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.
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: ShopVisible
January 30, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart systems. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile a specific cart, asking the cart's owners and users about its strengths and weaknesses. Here we profile ShopVisible, an Atlanta-based hosted cart solution that s...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: X-Cart
January 23, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature we profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart, asking about its strengths and weaknesses. We profile X-Cart, a Cyprus-based licensed cart, in this installment. We as...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: LiveCart
January 16, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature we profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart, asking about its strengths and weaknesses. For this installment, we asked Rinalds Uzkalns, owner of Lithuania-based UA...
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Platforms & Apps
The PeC Review: Magento Is the Open Source Powerhouse
January 12, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Magento is an open source ecommerce platform designed to empower online merchants and remove barriers in business process and flow. The platform has been downloaded more than 600,000 times, Magento says, perhaps making it the fastest growing ecommerce solution in the market. With a fu...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Shopcreator
January 9, 2009 • Brendan Gibbons
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature we profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart, asking about its strengths and weaknesses. For this installment, we asked Alex Stephens, marketing director at U.K.-ba...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: SearchFit
December 19, 2008 • PEC Staff
There are over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In our ongoing “Cart Of The Week” feature, we profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart, asking about its strengths and weaknesses. For this installment, we’ve profiled SearchFit, a hosted cart with offices in Carlsbad, Cali...
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Platforms & Apps
NetSuite Aims to Increase eCommerce Efficiencies
December 17, 2008 • Michael A. Cox
Ten years ago, Evan Goldberg was grousing at Oracle Chief Larry Ellison about the lack of an ecommerce business management software bundle. Ellison challenged Goldberg to do something about it, and the result is NetSuite.
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Yahoo!
December 12, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart, asking about its strengths and weaknesses. For this installment, we asked Paul Boisvert, Product Manager at Yahoo! ...
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Platforms & Apps
NetSuite CEO on the Rise of Hosted Software
December 10, 2008 • Kerry Murdock
Many experts predict that hosted software solutions will continue to grow. Software-as-a-service is another term for these hosted solutions, and examples of larger ones are NetSuite.com, Salesforce.com and Google Apps.
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Volusion
December 5, 2008 • Armando Roggio
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this, our "Cart of the Week" feature, we’ll profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart and ask its management about strengths and weaknesses. We’ll then ask a customer about the cart, too. This week, we ...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Mountain Commerce Emphasizes Search Engine Friendliness
November 28, 2008 • Brendan Gibbons
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this ongoing "Cart of the Week" feature, we profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart, asking about its strengths and weaknesses. For this installment, we asked Taunia Kipp, Chief Operating Officer and ...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: Sure Solutions’ Actinic Shopping Cart
November 21, 2008 • Armando Roggio
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this, our "Cart of the Week" feature, we’ll profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart and ask its management about its strengths and weaknesses. We’ll then ask a customer about the cart, too. In this in...
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Platforms & Apps
Cart of the Week: MightyMerchant Offers Full-Service Ecommerce Platform
November 14, 2008 • Armando Roggio
Practical eCommerce counts over 300 different shopping cart platforms. In this, our “Cart Of The Week” feature, we’ll profile—but not evaluate—a specific shopping cart and ask its management about its strengths and weaknesses. We’ll then ask a competitor or a customer about the cart, to...
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Platforms & Apps
Maxthon: China’s Ad Smashing, Proxy Switching, Web Browser
November 11, 2008 • Armando Roggio
The Maxthon web browser brings several great features to the same platform as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) and lets users pretend to be from other counties so they can access otherwise restricted sites. For the past several weeks, Practical eCommerce has been reviewing the leadin...
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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,...
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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...
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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.
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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 ...
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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...
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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 ...
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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.
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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...
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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.