What is Content Management System (CMS)?
A content management system (CMS) is a computer application that allows publishing, editing and modifying content, organizing, deleting as well as maintenance from a central interface. Such systems of content management provide procedures to manage workflow in a collaborative environment.
Why use a Content Management System?
Building your web site in a flexible, easy-to-use, extensible system, if you’re looking to build a new web site from scratch, or rebuild your current site, you may have heard about Content Management Systems (CMS). Not just a buzzword, CMS offers a number of benefits to businesses seeking to create a modern and flexible web site. Content Management Systems are a robust way to keep track of your / your teams website assets (files, pictures, videos, scripts, etc.), enable a coding interface for advanced users while having the option to use a WYSIWYG (visual editor) interface for those users that may be involved updating the website with limited coding knowledge, and provide a mechanism for webpage templates to encourage theme and code consistency across your website. These are some benefits for using a CMS, and like everything else some are better than others depending on your needs and situation. Enter a Content Management System (CMS). Unlike Dreamweaver-built web sites, or for that matter, sites built with proprietary web programming, a CMS-based site is built on a standardized, unified system. A web site properly built in a CMS presents a user-friendly, non-technical system for adding, editing and maintaining web content.
Which are 5 Best CMS to Build E-Commerce Website?
These are the 5 Best CMS to build e-commerce Website:
- Magento:
More than 150,000 businesses around the word choose Magento as their ecommerce platform. Magento is powerful, flexible and cost effective ecommerce solution. More than 30000 merchants used Magento as the fastest growing ecommerce platform. Companies such as Nike, Lindt, Samsung, Olympus, OfficeMax, The North Face, Stussy and Nespresso all make their ecommerce website by using Magento to boost their online business. So we have to look on Magento usage and recognized what an excellence solution of open source ecommerce. Magento can be compared to WordPress in that they both revolutionized and dominated the space they targeted Magento in e-commerce, WordPress in blogging and content management.
Why we choose Magento as an ecommerce platform?
- Magento built in stable and reliable structure.
- Open source platform.
- Magento allow us to adjust existing features and add new ones.
- Magento contains all excellence features to enhance your online business such as the shopping cart, catalog management, search, and checkout and administration functions.
- OsCommerce:
OsCommerce is one of the oldest open source platforms available in the market. Open source commerce is an online store management software program. In August 2008, more than 14,000 ‘live’ websites using the OsCommerce program. This admired open source e-commerce solution is utilized by nearly 13,000 websites. OsCommerce is another most important option when it goes to free and open source e-commerce platforms. The features, as well as the benefit and limitation, are similar Magento’s community edition. With OsCommerce you can utilize your choice of web hosts, but you’ll require making sure that it is in a secure hosting environment. The community of users is another big benefit of OsCommerce, as there are over 7,000 add-ons from the community that can be downloaded and used for free. On the backend, OsCommerce uses PHP for server-side programming and MySQL for its relational database management system (RDMS).
Features of OsCommerce:
- Free to download.
- Open source.
- Can be hosted anywhere.
- Free templates are available.
- Premium templates are available.
- Add-ons are available from community members.
- Customer and order management from the admin dashboard.
- OpenCart:
OpenCart is an incomparable open source shopping cart system. It is a protected e-commerce platform for online stores which provides you to establish your own online business and lope your e-commerce economically and smoothly. It can be utilized on any web server with PHP and MySQL running on it. OpenCart is the new discover platform among these five e-commerce platforms, it has already proved itself as a peak choice. You can create an unlimited number of categories, sell an unlimited number of products, various currencies and use various languages and supplementary option of payment and shipping method. Because of these multiple choice it gives high rank in search engine. Opencart has best order management which is the main feature of it. Opencart also gives multiple choice of tax payment in different country.
- Zen Cart:
Zen Cart is an online store management system, developed by the Zen Cart Development Team in September 18, 2012 and specifies in GNU General Public License Zen Cart is same as to OsCommerce. In fact, Zen cart separated from OsCommerce as different project in 2003. The main difference between Zen Cart and OsCommerce comes from Zen Cart’s structural changes and easier to change appearance as CSS based. It gives facility of online retailers with a larger amount of customer management and promotion tools like gift certificates, coupon codes, discount and sale rules, newsletter manager, automatic email order confirmation, and much more. Zen Cart is extremely simple to handle, modify and install. People who have less technical knowledge can also build an easy ecommerce website. It has several helpful adapter available to develop and manufacture your shop and admin area, although too many can make the user interface a little messy.
- WordPress:
WordPress was originally designed as a blogging platform; it has then curved into a tremendously powerful and modifiable CMS system with a large range of plugins that can transfer your site into an online shop, on behalf of sincere online retailers, the open source Magento platform, which takes the same top position in ecommerce that WordPress has in the CMS world, is far better suited. One of the main reasons for choosing to use WordPress for your store in its place of Magento is that Magento can have relatively a high learning curve for someone who is firmly surrounded in the WordPress world. Peoples who have little or no knowledge of coding or who cannot hire developer, WordPress are the best ecommerce solution. WordPress have some plugins which help in converting our site into online store that can be rapidly downloaded, configured, and locate, without requiring much additional software outside of the need for a payment processing service, and plugins are:
WP E-commerce for WordPress:
WP e-Commerce is one of the most popular and strong e-commerce plugin of WordPress. It is easy to download, install and takes very little time for updating. Adding a new product is very easy and you can add lots of products in website through this plugin. This plugin has lots of functionality and this is suitable to people who are beginner.
Woo Commerce for WordPress:
Most of woo commerce plugin and extensions are free to download from Woo Themes website. Woo Commerce plugin install easily like any other WordPress plugins. Woo commerce plugin is similar with WP ecommerce but it had some differences. One of the main difference is woo commerce cannot apply for a lot of themes. Consequently you have not high technical knowledge; it may be very difficult for you to build an online store and it also offers very little option of shipping method. The interface of woo commerce is very straightforward to use and familiar to users. It gives lots of menu such as Setting, reports, orders, coupons which make your online store customer friendly.