8 Reasons Why OpenCart is One of the Best E-commerce Platforms for Your Startup

Once you have your e-commerce business idea sorted, the next important decision is choosing the right platform. Honestly, it’s not an easy task. With so many platforms out there, it gets really confusing, really quickly while trying to zero in on the best e-commerce platform for your business.

We have worked on a variety of such platforms to date for clients with a range of requirements. Out of those, OpenCart stood out.

For example, while working with RainVac, one of the largest Rainbow vacuum parts and service company, we needed to replicate the orders placed across its multiple sales channels to be imported to OpenCart. Also, tracking details needed to be sent back from OpenCart to the respective sales channels.

It went quite smoothly. We automated the information flow back and forth between the sales channels and OpenCart. This automated data sync made tracking all details quick and easy. Result – swift order fulfillment, a happy client, and lessons learned. Check out the complete portfolio.

So what makes OpenCart so good? Let’s find out.

Open for Customization

OpenCart being an open-source platform, it allows you to customize it as much as you like. This comes in handy because every e-commerce store has unique features and not all of these features are provided by other platforms. With OpenCart, you can easily develop extensions and add customizations of your own.

Basic skills you need to customize your store on OpenCart – PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS and an idea about MVC (Model-View-Controller) structure.

 

Ease of Use

OpenCart is extremely easy to work with. It has a very simple procedure of installation. All you need to do after that is select a template, start adding products and you are in business. It has an excellent, mobile-friendly administrative panel that is easy to get used to.

Even if you get stuck somewhere, OpenCart has a mountain of information, tutorials, tips, and documentation to get you through. For every problem you face, OpenCart is sure to have a solution. If you are still unable to find a way, you can always reach out to us. We are happy to help.

Cost-effectiveness

While starting a business, capital is usually low. Good news is, OpenCart is free. So, all you need to spend on are domain and hosting. OpenCart has paid modules too. But the free version is loaded with enough features to start a fully functional online store. The custom add-ons are also very economical.

Multi-Language & Currency

Want to expand your startup to the international market? No problem. OpenCart has got you covered. It is available in 17 different languages. This means your store can be fully translated into these 17 languages. Apart from that, you can add any currency to your store. Your customers can then choose the relevant one while making a purchase.

Numerous Ready-to-Use Templates

With OpenCart, you have hundreds of readymade templates at your disposal. This is quite helpful in the initial stage of the business since it’s cheap and can be implemented quickly.

Check out some of the amazing OpenCart templates in the short video below:

Efficient Sales Analysis

OpenCart has an excellent sales reporting system which is exceptionally helpful for any business. It generates reports of the number of sales on a daily/weekly/monthly basis and also reports on the performance of the products on the website. It’s quite useful for business development.

The Advantage of the Multi-Store

OpenCart’s ‘Multi-Store Mode’ is one of the most talked-about features. It allows you to manage multiple online stores of a website from one administrative panel. This becomes especially handy when your e-commerce store begins to branch out. The best part is, this feature is not restricted by factors like products, design, language, customer database or modules.

SEO-Friendliness

When it comes to SEO, OpenCart is one of the best e-commerce platforms. Be it ALT tags, meta descriptions, robots.txt file etc., OpenCart has all of these and more to cater to your SEO strategies. It also has a very handy extension for Google Analytics Dashboard. This will give you all the traffic details you need of your website.

 

While Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and the likes hold their grounds when it comes to e-commerce platforms, OpenCart packs a lot of essential and handy features at a low cost. But surprisingly it is an under-appreciated platform because of its simplicity. It’s flexibility, ease of use and cost effectiveness make it one of the best e-commerce platforms to go with.