25 juin 2020
CMS or Framework, there are many platforms for designing an e-commerce site. The choice depends on your needs, the complexity of your products or the progress of your project.
Here we present to you the interfaces we use and their characteristics.
CMS e-commerce side
A CMS (Content Management System) is an interface for designing and managing a website or application. It allows you to create, publish, modify content without necessarily needing programming expertise.
The three CMS we recommend:
- _WooCommerce_
WooCommerce is an extension of the WordPress CMS intended for the design of online stores. This platform appears to be the simplest and most common way to set up your e-commerce site.
If its installation is free, you can personalize the site by adding plugins, sometimes paid, to access certain functionalities (adding filters on products, customizing the design, payment management, etc.). As an example, we can cite Yoast, an SEO plugin, or Stripe, a payment module.
Using WooCommerce is inexpensive and therefore seems relevant for small projects. This is also the solution we recommend if you want to integrate an online store into your showcase site.
- _Prestashop_
Prestashop is a complete French editor, whose installation is open source. The advantage of a French platform is access to documentation and modules in French, which makes understanding easier. Prestashop is, however, available in several languages, which allows its application internationally.
The development of an e-commerce site via this CMS requires, just like WooCommerce, the installation of modules which may be chargeable. Prestashop offers many features allowing you to personalize your e-shop and manage specific tasks (orders, payment, products, etc.).
Prestashop is particularly recommended to meet the requirements of VSEs and SMEs.
- _Magento_
Magento is a very powerful editor that appears to be the leader in the sector. This CMS actually offers two platforms: Magento Open source, a free version offering basic functionalities and which can be supplemented by extensions, and Magento Commerce, a paid business version.
Magento allows the design of a tailor-made site, with unlimited customization. Indeed, it offers a wide range of functionalities and extensions can be added.
However, Magento is more complex software and designing a site using this interface can be very expensive. Indeed, there are few free themes, and costs generated by hosting, extensions, developments or even the cost of maintenance.
The enterprise version offers new features, including a B2B solution. Another advantage of the business offer that we can highlight: Cloud hosting is included in the license.
Magento is the recommended solution for setting up large online stores or more complex projects, requiring for example multilingual, multi-currency or even multi-shop management.
Another interesting solution for your e-commerce: Sylius
The particularity of Sylius is that it is an open source e-commerce framework linked to Symfony.
A framework is a development base integrating a certain number of functions to simplify the work of a developer. Symfony is a PHP framework intended for creating complex websites or applications.
Presented as an easy-to-use tool, Sylius offers great customization possibilities thanks to the flexibility of the interface. The functionalities are numerous: management of categories, products and their variations, order management, management of payment methods and promotions, etc.
In addition, Sylius also offers the addition of extensions called bundles, providing additional functionality.
These features are modular. This makes it possible to avoid cluttering the working framework, by only selecting the modules necessary for each project.
There is a paid version intended for businesses, Sylius Plus, which offers advanced solutions and a more complete support service, which presents an interesting advantage for project developers.
Sylius appears to be an effective solution for carrying out specific projects quickly and simply.
To conclude, there are different solutions for setting up your e-commerce site. The solution you should choose for your site depends on your needs (size and complexity of the project, budget, etc.).
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