DEEP DIVE
COMPARATIVE
ANALYSIS OF
E-COMMERCE TOOLS
Kumar Mallampalli Head – Emerging Solutions and IT Services
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2
2 The Challenges ........................................................................................................................................... 3
3 Solutions Options ........................................................................................................................................ 4
3.1 Open Source E-Commerce ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4
3.1.1 Magento ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
3.1.2 zencart: zen cart ™ ..................................................................................................................................... 6
3.1.3 virtuemart ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
3.1.4 KONAKART ................................................................................................................................................. 9
3.2 Commercial E-Commerce ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10
3.2.1 hybris ......................................................................................................................................................... 10
3.2.2 microsoft commerce server ....................................................................................................................... 12
3.2.3 ATG ........................................................................................................................................................... 13
4 Recommendation ...................................................................................................................................... 14
5 Annexure ................................................................................................................................................... 15
5.1 Overall Product Comparison Chart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15
5.2 Commercial E-commerce Vendor Comparison Chart ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16
5.3 Open Source E-commerce Vendor Comparison Chart ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 17
6 References ................................................................................................................................................ 18
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1 Introduction
In today's saturated market where virtually everything can be found online, the balance of power has shifted
from the marketer to the well-connected and informed consumer. Brands across categories want to replace
their outdated e-commerce platforms and improve their online customer experience with Web 2.0 and
community capabilities. It has become imperative for brands to revamp their mundane e-commerce websites
and increase their online transactions. The objective of this white paper is to compare some of the leading e-
commerce platforms that are available in the market today under various parameters and suggest a holistic
approach that organizations can follow during their e-commerce implementation process.
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2 The Challenges
As every other organization wants to increase its investment on e-commerce and significantly enhance its
direct trade, the key requirements for most organizations in implementing an end-to-end e-commerce include
the following:
Enhanced security while offering more products and flexibility in pricing
Integration with other systems and plug-ins
Search Engine Optimization
Intelligent web analytics
Customization to business requirements and local needs
Marketing integration for unified branding
Shorter time-to-implementation
Lower support cost for customer issues on products returns, rebates, coupon redemption and others
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3 Solutions Options
3.1 Open Source E-Commerce
3.1.1 MAGENTO
Magento Enterprise provides businesses with unprecedented flexibility and control over the look, content and
functionality of their online store. Fully supported by the Magento team of experts, Magento Enterprise is
scalable and easily tailored to meet every merchant's unique technical and business requirements. To help
ensure success of their online channel, Magento Enterprise customers can leverage best-in-class marketing
and merchandising tools.
Magento Enterprise Screenshots
Shopping Cart Screen
Promotions Screen
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Gift card Screen
Administration Screen
Dashboards
Payment Options
Key Strengths:
Marketing and promotions management – Marketing reminders, gift certificates etc
Secure – strong data encryption, user access based on roles and permissions
Rich merchandise suite
Dynamic customer information management
Search with Solr
Order editing and Google checkouts
Content staging and merging
Multi-lingual and Multi-currency support
Tax rate support in WEEE/DEEE format in EU
Country specific customization – Site registration, shipping destination address and billing address
with ability to specify pay per method
One click upgrades
Weakness:
Cart modification takes longer time
System requirements of Magento are quiet extensive – Requires at least PHP 5.2.0 extended with
mcrypt, PDO_MySQL and simple xml
Platform hosting involves significant cost
Coding style requires steep learning curve
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Some of Magento Customers:
3.1.2 ZENCART: ZEN CART ™
Zencart: Zen Cart™ is a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart software. The e-commerce web site
design program is being developed by a group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and
consultants that think e-commerce web design could be and should be done differently.
ZEN CART Screenshots
Product Catalog Screen
Dashboard
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Product Features
Product Tools
Key Strengths:
Unlimited categories
Unlimited product options, gift certificates, discounts
Fully customizable and easily installable
Template system
Multi-lingual
Customer reporting tools
Permission system
Multiple currencies
Multi-tax
Multiple shipping and payment options
Multiple image per product
Built-in override protection system
Weakness:
Administration module requires extensive training
Add on non-compatibility
3.1.3 VIRTUEMART
VirtueMart is an Open Source e-commerce solution designed to be used with Joomla (But also works with
Mambo). Joomla and VirtueMart are written in PHP and made for easy to use in a PHP / MySQL environment.
VirtueMart Screenshots
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Shop Home Page
Product Details
Shopping cart with PayPal
Admin: Edit Product
Key Strengths:
Stock level control for products and item
Ajax-powered product overview that allows to quickly add products to the cart
Manage different currencies, countries and states
Product Availability: Shows how fast a customer could expect a delivery
Weakness:
Lacks lot of essential shopping cart features such as stock control, shipping, payment to vouchers
and user group discounts etc.
Lack of many add-on modules
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3.1.4 KONAKART
KonaKart is an affordable java based shopping cart software solution for online retailers.
Konakart Screenshots
Home Page
Shopping Cart
Login Screen
News Publishing
Key Strengths:
Rich shopping experience through fast indexed search, product filter and sorting, product review and
ratings display
Internationalization: Supports multi-currency and multi-language
Up-selling and cross-selling merchandise
Price, promotion and communication customizations based on customer groups
Supports recurrent billing in payment module
Google base integration and SEO
Sophisticated marketing functionalities for promotions and communications
Shipping module
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Multi store with reward point support
Google analytics
Weakness:
Lack of support to gift certificates and loyalty programs
Upper limit exists for product displays and customer listing (Example: limited number of products are
allowed to list and for additional products to be listed, cost adds up)
Some of KonaKart customers:
3.2 Commercial E-Commerce
3.2.1 HYBRIS
Hybris provides a complete multichannel e-commerce software solution that integrates product content,
commerce operations, and the extended channel to help retailers, manufacturers, and other businesses
create a unified and seamless cross-channel experience for their customers — from online, to in-store, to
mobile and beyond.
Hybris Screenshots
Cockpit
Appealing Content Management
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Multi-channel Campaign
Product Merchandise
Key Strengths:
Strong product content management tools
Catalogue management
Enterprise integration
Globalization and internationalization capabilities
PIM powered commerce
Light weight technology stack
Fast and flexible
Multi brand site
Problem free administration ability
Integrates functions such as payment solutions, customer loyalty elements, search and navigation
options and full marketing tools
Customer-specific visuals, catalogues, products and prices and pre-configured order lists
Mapping a wide range of distribution models, companies, business processes, administrators, user
groups and user rights, therefore facilitating hierarchical purchasing and approvals processes
Procurement integration and quotation module
Weakness:
Scores low in security (for cloud based offerings)
Poor support and lack of regional customer management
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Some of Hybris Customers:
3.2.2 MICROSOFT COMMERCE SERVER
Commerce Server 2009 is a new, production-ready, out-of-the-box, contemporary web site that allows
businesses to get their stores live and merchandise moving more quickly. New page templating features
mean organizations can change the look and feel of a site just by pointing and clicking.
Key Strengths:
Shopping cart management
Taxation
Personalization and templating options
Transaction management
Settlement and product visualization
Integration with SharePoint server 2010, FAST search and Biz Talk server
Customizable, live services for integrated B2C shopping experiences with web parts
Multi channel integrations with kiosks, mobile devices, POS systems, interactive TV and gaming
systems
Weakness:
Poor technical architecture
Requires additional product purchase to leverage web 2.0 services
Some of Commerce Server Customers:
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3.2.3 ATG
ATG Commerce is a comprehensive, highly scalable e-commerce platform and application solution that
automates and personalizes the online buying experience to increase conversions and order value, and
ensure customer loyalty. It’s flexible, component-based e-commerce software architecture enables one to
easily implement best-in-class e-commerce sites.
Key Strengths:
Complete multi channel e-commerce suite with strong personalization
Shopping cart management
Product catalogue
Rich Internet Application (RIA) capabilities
Multi site, multi language and multi currency support
Search merchandise feature
Multiple deployment choice
Facebook and Twitter integrations
iPhone mobile store application
Online community for customer, partner and product support
Weakness:
High cost
Customer support outside north America is challenging
Some of ATG customers:
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4 Recommendation
Companies should select e-commerce platforms that are adaptable to specific business needs, flexible
enough to accommodate various legacy systems and also scalable enough to meet new requirements or
technology upgrades. Considering the above mentioned must-have features, the three existing e-commerce
platforms that win over the rest with their comprehensive functionalities are - Hybris, Magento and ATG.
Hybris: If you are looking for a strong product content management and multi-national e-commerce site that
can be established in a shorter time frame at a lower cost, then Hybris would be the best bet. This product will
allow one to localize the product content, pricing and promotions with its multi-currency, language, tax,
regulations and other features. This product will also enable you to analyze customer profiles based on target
segment or personalized behaviour pattern. However, some of the reference accounts have reported trouble
in integration and implementation.
Magento: If you want to quickly ramp up your multi-channel strategy with customizations, to meet growing
online demand for a wide product range, then Magento is the right choice. One can create user-friendly e-
commerce websites using Magento and get around the site for adding things to cart, wish lists or improve
navigation. One can also integrate price, product and stock level information to the website. Magento allows
one to internationalize the product easily, send newsletters, include Google site integrations, RSS feeds and
also provides strong analytics support. However for future scalability, understanding of enterprise level
customization for business needs is required.
ATG: If you want to mainly focus on strong personalization, merchandizing, targeting and customer interaction
then ATG should be your choice of e-commerce platform. However, ATG is priced slightly higher. It is also not
easier to implement multi-language and multi-currency capabilities using ATG. It also doesn’t have exhaustive
product content management features.
MS Commerce Server: MS Commerce Server is also a good product, provided it is implemented as a part of
the overall Microsoft suite. Extensive knowledge of MS product ecosystem including BizTalk and SharePoint
are required for the implementation. Overall, it is a big challenge to implement MS Commerce Server as
compared to other products both in terms of price and technical features. Also strong in-house Microsoft
expertise is required for both implementation as well as the periodic maintenance of the website.
It is not possible to consider any particular e-commerce platform as the best. Because each e-commerce
platform has its own advantages and disadvantages. A platform which may serve very well for a particular
organization may not be suitable for another organization. Open source e-Commerce platforms might work
well for many companies as it does not involve any buying or implementation cost. But it may not be the right
choice for organizations that are seeking advanced features like consumer profiling, targeted marketing etc.
On the whole, organizations have to evaluate many factors such as price, implementation time, scalability,
technology integration etc. and choose an e-commerce platform that will not only meet their current but also
their future business needs.
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5 Annexure
5.1 Overall Product Comparison Chart
Legend:
- Supported
- Partially Supported
- Not Supported
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5.2 Commercial E-commerce Vendor Comparison Chart
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5.3 Open Source E-commerce Vendor Comparison Chart
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6 References
http://www.fry.com/assets/category_files/pdf/wave_b2c_ecommerce_platforms_q4_2010.pdf
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/analystreports/enterprise-application/gartner-ecommerce-mq-
359306.pdf
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=214034&ref=g_sitelink
http://www.comentum.com/magento-vs-oscommerce-vs-zen-cart-comparison.html