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A review of LiteCommerce
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
If you are looking for an e-commerce package, there are plenty of options available to you, but the one you choose depends on your level of expertise. OSCommerce, ZenCart, cpCommerce and CubeCart are all free solutions, but to make any changes requires a level of coding knowledge. If you are happy to have an 'out of the box' appearance and be restricted to the original functions, this could be your way forward.
LiteCommerce on the other hand is a commercial package, and a younger sibling of the hugely popular X-Cart. The basic package costs $95 (approximately £55) for the linux version and paid-for add-on modules cost from $8 (approximately £4.60). Free modules such as bestsellers, froogle integration and multi-currency are also available.
Litecommerce is incredibly easy to install, with both windows and manual install options. Once on your webspace, there is a Quick Start Wizard, guiding you through all the steps required to getting your shop up and running. This wizard is available at all times, so you can refer back to it when needed.
In the administration interface, there are options for all aspects of running the store - both the front end, including how the store appears - and the back end so you can keep track of orders, popular items etc...Everything is presented in a logical way, and you are not bamboozled by the sheer number of options available to you.
When using free e-commerce software, the support can be hit-and-miss e.g. you can post questions in the user forums but no-one is obliged to answer them or give you the correct information (this is not usually the case that I've experienced but it has happened).
LiteCommerce comes with 150 support points, which equates to quite a few queries to technical support. You can 'hot rush' your queries meaning that they'll be given priority, but do cost you double. Their technical support staff are second-to-none, both times I've had to use them - with information being both timely and accurate. In addition, you can join the LiteCommerce forums, and chat with other users of the software, for support information, how-to's and general stuff relating to your e-commerce site.
The appearance of your store can be controlled through the admin interface, or you can actually edit the store templates in FrontPage, DreamWeaver etc...The entire package is template driven which means you can alter almost anything you want. The version I have used is written in PHP, which means that if you do want to get your hands dirty, you can do! (But remember to always make a backup first...).
To extend the functionality of the store, there are different extension modules available. Installation of these literally takes seconds from the admin interface which is a huge time-saving on some of the free packages.
To summarise - as a user of the free e-commerce packages, I was pleasantly surprised by the cost, support and functionality of LiteCommerce, and would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get their e-commerce website off the ground in a short space of time, whilst being able to expand the site as necessary through extension modules.
To see LiteCommerce in action, see their demo. A full feature list can be found here.
