The moment you decide to run an online store selling your favorite stuff, you are immediately thrown with dozens of questions and obstacles. For starters, you’ll need to decide between clean inventory/excess stock, then comes the resource for products. Ultimately, when it comes to open an e-commerce site, the biggest decision is – Which platform should I use?

The software you’ve decided upon will be the foundation of your entire e-commerce site and will not likely be changed in the future, therefore it’s utmost important that you know all of the best one before you choose and regret later. In this post, we want to bring to your attention some of the best (free) open-source shopping carts available on the Internet. Do check them out, test of the demo, play around with it to know if the functionality suits your business before deciding on one.

Full list after jump.

OsCommerce (PHP/MySQL)

OsCommerce Online Merchant is an open source online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. It features a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations involved.

Zen Cart (PHP/MySQL)

Zen Cart truly is the art of e-commerce; free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart software. The ecommerce web site design program is being developed by a group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think ecommerce web design could be and should be done differently.

PrestaShop (PHP/MySQL)

PrestaShop is a professional e-Commerce shopping cart software that you can download and use for free. Having a very powerful back-end, store admins can manage the inventory, orders, customers & payments easily. System never limits you as it supports unlimited categories, sub-categories & image pictures.

CubeCart (PHP/MySQL)

CubeCart is written to run on servers that have PHP & MySQL support. With CubeCart you can quickly setup a powerful online store which can be used to sell digital or tangible products to new and existing customers all over the world.

Magento Commerce (PHP/MySQL)

Magento is a feature-rich eCommerce platform built on open-source technology that provides online merchants with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and functionality of their eCommerce store. Magento’s intuitive administration interface features powerful marketing, search engine optimization and catalog-management tools to give merchants the power to create sites that are tailored to their unique business needs. Magento also comes with a much more powerful Enterprise version.

Digistore (PHP/MySQL)

Digistore Ecommerce 4.0 is a fully featured open source ecommerce solution based on the popular osCommerce engine. Boasting improvements both to the administration and the end user experience – Digistore has quickly become a popular choice for people wishing to market products online.

Opencart (PHP/MySQL)

A robust e-commerce solution for Internet merchants with the ability to create their own online business and participate in e-commerce at a minimal cost. OpenCart is designed feature rich, easy to use, search engine friendly and with a visually appealing interface.

Spree Commerce (Ruby on Rails/MySQL)

Spree capitalizes on the dynamic nature of the Ruby progamming language to provide the most flexible commerce platform available. Spree has been designed from the ground up to be as open and extensible as possible. You no longer have to be frustrated with the limited set of choices provided by most platforms.

CREloaded (PHP/MySQL)

CRE Loaded is much more than your average shopping cart. It’s the industry’s first downloadable e-commerce system that makes your store fully compliant with all Payment Card Industry (PCI) security rules. Organize, manage and ship your products from your online store. Accept credit card transactions safely.

Zeuscart (PHP/MySQL)

The Zeuscart shopping cart is based on PHP application and it is used as scripting language which facilitates developer in making dynamically driven websites. It is very facile to learn and understand. To be precise, application of PHP is most popular because of its functionality which can be changed as per ones requirements.

Agoracart (Perl/MySQL)

Offers a very wide range of features that allow you to setup an online storefront or shop ranging from a simple template based store for novices to the integration of complex web design concepts created by your web designer.

Afcommerce (PHP/MySQL)

AFCommerce is a full and complete online store with both a store front and administration area directly Out-Of-The-Box, which can be easily installed, configured, and maintained over a web-based interface. AFCommerce now includes our Ecommerce Website Building Software, AFBuilder, included completely Free.

RapidShop (PHP/without MySQL)

Very fast and easy to use, without MySQL (and can without PHP), direct from MS Excel. For 1000-2000 item of products. RapidShop is integrated with PayPal, EGold and any payment system. You can link your shopping cart to any credit card merchant account or payment gateway. Search Engine Optimized.

For Designers and Photographers

These following shopping carts are light, simple and utmost useful for those who wish to sell stock photos, video and print graphics online.

• Cmsaccount Photo Store Script (PHP/MySQL)
  Photo store software for selling your photos, images, artwork, audio, videos, vector illustrations and prints online.

  

• Ktools Photostore (PHP/MySQL)
  PhotoStore allows you to setup a complete photo selling website on your server or hosting space in just minutes. Perfect for professional photographers looking to sell their images or prints to their customers online.

  

• Xpoze (PHP/MySQL)
  Complete and easy to use solution for selling images and other media files such as videos, vectors or 3D graphics. As everyone tends for something unique Xpoze have worked had to provide you with the best flexibility to customize the look and the features you want to use without much fuss and programming knowledge.

  

Shopping Carts That Integrates With Others

Joomla

• VirtueMart (PHP/MySQL)
  The complete e-Commerce shopping cart solution for Joomla! – used by thousands of store owners. It can be run in Store- and Catalog-Mode. With its powerful Administration Tool you can handle an unlimited Number of Categories, Products, Orders, Discounts, Shopper Groups and Customers. VirtueMart works for both Joomla and Mambo.

  

• RokQuickCart (PHP/MySQL)
  RokQuickCart is a simple shopping cart for Joomla. It takes a simple, yet elegant, shopping cart script and integrates directly into Joomla. It allows you to showcase products, inclusive of images, descriptions and additional options, and purchase these items, with support for shipping and tax calculation.

  

• Seber Cart (PHP/MySQL)
  Small, fast and easy to use shopping cart for Joomla.

  

• SimpleCaddy (PHP/MySQL)
  Integrate a simple shopping cart into your content. No need to set up a complete system like VirtueMart if you are only selling a few items or you don’t want to setup a complete shop.

  

Wordpress

• ShopperPress (PHP/MySQL)
  ShopperPress is a fully featured shopping cart plugin for wordpress, suitable for selling any types of products, services, and digital downloads online. ShopperPress has built in support for multiple payment gateways allowing you to accept product payments online.

  

• Fat Free Cart (PHP/MySQL)
  With FatFreeCart Plugin you do not have to generate or paste any code in CSS or HTML of WordPress theme. The plugin is designed to work within your WordPress post editor.

  

• WordPress e-Commerce (PHP/MySQL)
  WordPress e-Commerce is a WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin that is truly an industrial strength elegant easy to use and fully featured shopping cart solution suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.

  

Premium Carts Worth Knowing

Last but not least, we throw in some shooping cart that comes with a price tag. For those who have budgets for their online business, these following shopping carts are worth knowing too.

• CS-Cart (PHP/MySQL)
  CS-Cart is an "out of the box" ecommerce software solution with easy-to-use functionality that allows to start selling online immediately. Its feature set fits into businesses of any size, from a small single-product shop to a fully-featured online storefront. Designed for ease of use along with flexibility, CS-Cart is equipped with the latest ecommerce innovations (like one-page checkout, AJAX-based web interface, block manager and others) built into a highly configurable and modifiable sales and promotion engine.

  

• Bosscart (PHP/MySQL)
  Boss Cart is an eCommerce shopping basket application, specifically developed to meet the needs of small to medium sized retailers. Boss Cart has been created using the latest technology and runs on Windows, Linux and all other Web platforms. Boss Cart has been tested with over 20,000 items to ensure maximum speed and efficiency.

  

• Avactis (PHP/MySQL)
  Avactis shopping cart is a software package that allows you to open an online store on the Internet. It comprises two parts – a client side and an administrator side. The client side is your website as seen by visitors. The Avactis’s client side allows the visitors to your site to browse products in the online store, select products and put them into the shopping cart, as in a conventional supermarket, and then pay for the selected products using a credit card or other payment options.

  

• Lite Commerce (PHP/MySQL)
  LiteCommerce is a lightweight high-tech ecommerce solution devoted to make an internet store launching process as easy as surfing the Web. LiteCommerce is more than just a shopping cart. It is a multipurpose ecommerce store platform. Numerous built-in features will make your online store and your business successful: inventory management, credit card processing, SEO tools, special offers, discount coupons and others.

  

• X-cart (PHP/MySQL)
  X-Cart shopping cart software is based on PHP Smarty templates, this makes it very flexible and easy to modify. The data is stored in MySQL database. X-Cart is a turnkey package. Installation is handled by web-based step-by-step wizard to make the system running immediately after receiving it. X-Cart is search engine friendly. A merchant can specify meta tags and define custom URLs for product and category pages that results in higher search engine rankings.

  

• Instantestore (Hosting not required)
  InstanteStore provides a variety of SEO, marketing, and promotional tools that you can make use of to bring in traffic and customers. These features will help you reach your potential customer market and get them buying at your store.

  

• Interspire (PHP/MySQL)
  From complete SEO optimization to single page checkout, track-able coupon codes and business intelligence reports – no other shopping cart software increases your online sales like Interspire Shopping Cart. Guaranteed, or your money back. We offer both a PHP-based shopping cart and also a hosted, fully-managed ecommerce solution called BigCommerce.

  

• Sunshop (PHP/MySQL)
  SunShop shopping cart is search engine friendly shopping cart system. A complete ecommerce solution packed with and extensive feature list. SunShop offers all of the standard features you would find in any off the shelf shopping cart software plus much more. What makes SunShop shopping cart stand above the rest is the ease of use.

  

• Squirrel Cart (PHP/MySQL)
  Squirrelcart PHP Shopping Cart software is a fully customizable, robust php shopping cart, designed with the advanced developer and web novice in mind. If you are a web novice, you will appreciate its ease of use, and the fact that Squirrelcart will generate the HTML for all of your store’s pages based on the built in templates provided. If you have a strong knowledge of HTML, you will appreciate the ability to make Squirrelcart look and work the way YOU want it to.

  

• Shopfactory (PHP/MySQL)
  ShopFactory 8 all-in-one shopping cart software allows anyone to quickly create and manage their own professional Internet shop — despite being one of the most powerful and feature rich eCommerce solutions on the market. Now you can update your own website and products to sell securely online without professional help.

  

• 3dcart (Hosting not required)
  Shopping Carts from 3dCart are complete e-commerce storefront solutions for your new or existing web site. Easily build, edit, and maintain your online shop, and collect orders without any programming or HTML knowledge!

  

• Viart (PHP/MySQL)
  The Viart range of software provides the tools you need to make full use of the Internet in your business. Now anyone can set up a secure online store without the need for any programming knowledge. The Viart suite of products is designed by Viart in-house team of e-commerce software developers. Together team has over thirty years of experience in this arena.

  

• Pinnacle Cart (PHP/MySQL)
  Pinnacle Cart is an extremely powerful php shopping cart and website builder application. Designed from marketing perspective, this eCommerce application is feature-packed, robust, scalable and easy to use. Pinnacle Cart is the clear choice for serious merchants focused on rapidly and cost effectively deploying, managing and growing a successful web-based business.

  

About author:Dainis is blogger from Latvia. He is webmaster of Psdeluxe.com (Photoshop deluxe) – Design community where you find photoshop tutorials and useful resources for web and graphic designers. Follow Dainis on Twitter

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Posted by hongkiat in Tools , at 10.09.09 Tags: ecommerce, free, open source, shopping cart