Category

Platforms & Apps

Our coverage of platforms and apps includes innovations and updates to shopping carts, content management systems, mobile shopping, digital-product selling, headless commerce, social media, and much more.

Platforms & Apps
Opera 9.6 Browser: Links Email, Desktop, and Mobile

November 4, 2008 • Armando Roggio

If you want evidence that there is a hot browser war underway, you need look no further than the new Opera 9.6 web browser that some believe is a response to Google’s game-changing Chrome browser. When Google launched the beta version of its Chrome browser on September 2, 2008,...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Interspire ‘Obsesses over Quality’

October 31, 2008 • Armando Roggio

In this installment of "Cart of the Week," we’ve featured Interspire, an Ajax-intensive, licensed shopping cart that boasts easy design and update tools without needing extensive XHTML, CSS, or other coding skills.
Platforms & Apps
Google’s Chrome: The Prototype for Tomorrow’s Browsers

October 28, 2008 • Armando Roggio

When Google introduced its Chrome browser on September 2, 2008, it began the foundation for an improved Internet experience—full of rich web applications—and launched the next round of commercial combat with chief rival Microsoft. If Google is going to compete against Microsoft for a sh...
Platforms & Apps
Cart Of The Week: ShopSite

October 24, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. This includes licensed carts, hosted carts, and open-source carts. In this, our "Cart of the Week" feature, we’ll profile (but not evaluate) a specific shopping cart and ask personnel of that cart about its strengths...
Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Miva Merchant

October 17, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

Practical Eommerce counts over 300 shopping cart platforms. In this installment of “Cart of the Week,” we profile Miva Merchant, a popular licensed cart launched in 1996.
Platforms & Apps
Browser Review: Mozilla Firefox 3

October 14, 2008 • Armando Roggio

By some estimates, more than 1.4 billion people use the Internet for work, entertainment, or commerce. All of those web surfers must use a browser to visit websites or shop at online stores, and if browsing speed, security, and functionality matter, those users should be cruising the in...
Platforms & Apps
Browser Review: Internet Explorer

October 7, 2008 • Armando Roggio

When Google introduced its Chrome web browser in September, it fired the first shot in a new browser war, challenging Microsoft’s supremacy, frightening its open-source ally, Firefox, and initiating a race toward better usability and more features. To be fair, there had been plenty of ...
Platforms & Apps
Magento's iPhone Theme: Mobile Commerce for the Masses?

September 24, 2008 • Armando Roggio

Magento Commerce, an open source ecommerce platform, has introduced an Apple iPhone specific theme that is potentially the first step toward leveling the playing field for small online retailers who want to compete in the lucrative and booming mobile ecommerce market. Mobile eCommerce ...
Platforms & Apps
Yahoo! Store Users: SSL Servers are Moving

September 22, 2008 • Armando Roggio

Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, a leading ecommerce provider, is migrating its secure socket layer (SSL) certificates to new servers, improving their system's flexibility, but forcing some e-retailers to make changes to their stores before an October 15 deadline to avoid cart errors. The SS...
Platforms & Apps
Cart Of The Week: Shopify

August 13, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

We count over 300 shopping cart platforms. This includes licensed carts, hosted carts, and open-source carts. In this, our new "Cart of the Week" feature, we’ll profile a specific shopping cart and ask its personnel about its strengths and weaknesses.
Platforms & Apps
Shopping Cart Functionality Can Increase Sales

June 25, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

The tenet of customer service in the online shopping process is simple: the more you engage potential customers, and provide links relevant to their needs, the more they’ll buy and the longer they’ll remain a customer. As it turns out, the solution to that challenge may be as simple as ...
Platforms & Apps
Third-Party Integrations Make Shopping Carts Easier To Use

June 23, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

By day Sean Dupuis is a courier for FedEx. By night, he sends out packages of his own: boxes of boots and moccasins and sheepskin bags for his bustling website business called Sheepskin and Things. Stretched thin, he’s able to get it all done because his shopping cart and its third-part...
Platforms & Apps
Shopping Carts And Search Engines

June 18, 2008 • Jennifer D. Meacham

When searching for “educational toys” on Google, at No. 5 on the list you’ll find BrainwavesToys.com—up from No. 78 a year ago. Michael Stebbins, co-founder of the business, employed a series of search engine optimization (SEO) strategies within his cart to achieve this result. “A lot ...
Platforms & Apps
Magento Shopping Cart and 20,000 Friends

June 18, 2008 • Michael A. Cox

Roy Rubin held the cyber equivalent of a barn raising and had several thousand of his closest friends over for the event. Of course, everyone actually stayed home and did the work from their own little cubicles, kitchen tables, laptops on airplanes and Blackberrys on bar tops.
Platforms & Apps
Field Test: Shopping Carts, Part Three Of Three

May 28, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons

In Field Test, Practical eCommerce has gathered twelve seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is shopping carts. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin Hertz, Mut...
Platforms & Apps
Microsoft Exec on Future of Software

November 7, 2007 • PEC Staff

Many industry experts, such as Microsoft's Baris Cetinok, believe software will increasingly migrate to web-based applications and away from localized, licensed products.
Platforms & Apps
Debate: Hosted Shopping Carts ‘Perfect For Most Entrepreneurs’

August 27, 2007 • PEC Staff

1ShoppingCart is a hosted shopping cart with thousands of small business customers. Michael Valiant, 1ShoppingCart's product management and marketing specialist, offers his views on hosted cart solutions. PeC: Why should an ecommerce business consider a hosted shopping cart, versus pu...
Platforms & Apps
Debate: Licensed Carts Offer Flexibility and Portability

August 27, 2007 • PEC Staff

ProductCart is a licensed shopping cart used by thousands of ecommerce merchants. We asked its CEO, Massimo Arrigoni, whether licensed shopping-cart software is better for smaller businesses than hosted cart solutions. PeC: Why should an ecommerce business consider a licensed shopping...
Platforms & Apps
What Do You Dislike About Your Shopping Cart?

April 18, 2007 • PEC Staff

Readers weigh in on what they would like to see improved with their carts. 1ShoppingCart "We offer live UPS shipping rates, but for some reason 1ShoppingCart is only set up for commercial rates. It should default to residential rates. I would guess there are five residential buyers ...
Platforms & Apps
Shopping Cart Checklist

September 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

We’ve assembled a checklist to help you narrow your shopping cart requirements. The checklist is divided into six areas: function, shipping issues, payment processing, support, technical considerations and report generation. Function Is there a limit to the number of categories or pr...
Platforms & Apps
Hosted Shopping Cart Solutions

September 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

PeC: How would you describe the merits of a hosted solution compared to various software solutions that are in the marketplace? Krakovsky: I think it starts with the fundamental premise that people start businesses to sell products and services to customers, not necessarily deal wit...
Platforms & Apps
Getting to the Heart of the Cart

September 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

If you came to this article hoping we’d tell you exactly which shopping cart you should choose for your business, you will be disappointed. We don’t know. However, thanks to the expertise of a pair of industry veterans, the process of choosing a shopping cart is about to get easier for...
Platforms & Apps
Shopping Cart Software Solutions

September 1, 2006 • PEC Staff

PeC: What are some distinctive characteristics of shopping carts that you might share with a new ecommerce business? Randolph: I’d say everything has a place. Yahoo! Stores has over 150,000 merchants now so, without a doubt, the hosted solution has a place in the marketplace. There a...
Platforms & Apps
Shopping Carts: Features to Consider

April 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

A shopping cart system should be able to accommodate a business’ needs, rather than requiring the business to adjust goals and strategies to match the capabilities of the shopping cart. We've put together a template of sorts that you can use to help decide on a shopping cart system base...
Platforms & Apps
osCommerce Founder: Open Source Encourages Collaboration

January 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Harald Ponce de Leon had an idea to create an online shopping cart system that would serve as a guide to other ecommerce developers. That was in 2000. In order to attract interest, he released his cart, then called the Exchange Project, under a free, open-source license. Nearly six year...
Platforms & Apps
Stephanie Leffler, CEO of MonsterCommerce

November 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Stephanie Leffler says anybody who thinks a successful ecommerce business is about putting up a website in five minutes and counting the money in their pajamas is in for a rude awakening. To her, ecommerce is a real business that requires every bit the investment of time, energy and mon...
Platforms & Apps
Blog Platforms: Choose One that Fits Your Need

October 1, 2005 • Paul Chaney

You have bitten the bullet and decided to add a blog to your ecommerce site and make it a part of your marketing mix. You made the strategic decision of why you want to blog, determined what your core message will be and the audience you wish to target. Now, you have to make some tactic...
Platforms & Apps
How To Choose A Shopping Cart

September 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Mark Baartse has identified 137 different shopping carts. Baartse tries to identify which are the best for the myriad applications required in the ecommerce industry.
Platforms & Apps
How Does Shopping Cart Software Work?

January 15, 2004 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

Just what is a shopping cart? It's a term that has come to mean either an online ordering system (separate from your regular website). Usually these supply HTML code for "order buttons" that you can paste into pages on your regular website.

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