However, we know that in this difficult economic climate there are many who are thinking about starting a Online Ecommerce Business, but are perhaps deterred by the cost and commitment required. That’s why we’ve decided to lower the entry bar for Start-Up businesses.

Having just upgraded web space and bandwidth on both our single-site Starter and Business hosting packages we have also now instituted a system of quarterly payments. Previously, for these two packages, there was only an annual payment option. You can now get your eCommerce site online for just £11.99 (plus vat) per quarter.

You still get a free domain (all common domain types – see our site for full details), and a free install of an eCommerce shopping cart website (Zen Cart, Magento, Prestashop, osCommerce).

For those that want a Full SSL Certificate, rather than use our Shared SSL Certificate, we’ve also lowered the cost of purchasing Full SSL for your website.

It doesn’t get easier than this to get your dream business online!

Read below for comparison or if you have have experience with either cart, leave a comment about the good and bad bits.

Magento

Magento (community edition) is a free open source shopping cart started by Varien in 2007. Magento impresses with its extensive feature list. Most functions which need to be added on with other carts come as standard. It’s ideally suited for companies who need a professional online shop presence.

• highly flexible coupon and pricing functions
• comprehensive filter functionality (filter products by)
• multi-store as standard
• ability to create and edit orders in admin
• large number of high quality modules via Magento Connect
• no need to hack core code
• impressive template system

Magento sometimes gets a bad press for being too complex and server resource-intensive. Both are fair comments, but should not put you off considering Magento. With the right developers on board and a high-end hosting environment, Magento can provide extensive functionality at open source level.

Zen Cart

Zen Cart is an open source project started in 2003, based originally on osCommerce. Zen Cart impresses with its realiability, solid feature list and ease of use, making it ideal for shop owners who intend to handle development themselves.

• highly reliable
• includes all standard features to sell online
• easy to understand templating and PHP structure
• suitable for coders beginning with PHP
• light footprint making it very accessible for shared hosting environments
• friendly forum
• active development team

That Zen Cart has been around since 2003 however shows in its PHP coding structure. However this downside is exactly what makes it accessible to beginners in PHP and makes it an ideal first cart for new coders.

ReadyCart

ReadyCart is based on osCommerce and available under licence from TerraNetwork. It was developed in-house to address the needs of businesses for a reliable cart with commercial support. ReadyCart is now discontinued as we have decided to focus on Magento and Zen Cart development instead.

Why only these three carts?

We’re not attempting to compare all carts – that would simply be impractical. Other carts exist and have their own merits. For example there’s PrestaShop, developed in France and well worth a look. Or for a simpler shop, maybe WordPress with a plug-in would suit.

Cart Comparison tables

Essentials

Both Magento and Zen Cart run on the LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). Zen Cart is quick to install and is kind to shared hosting environments. Magento is more demanding and requires a high-end hosting enviroment. Zen Cart is usually quick to learn by simply “going in and playing around” whereas for Magento a guide or read on the wiki will help you to get your bearings.

	Magento	Zen Cart	ReadyCart
Requirements	PHP5.2 MySQL4.1.20+, InnoDB, cURL	PHP4.0+ MySQL4.1.14+	PHP4.0+ MySQL4.1.14+
Open Source?
Unlimited products?
Fee?	none	none	£295 +VAT
SSL support	full SSL	full or shared SSL	full or shared SSL
Knowledge level for coding?	advanced	intermediate	intermediate
Ease of use?	intermediate	easy	easy

Site Management

Magento has multi-shop as standard, a feature very rarely seen with other carts and a comprehensive templating system. WYSIWYG editor is missing but easily added. Zen Cart is a reliable cart with all features necessary to sell online.

	Magento	Zen Cart	ReadyCart
Multi-store
Multi-Lingual			add-on
Support for Multiple Currencies
Tax Rate support
iPhone optimised
Template system		limited
WYSIWYG?	add-on
Page content management		limited	limited
Email template management
Administration Permission System Roles and Users		add-on	add-on
One-click installs of modules

Catalog Management

Magento impresses with the product filters whilst Zen Cart makes it easy for new shops to get started quickly.

	Magento	Zen Cart	ReadyCart
Batch Import and Export of catalog		add-on	add-on
Google Base Integration		add-on	add-on
Downloadable/Digital Products
Layered / Faceted Navigation for filtering of products		limited
Product comparisons
Product reviews

Product Management

Bundled products and stock control for attributes stand out with Magento. Zen Cart however has some good features if you want customers to call for price or only use it as brochure-type site.

	Magento	Zen Cart	ReadyCart
Multiple Images Per Product
Reports		limited
Bundled products (show several products on one page)
Up-sells in Shopping Cart
Stock Control		limited	limited
Products can be marked as free or Call for Price	add-on		add-on
Min or max quantities and units	add-on		add-on

Marketing, Sales and SEO

Probably the most important section for online shops these days. Magento has created an comprehensive discount functionality making it very easy to run campaigns. Gift Certificates however are not included in Magento, but they are with Zen Cart.

	Magento	Zen Cart	ReadyCart
Google Site Map		add-on	add-on
URL Rewrites		add-on	add-on
Meta-information for products and categories			automated
Discount Coupons		limited	limited
Catalog Promotional Pricing
Multi-tier pricing			add-on
Customer groups each with its own pricing structure		add-on	add-on
Wishlist
Newsletter
Gift Certificates

Checkout

Getting the checkout right is crucial for sales conversions. Magento recognises this by offering one-page checkout and the ability to buy without having to open an account (guest checkout). It also comes with Google checkout and PayPal as standard. Zen Cart on the the other hand offers a solid standard checkout.

	Magento	Zen Cart	ReadyCart
Delivery / Billling address
One-Page Checkout		add-on	add-on
Checkout without account/Guest Checkout		add-on	add-on
Shipping to multiple addresses in one order
Integrated with Google Checkout (Level 2)		add-on	add-on

Order Management

Creating orders in admin is often required e.g. for orders taken by phone and Magento offers this as standard. Zen Cart does make order management simpler though by allowing you to create your own order statuses.

	Magento	Zen Cart	ReadyCart
Manage orders from admin
create, edit orders from admin panel.		add-on	add-on
Create one or multiple invoices, shipments and credit memos per order to allow for split fulfillment
Order statuses	preset only

Comments welcome!

Have you used Magento or ZenCart? If yes, what are your experiences? Let us know by sending a comment below!

The upgrade test was carried out on a standard Magento v1.3.0 install on a Linux with PHP5.2.9. Note that Magento does not allow gradual upgrades, at least not via the Magento Connect Manager. If you use the Manager, it’s all or nothing.

Preparation

Never, ever upgrade on a live site unless you really fancy a nervous break-down. The route to sanity is:

• a staging (test) environment, preferably on a separate domain to avoid all temptation of over-writing the wrong files
• backups, backups, backups. Backups are like a life-vest – cumbersome until you really need them

Staging Environment: Upgrade

Assuming you’re safely on your test/staging copy, access Magento Connect Manager by going in your browser to the “yourmagentoshop”/downloader/ folder or log into your Magento admin and go to “System -> Magento Connect -> Magento Connect Manager”. Click “check for upgrades”. If nothing happens and/or no upgrades show, then you probably installed Magento without the PEAR downloader. In order to get upgrades via Magento Connect to work, you need to enter “magento-core/Mage_All_Latest ” in the extension key field. If at this stage all goes to pot, check my problem section below.

The Magento Knowledgebase says: It is possible that you will see no extensions in MagentoConnect Manager. This means that you have just uploaded the files without using PEAR downloader. In that case enter magento-core/Mage_All_Latest in the extension key field and click Install button. This will install all latest MagentoConnect core packages on top of existing files and will allow future upgrades through MagentoConnect. Source: www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/upgrading_magento

1. Click ‘Select all upgradable extensions’
2. Click ‘Commit changes’
3. Watch the console progress for error messages
4. After successfully upgrading click the ‘Refresh’ button that will appear under the console frame.

Check your customisations / templates

If you’ve come to this stage, it’s now a case of testing all your customisations to make sure they still work on the new version. I find scenarios a good help in this – have test routines such as purchasing, browsing etc which systematically test all key areas of your site.

Apply to live site

If you’ve tested, fixed anything that’s broken then you’re ready to apply to your live site. But only after you’ve taken that backup!

Problem #1 Magento Connect & Permissions

If you did not install Magento via the PEAR downloader, then you first have to run the command magento-core/Mage_All_Latest through Magento Connect. And this will screw up your file/folder permissions rendering your entire site as one big “500 Internal Server Error”.
Solution: Via the SSH client of your choice (e.g. Putty) run the following 2 commands:
find ./ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find ./ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
Sources: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/9188/P15/#t56614

UPDATE:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/227/resetting_file_permissions is the Wiki page.

Problem #2 turnOffSecretKey(Array ( ) )

When I logged back into /downloader, all I got was: “Invalid method Mage_Adminhtml_Model_Url::turnOffSecretKey(Array ( ) )”.
Solution: You need to manually overwrite app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Model/Url.php with the latest version
Sources: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/38995/P15/#t127985

Problem #3: Still no packages in admin??

After solving problems #1 and #2 I felt on a roll. But hey, the version still said 1.3.0 in my admin. And the Connect Manager did not show a nice long list of stuff to update.
Solution: So I ran magento-core/Mage_All_Latest again and this time, I got a nice long list of stuff without any Internal Server Errors and the upgrade was applied.

Problem #4: Admin template / no drop-downs

But when I returned to admin, the drop-downs weren’t working, rendering the admin inaccessible to me.
Solution: I had to run the 2 SSH permission commands again. Although this time there was no “500 Internal Server Error”, the problem was the same – wrong file permissions.

Problem #5: Install error

During the install, I also encountered the error: “ERROR: failed to write /var/www/html/magento2/skin/adminhtml/default/default/.tmpboxes.css: Non-static method PEAR_Installer_Role::factory() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible contex”.
Seems a bug in the code, so no solution for this.

Concerns

By running the upgrade via Magento Connect Manager I don’t know whether all files were successfully updated. The problem with the Url.php file was obvious, but a nagging doubt remains what other files were missed out without me knowing about it.

I’m also less than impressed that running an upgrade required solving 2 fatal errors, one of which rendered the entire site inaccessible and required SSH access to resolve (SSH access is standard on our hosting packages but some knowledge of command line will be required).

In summary, the upgrade experience confirms my belief that Magento is written for coders who don’t mind the odd command line, are happy to debug and have firm backup habits.

Quick tips

• Use XAMPP 1.7.1 – the version is important! v1.6.8 may also work.
• Enable curl in php.ini
• Install from http://127.0.01 and NOT localhost

XAMPP

To run a PHP/MySQL site on a PC you need a Linux distro, giving you an Apache server on your PC. We use XAMPP – it’s reliable, well-supported and easy to install. When you install XAMPP, the version is VERY important:
XAMPP 1.7.2 uses PHP5.3 which the curent version of Magento can’t handle
XAMPP 1.7.1 is the version I’m using – recommended
XAMPP 1.7.0 does NOT work with Magento – Apache will crash during Magento install
XAMPP 1.6.8 has been reported to work with Magento but I can’t verify this

So if you’re starting from scratch, use v1.7.1. If you have an existing install, check your version and upgrade if necessary. XAMPP project: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html. Older versions can be downloaded from SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/files/. Choose the XAMPP Windows versions.

CURL

By default curl is disabled in XAMPP. Download /apachefriends/xampp/php/php.ini and find the curl extension. Uncomment it by removing the semi-colon in front of it:
extension=php_curl.dll

Installing Magento

Download the latest version of Magento: http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/community-edition
Unzip the folder into your /htdocs/ folder. By default this will unzip into a /magento/ folder.
Create a blank database via your PHPMyAdmin (http://localhost/phpmyadmin)
Go to: http://127.0.0.1/magento/index.php/install and follow the install procedure.

Note that I’m saying “127.0.0.1″. If you use “localhost” cookies won’t work (except in Opera), you won’t be able to log into admin and you will have URL warnings. Localhost isn’t recognised as valid domain name by Magento. Using “127.0.0.1″ gets round that problem as it contains dots.

You’re done & ready to develop your Magento shop offline!