1. Background

To develop interactive e-commerce websites, an advance level of content management and is required to enhance the functionality of an e-commerce website.

Nopcommerce is one of the best feature to effectively do the same and is equally capable to support individual entrepreneurs and large-scale businesses as well.

2. Introduction and Features of NopCommerce

2.1.  History

Nop, started in 2008 by Andrei Mazulnitsyn is an open source eCommerce solution. Developed with ASP.NET MVC 4.0 and database used is SQL Server – 2008. It’s launch officially was held in October 2008 for small and medium sized businesses. 2010-2011 was nop reached final of Packt Open Source E-Commerce Award. It was listed in top 20 most downloaded applications by Microsoft Web Platform Installer.

2.2.  Demo

Without an configuration or installation, access to Nop demo store is available online. The Demo highlights the rich features and easy functionality of nopcommerce. Hence, it is preferred to check it.

2.3.  Features

It is a rich-feature eCommerce solution.

1)      Mobile commerce2)      Multi-store3)      Multi-vendor support 4)      Product features 5)      Search engine optimization 6)      Checkout 7)      Marketing 8)      Payment methods 9)      Shipping features 10)   Tax features 11)   Customer service 12)   Secure

1. Mobile commerce – It comprises of multiple well-designed templates that vary consistently to showcase optimized content for different types of devices and browsers.

2. Multi-store – It allows to run exclusive domains for more than one store to help manage all this from nopcommerce admin panel.

3. Multi-vendor support – It allows vendors to simultaneously sell on your eCommerce website; for instance, Amazon. Various products from several independent vendors can be commonly observed in the product catalog and your online customers can shop at one web store from any of the vendor as per choice.

4. Product features – It has crossed the level where if there is no WOW experience for your customer, you shall be losing sale. An online customer expects global standards while shopping from a e-commerce website.

5. Search engine optimization – To increase the visibility of your website search results, SEO is must. NopCommerce provides an out of the box, comprehensive SEO.

6. Checkout – The utmost used eCommerce website these days are “Anonymous checkout” and “One-page checkout” that is supported as a default by nopcommerce to support well-designed checkout options.

7. Marketing – To run marketing campaigns on your eCommerce website,there are variety of popular marketing features that nopcommerce offers to its customers like “Reward Points System”, “Discounts and Coupons”, “supports news, forums, polls, blog, and custom pages (topics)”, “Gift Card”, “Product Review and Ratings”, “Affiliate program”, etc.

8. Payment methods – Integrated with more than 50 payment options and gateways, customers get the freedom to pay in their own ways as nopcommerce also accepts majority of debit/credit cards.

9. Shipping features – The well-designed tools helps the owner to cater customers across globe.

10. Tax features – It allows to assign tax to order category wise and country/ state wise.

11. Customer service – It offers some great customer service tools by default such as “External authentication”, “Wish List”, “RTL support”, “Customer attributes”, “GDPR support”, “Security and permissions”, “Live chat integration”, etc., which allows to provide High-Quality Customer Experience.

12. Secure – NopCommerce is PCI-DSS compliant. Hence, you can stay rest assured that software powering your eCommerce website is safe, secure, and well equipped in handling your customer’s information and financial transactions.

3. Configuration and Installation of NopCommerce

It is very easy to download and install nopCommerce on your computer or local machine. Just follow the following steps step-by-step in mentioned sequence.

3.1.  First Step: Download Latest version

• Visit nopCommerce website and click on “download” tab and then click on “Download nopCommerce” option. You will reach the nopCommerce Download page.

• Choose the first option that says “nopCommerce 4.00 – Source code” and download the nopCommerce setup to your computer.

• After downloading the nopCommerce setup file, extract the file.

3.2.  Second Step: Load Installation Screen

• After extracting open the nopCommerce Setup in Visual Studio.

• Once the Visual Studio is open, wait for the Solution to load. For installation then click on “Nop Web” right click on “Presentation”. Click on Internet explorer button in the middle. It will open up browser and will load installation screen of nopCommerce.

3.3.  Third Step: Create Database to Install

• Open SQL Server Management Studio to create a datase for nopCommerce installation. After opening right click on “Database” folder and then left click on the “New Database” option to create a new database where the nopCommerce will be installed.

• Now you can name your Database (as per your choice) over there. So, we are using the name “testdatabase” and then click “Ok” at the bottom. It will create a new database entry and also without tables.

3.4.  Fourth Step: Completing Installation

• To create an Administrator after creating the database, go back to the nopCommerce installation screen and fill in the required field. Then check the box for “Create Sample Data”. Select “Database” radio-button “Use SQL Server (or SQL Express) database [Recommended]”. Then, select radio-button of “Connecting string” option and “Enter SQL connection value”.

Important Note: Please make sure Administrator credential are noted as they will be needed to make changes to your eCommerce website.

• After this, fill the database information for the database we created in the SQL Server Management Studio. From Server Management Studio credential screen; name of server should be obtained to obtain. The Database name is the one we created “testdatabase”. In the next fields, use the credentials that you use for your SQL Server Management Studio software.

• After all the above fields are filled properly click the button “Install” and the nopCommerce will be installed on your computer.

• To confirm installation, go back to SQL Server Management Studio and refresh it. During the nopCommerce installation process, it shall be listed under the newly created database table folder to help you find all the tables installed.

• Go back to the browser and click on “login” to access your administrator panel for your eCommerce website. Then enter the “Administrator credential” used for installation. Customise your store as per requirements to access the Admin panel.

4. Summary

Project structure of nopCommerce is well organized, highly scalable and easy to customize while compared to other open source e-commerce solutions. One of the best things about nopCommerce is that it is “Free” and there are no hidden fees or any other traps. It fits today’s highly competitive business environment and is a robust eCommerce platform that serves all needs.

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Pankaj Patel

Team Lead (.Net) at Dev Information Technology Ltd.

I am a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) having experience in Enterprise Solutions, Web Application, Windows Services, Web Services, JavaScript & jQuery, MS SQL, Postgres, Oracle, etc. My expertise is in ASP .NET, MVC, C#, MSSQL, JavaScript & jQuery. I am a technology enthusiast and currently exploring on Angular and Core API.

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