Features

General

• Driven by our own daily experiences (http://www.demmelhuber.net/shop)
• Open Source and free (GNU GPL)
• Easy to install (less than 5 minutes)
• Integrates seamlessly into the website (Content Management System)
• Powerful search: similarity search ("summerhose" finds summerhouse); live search: results are displayed while entering the search phrase; filtering of the search results.
• Images are automatically scaled and/or cut while they are uploaded
• Bulk upload of images via Browser (Flash), FTP and WebDAV
• Versioning and Staging
• Connected to Google Analytics (default and e-commerce functionality)

Technology

• Based on Python, Zope and Plone
• Object oriented
• Modular
• Pluggable (open for own extensions via Zope's component model)
• Scalable

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• 100% valid HTML
• Well formed URLs: (http://www.shop.com/gardenhouses, http://www.shop.com/gardenhouse-type-p845
• Automatical redirect (301) if the URL of a product or category has been changed
• Automatical generation of a sitemap.xml.gz

Layout

• Easy to use formatting to display products of a given category. The view can be modified conveniently by formats (One can change for instance: image size, text type, number of rows and columns).
• Easy selection and display of any product (e.g. offers of the week)
• Easy assigning of portlets (cart, offers, information, etc.): left, right, top, bottom

Products

• Management of any given number of products with article id, description, price, etc.
• Displaying of related products
• Products can be assigned sale prices. The sales price overwrites the default price and is displayed highlighted
• Management of any number of images. They are diplayed in galleries.
  
• Products can have an any number of properties that may affect price as an optional feature.
• Products can be handled with any number of variants based on above-mentioned properties. Variants can have different content than the parent product, like title, article id, price, images, descriptions, etc.

Categories

• Categories are used structure products in clusters.
• Categories are visible for the shop customer and used to browse through the shop
• There can be any number of categories
• Categories can be freely convoluted (logical and physical)
• Products can be assigned to a user-defined number of categories

Groups

• Groups are used to structure products internally
• Groups are not visible for the shop customer
• There can be any number of groups
• Groups can be assigned several attributes (and in this way to the products which belong to these groups): taxes, product properties.

Checkout

• One-page checkout or checkout via several steps: addresses, payment, shipping, etc.
• Checkout for anonymous and/or logged in users

User management

• Management of any number of users
• Users can manage several addresses, bank accounts and credit cards

Taxes

• Management of any sum of taxes
• Assignment of taxes on base of criteria: category, group, product, customer, country, date

Payment methods

• PayPal
• Per invoice
• Pre-payment
• Direct debit
• Cash on delivery
• Credit card
• Adding of user-defined payment methods
• Variable restriction of available payment methods based on criteria: country, customer, price, weight, etc.
• Variable calculation of payment costs based on criteria: payment method, country, customer, price, weight, etc.

Shipping methods

• Management of any shipping methods
• Variable restriction of available shipping methods based on criteria: payment method, country, customer, price, weight, etc.
• Variable calculation of shipping costs based on criteria: payment method, country, customer, price, weight, etc.

Discounts

• Managment of any discounts
• Percental or absolute discounts
• Assignment of discounts based on criteria: product, amount, customer, date, etc.

Stockmanagement

• Assignment of availability and delivery time based on criteria: product, category, groups, stock size, etc.

Information pages

• Management of any given number of information pages such as terms and conditions or warranties
• Display of information pages based on criteria: product, category, group, date, customer, country, etc.
• Optional popup window provides information as text and pdf

Criteria

• Criteria are a central approach which is used to make several objects available to different customers
• Criteria are used for:
  • Discounts
  • Information pages
  • Payment methods/prices
  • Shipping methods/prices
  • Stock information
  • Taxes
• Following criteria are available (and it is easy to make one's own)
  • Category
  • Customer
  • Country
  • Date
  • Group
  • Payment Method
  • Cart Price
  • Product
  • Shipping Method
  • Weight
• Examples:
  • Credit card payment is available starting at a certain minimal price
  • Payment method "cash" is only available for shipping method "pick up"
  • Different shipping prices for several weights
  • Special taxes for customers abroad

Add-ons

• Blog
• Contact form generator
• Forum
• Rating
• Newsletter
• Polling