Web Hosting Reviews and Tips

When it comes to FREE open source e-commerce solutions, OS-Commerce and Zen-Cart are the first names that come to mind. They were and still are the standard for shopping carts and online stores. But like everything else, things change and evolve over time. And one software almost nobody ever mentions is rising up to become the new standard for the next generation of e-commerce platforms – Magento.

At first glance there doesn’t seem to be a big difference between Magento and Zen-Cart. They are both FREE to download and use, they are highly functional, integrated, and customizable solutions. Both have sophisticated shopping carts, product catalogues, and pricing features. Both support multiple languages and currencies, secure payment gateway options, and newsletter marketing campaigns. So why choose a new software if Zen-Cart has been around for so long and made so many people happy?

Well, the truth is that Zen-Cart has not undergone a major change in recent years to make it user-friendlier and to modernize the interface. So other programmers have jumped in and created a similar software but with better features and more modern interface. Magento was designed to be much more intuitive when it comes to setting up your products and prices, etc. It allows for easy bulk upload of your products, something you have to do manually in Zen-Cart (or find a working plugin). That becomes a vital time saver when you have more than 20 products or are creating lots of new products each month. The Zen-Cart interface was designed to be highly functional, but you really gotta be careful what you are doing and without programming skills you’re almost doomed. Magento not only looks more modern, but the user interface is also much more user-friendly and easier to use.

There are other subtle differences that make Magento stand out from the crowd. First, you have more options in customizing your product search categories. Very important if you want to make it easy for people to find what they are looking for fast. Second, if you have a small business and need to integrate your data with say QuickBooks or your ERP Software, Magento will allow you to do that. Next, Magento’s one-page checkout beats Zen-Cart’s 3-page checkout any day. Finally, Magento has a built-in CMS (Content Management System) that lets you customize your static pages with ease. Sure, Zen-Cart has the “EZ Pages”, which are nice but you still have to put HTML code in there. With Magento you have a bult-in editor that allows you to style your page without having to write HTML code. All in all, it just seems like Magento is more up-to-date and uses technologically advanced features.

There are of cause downsides to it. Magento, being a relatively new software on the market, doesn’t have as many extensions and plugins as Zen-Cart has. To customize the software to your liking you might have to hire a programmer or web developer. Zen-Cart’s Banner Manager makes it easier for you to track your advertising campaigns on your site, and there is no current lightbox feature included in Magento, if you’re a big fan of lightboxes you should use Zen-Cart. But then you are probably a web designer and know what you are doing. Magento was designed for people who have little HTML or php knowledge, which of cause doesn’t mean web designers shouldn’t use it ☺

Whether or not Magento will become the new standard for Online Stores remains to be seen. I have been in the web design business for over 5 years and have seen many new things come and go. And one thing is certain; Magento gets me excited and motivated! These guys have taken steps into the right direction and with more people catching on (spread the word!) and developing open source extensions for this software I have no doubt it will ultimately succeed. If nothing else it’s good to see that some people still believe in a good cause and allow you to use their product for FREE. Just think how many hours or painstakingly programming, troubleshooting and testing they have put into this software, just so you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars elsewhere. Isn’t that nice?! Be thankful!

The pro’s say that to keep your business going in this economy takes drastic moves. You have to reach farther than your local market. It is recommended that you go global to stay competitive. If you are hooked up with a worldwide market then the local economy won’t be so devastating to your business.

The idea of going global means that you have a safer customer base. There won’t be anything that could possibly effect all of your customers at once if they are spread apart. You have to start up a web side to your business and make it simple for customers to shop from you online. This will give you the ability to take orders from all over the world and ship there too.

Building up a web business to go hand in hand with your storefront company is a great way to open up to a whole new bunch of customers. It will take your company out of the neighborhood and out into the world. The way that you approach marketing for the site will be different. Because you will be sending things through the mail you have the opportunity to use that packaging to promote.

You can use many items to promote your business. Getting customer enthusiasm from across the globe can be as simple as stuffing a cute mouse mat inside the package that you are about to mail out to your customers. Some things are great for adding to packages, like flash drives and key chains. Small handy items are the best. And remember to use something on the outside of the packaging too. Promotional mailers or even stickers are perfect to grab attention as the package is being mailed.

The best way to keep plenty of customers is by using many different forms of advertising. You will open you business up to a much larger group of possible customers if you spread your business out globally. Going global is a good way to let the whole world know about your product.

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In the developing China e-commerce, integration process is the important step. There have been many hills and valleys in China e-commerce in last some years affecting global sourcing. When internet is growing then everyone in China resort to it in the hope of profit and suddenly they find it unprofitable. This wonder of internet affects the interest of people in e-commerce. In fact internet is only an information provider network system which assistsininternational trade. It has itself no market value but the whole things are created when market activities takes place on the information platform. When changes occur on information level in China e-commerce then only any activity is created on internet.

There are about forty thousand multinational companies operating world wide and almost 200,000 overseas joint ventures that run across the continents. Many of these collaborations and joint ventures have concerns, directly or indirectly, with China business enterprises. The access to China through world-wide international trade investments is increasing day by day.

However, paucity in China e-commerce is created only when activities take place in national and internet front of China. It leads to either loss or profit in international trade for companies based on internet. Integration of China global sourcing and import and export is an important step in this direction taken by big domain names in China e-commerce. With it the goodwill of big domain names is utilized to create perfect communication infrastructure platform in international trade. It is integrated with high brand name, quality structure, developed technology and good quality product in market.

Moreover, due to globalization the extent to which China’s international trade and investments bears an impact is very wide. It is due to globalization that the international market has a direct approach to acquire modern technology and consequently reduce the problems of distribution and stumpy internal coordination expenses. It has opened the doors for the specialization of network services and products with collective support of companies. Business process outsourcing for both internal activities and external activities is the result of globalization of international trade and global investments. Business process outsourcing is the common concept in the entire world and China is one of the leading countries that provide such services. For quality work and performance the outsourcing companies often select China as their business collaborators.

As such they are investing on reasonable price raw materials and labor. However the main reason for all these activities is to get access to a wider market. Although there are some drawbacks of expansion of international trade and investments but if rules of international trade are followed then the problems can be minimized and properly handled. The big size of the Chinese market is a major attraction to many prospective new entrants in international trade and investments.