every aspect of e-Commerce into one integrated whole.

How do online shopping carts differ from those usually found in a grocery store? The image is one of an invisible shopping cart. You enter a web store, see a product that meets your needs and you place it into your "invisible" shopping basket. When you are through browsing, you click checkout and finalize the transaction by providing payment data.

Storefront Software - What's Included

• Shipping Nearly all shopping cart software packages offer a shipping tool that calculates shipping costs for customers based on parameters that you set, some can even link up to common shipping methods like FedEx.
• Tax Calculation Most shopping carts can calculate taxes, a valuable tool, especially since many states are considering requiring that merchants collect taxes for online sales.
• Inventory Control Good e-commerce software will keep track of your inventory and generate reports.
• Web Page Design Many merchants are not web designers, so some shopping carts will include wizards to help you build your webpage without requiring you to know HTML. Many shopping carts support such feature as the pre-designed templates - such as Virtuemart themes, ZenCart templates, osCommerce templates, Magento themes, etc
• Customer Management Many shopping cart software packages have features that will let customers view their previous purchases. The shopping carts will also recognize the customer when they come back for a return visit.
• Storefront Design Store front wizards incorporate templates or other tools to help you set up your storefront.
• Security Customers will not want to purchase online if they feel the website cannot protect their personal information. Many shopping cart programs will offer protection by encrypting information, processing credit cards through reputable processing services and by allowing customers to move through their program without having to download cookies.
• Marketing A shopping cart is useless if you don't sell anything. Marketing help can be invaluable, some programs offer information on affiliate programs and help with merchandising. Many are able to create coupons, gift certificates or other incentives. In addition, they provide sales reports and 'hit' or traffic information as well.
• Payment Processing Many storefront software offer credit card processing as well as check, COD or other methods of processing payments.

The 1.3 final version of Prestashop e-commerce software is regarded as being the most completed, secure and professional published until now. Many optimizations and fixes are already made to the software to maximize its functionality and its international accessibility, including lots of tips and recommendations from the Open-Source community. It's simple to find Prestashop available in 3 languages: English, Spanish and French. Prestashop presents thousands of hours of improvement, and strengthens the functional offer already expanded of Prestashop solution. Prestashop is an e-commerce software that you can freely download. If you want to test this shopping cart, to update your e-shop, or to begin an e-commerce activity, don't be afraid to download Prestashop shopping cart! Prestashop is an e-commerce solution which is both totally free and open source. Prestashop e-commerce solution is available under the Open Software License and officially, launched in August 2007. In August 2009 this application had about 24,000 active stores. Prestashop e-commerce solution is a great shopping cart and one of the significant advantage - you can get and use Prestashop e-commerce software absolutely for free! PrestaShop e-commerce shopping cart was made to take advantage of essential web 2. innovations. In spite of its technical sophistication and advanced functionality, PrestaShop e-commerce software is fast and incredibly lightweight, so its easy to download, install, and update.

PrestaShop themes are templates developed especially for enabling you to run a premium online store solution on your site. PrestaShop templates were professionally designed to create the most practical and convenient environment for the highest possible e-commerce performance.