OpenCart is an open-source PHP based ecommerce software it uses a MySQL database and HTML components and helps user to setup the own online store and run the ecommerce business cost effectively. Support is provided for various languages and currencies, and it's freely on the market beneath the gnu General Public License. Following are the major concepts covered.

• OpenCart
• History of OpenCart
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Process to start an OpenCart store

OpenCart is an e-commerce cart application designed with its own in-house framework that uses the Model view Controller (MVC) language pattern; so every module in OpenCart also follows the MVCL patterns. The controller creates logic and gathers data from the model and passes it to show them within the view. The OpenCart modules have admin and catalog folders. The files within the admin folder facilitate in controlling the settings of modules and also the files within the catalog folder handle the presentation layer (front-end). Every module has its own files by which it gets modular, and changing one module's file doesn't have an effect on other modules. The main target of OpenCart is the people who wants to start an online store – most suitable for small and medium range online store.

Initially OpenCart was developed for walnut creek CDROM by Christopher G. Mann in the year 1998 and later used for FreeBSD Mall and the primary public versions was released on 11 may, 1999, OpenCart was developed in Perl and the project was treated has small activity, the progress was stopped in the year 2000, with Mann posting a message on April 11 stating "other commitments are keeping me from OpenCart development". Daniel kerr a UK based developer revived before the domain expired in February 2005, Daniel kerr used the basis for the e-commerce software which was written in PHP, the primary stable release was version 1.1.1, on 10 February 2009 the version released onto Google code. The version 2.0 was released in October 2014 with an improved structure of the interface. The version 2.2.0.0 was released in March 2016 with the help of OpenCart community by testing for months.

Administration - Neat, clear and simple to manage administration panel is one of the largest advantages of OpenCart. it may not be as advanced as PrestaShop or Magento, however it is a better choice for the first-timers. Efficiency and server resources - OpenCart have no inbuilt functionalities as in PrestaShop or Magento. However that is what makes it much less demanding once it comes to server's RAM. Of course adding too several plugis could eventually lead to a drop in speed and efficiency. Modifications - MVC model utilized in the script makes it quite simple to "get around" the code and modify it by programmers. Particularly by those programmers, who've worked with MVC before. The script, unlike PrestaShop, isn't supported a "Smart" style template system, however there is a clear structure of graphics templates. That is why there ought to be no problem setting up the shop's look. MVC and XHTML - First of all, the script design is based on a popular program model referred to as MVC (Model-View-Controller). Secondly the script, just as Quick.Cart and Magento, is XHTML compliant. Huge number of plugins - Free version of the script isn't as rich once it comes to functionalities as PrestaShop or Magento, but it's, at least in part, balanced by about 1600 free and 4000 paid plugins. Unfortunately it's not so nice when watching it more closely. These numbers include plugins for all versions. If you're looking simply at the most recent version, one can get "only" 1500 plugins. Many programmers creating the plugins compete against each other. It suggests that the number of unique functionalities is much smaller than the number of plugins. On the other hand it also suggests that, after one buy/download an advanced client reports plugin, there is about a dozen to choose from. Community - One can get the technical support from the community and a number of users contributing to OpenCart is not as impressive as compared to PrestaShop.

CSS and JavaScript - Basic unoptimized version of the script makes the client to transfer about 500 KB of just CSS and JavaScript code. It's regarding identical quantity as for Magento, many times as much as for PrestaShop and almost 13 times more than for quick.Cart. However OpenCart is not as developed as Magento. Fortunately it is easy to remedy for a programmer. Html code to amount of given contents ratio is quite nice. Updating and plugins - It typically happens, that when shopping for some plugins for OpenCart and then updating the script to a newer version, some of the functionalities won't work or show errors. Several plugin authors releases updates, however generally it could take a while.

Following steps give the brief explanation for the process to use OpenCart store.

• OpenCart uses Model View Controller (MVC) language pattern.
• OpenCart is based on PHP and uses the MySQL database and HTML components.
• OpenCart support various languages and currencies.
• OpenCart have huge number of plugins.