In preparation for one client project, we needed to perform a short review of existing .Net eCommerce solutions - especially 'open source' ones. The highlights of this search are repeated here.
DashCommerce
www.dashcommerce.org
This is a free open source commerce system based on ASP.Net and C#.
The only restriction on the license seems to be the “Powered by dashCommerce“ text – the removal of which costs $250.
The functionality included is easily demonstrated at:
http://demo.dashcommerce.org/
or
http://www.dashcommerce.com/
The admin side of the site provides:
· some limited built-in CMS functionality
· product setup
· shipping setup
· payment setup
· tax setup
· good access to user and order history
The programmatic setup seems good:
· The site uses Subsonic to generate objects for its data access layer.
· The site uses a fairly elegant Provider model for its plugins (e.g. tax, shipping, payment) – but these would require some alterations in order to meet specfic customer needs – they don’t currently allow any UI steps specific for each provider.
In terms of internationalization, everything seems to be in order – text is internationalized and loaded dynamically.
NopCommerce
www.nopcommerce.com
This open source project can be easily seen demoed at:
· http://demo.nopcommerce.com/
The only visible restriction on this code seems to be another “powered by” tag line – this time with a $50 fee available for its removal.
The admin side of the site again provides lots of functionality to view and edit users, orders, products and categories.
The content management looks more sophisticated than the dashcommerce site – includes more options.
The payments are again done using a plugin interface – and this plugin interface looks more flexible than the dashcommerce alternative.
Nopcommerce also seems to have better in-built support for https.
There’s no automated tool used for the data access – but the boiler plate code and SQL Stored procedures all look solidly implemented.
One final plus for nopcommerce – it ran much quicker on download of the source (dashcommerce required all sorts of out of date VS2005 things – whereas nopcommerce runs out of the box on asp.net 3.5 from VS2008).
Examples of skinned nop sites are:
http://www.boldmilitaryjewelry.com
http://www.simplifyleds.com/Default_uk.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
http://www.herjewellerybox.com/
http://www.ibeaninspired.com/
http://www.centreshop.cn/
http://www.sitelog.com/
http://www.mamiclothing.com/
http://www.pacifikaspirit.com/
http://www.clearup.com/
http://gpbatteries.co.za/Default.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
http://www.fandorin.com/News/10-nopcommerce-new-release.aspx
http://definedleader.com/
http://www.yakjangsoo.com/
http://www.bestcheapit.com/
http://www.store.scottbaldridge.com/
http://www.elliebonline.com/Products/759-casio-mens-solor-powered-g-shock-black-anodized-stainless-steel-watch.aspx
Shopping Cart Dot net
http://shoppingcartnet.codeplex.com/
This is a fairly simple – but very open – project.
There’s an example store at:
http://www.fakeye.com/
Not reviewed in depth –functionality seems basic but OK.
DotShoppingCart
http://www.dotshoppingcart.com/ and http://dotshoppingcart.codeplex.com/
This project seems to be a reasonable implementation – and includes many of the CMS features also seen in the nopcommerce installation.
An example use of this cart is at:
http://www.memoryroad.com/Store/Product/Memory%20Cards.aspx
The installation of this code was quick – the installation guide was up to date, short and easy to follow (always nice).
The license for this project is the Mozilla license – which I think is more restrictive than some of the other licenses seen above (e.g. MIT license).
The overall functionality in this product is at a similar level to all those seen above – although they do have some additional nice touches – like a simple way to set up cross selling.
Asp Dot Net Store Front
http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/
This commercial (not open source – but source can be purchased) ecommerce app is well recognized as a market leader. It includes full payment integration – including Verifed By Visa 3-D type support.
For a single server deployment, its cost is somewhere north of $1000.
Given the customer's requirements to adapt the platform, I don’t think this is ideal for this project.
Generic CMS Platforms
There are lots of generic CMS platforms written in .Net – including things like DotNetMuke and umbraco, and including plugin modules such as the successful Catalook module for DotNetNuke. However, these are too generic for this application – this application really is a shopping cart.