Building a functional e-commerce site can be as easy as using a template. That is if the template you are using is the aptly named Ecommerce Templates shopping cart solution from Internet Business Solutions.

Though perhaps not the most powerful e-commerce tool we've tested, the software offers impressive simplicity and ease of use. Ecommerce Templates combines the familiarity of your favorite Web authoring tool (whatever that may be) with ready-built templates to provide a fully functional e-commerce setup with a minimum of fuss.

What It Is
Every Web developer has her own favorite tool and her own server language preference. Ecommerce Templates caters to those differences with a shopping cart solution that integrates with Macromedia's Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive or Microsoft Frontpage or any other generic CSS editing tool, and also has both PHP and ASP versions. Windows users can use either MS-Access, or MS SQL Server for a database while UNIX/Linux users can use MySQL.

(For the purpose of this review we evaluated the Dreamweaver templates, with PHP code running on a Linux server with MySQL as the database. The version of Ecommerce Templates we tested was Ecommerce Plus Templates 4.9.6.)

The Ecommerce Templates solution includes a Web-based control panel administrative tool. The control panel allows for easy configuration of a site's settings as well as product entry and order reporting. Of course, a solution with the name "template" has templates as well, which lay out out the actual site with most of the e-commerce scripts you're likely to need already built in (in the language of your choice, in our test case PHP).

Installation
Unlike WA eCommerce Suite 3 (which we reviewed in October), the Dreamweaver version of Ecommerce Templates is not a collection of Dreamweaver extensions. In fact, there isn't a Dreamweaver extension to be found in the product download. The product is, after all, called Ecommerce Templates and that's exactly how it works as well. It's about the templates.

Ecommerce Templates' control panel provides easy configuration of your site's settings. (Click for larger view)

Integration with Dreamweaver is a simple matter of defining a new site with the Ecommerce Template files as the source.

The template files already have the PHP code (or ASP) embedded, so all you need to do is adjust the design and add content.

A template alone, however, is not enough to have a fully functional site. You still need to create a database connection, which you can do by filling in a few parameters (dbname, user, password, etc.) in the indicated php and then running the script that will populate the database (done through a browser interface).

From that point, it's just a matter of tweaking your site's settings using the online control panel. The entire process is well documented in the 21-page Getting Started manual, which is a subset of the extremely comprehensive 233-page user manual for the whole application, covering all of its various versions.

Features
Multiple payment gateways are integrated into Ecommerce Plus including PayPal, Linkpoint, Netbanx, Payflow, PSiGate, SECPay and World Pay. Additional information on the Ecommerce Templates site helps you connect to other payment gateways including Mirapay, Moneris and USAepay, among others. You can easily set up the payment gateways connections via the online control panel.

Integrated shipping options include Weight-Based, Flat-Rate, Price-Based, U.S.P.S., UPS and Canada Post. As the admin, you get to select the default shipping method.

The program supports is a shipping estimator, a great feature that shows customers the cost of shipping before they hit the checkout button. You can offer customers a choice between shipping carriers. Unfortunately, neither the Carrier Estimator nor the customer shipping carrier selector come enabled by default and cannot be activated with a simple tick of a box in the online control panel. A few (well-documented) line additions in the php (or asp) code are required (at least in the version as tested).

The "Drop Shipping" option also caught our eye when we were evaluating the application. In practice, though, what Ecommerce Plus does with the Drop Shipping option is send an e-mail notification to a vendor (or anyone that you specify) when a particular order is placed. It's just an e-mail, nothing more, though there is a reporting screen that shows what e-mails were sent to vendors.

YOu can add products via the online control panel, which is a painless exercise. However, there doesn't appear to be an ability to load product from an existing database or to load from a spreadsheet.

The online control panel does not yet have the facility to export the product catalog data that you may have entered - which, in our opinion, is also an oversight. Certainly the data resides in your database (in my test case MySQL) and it could be pulled from there, but we would have appreciated an easy button to push that would "export all" to a spreadsheet.

For some, the lack of a more sophisticated product input/export mechanism may well be a deal breaker. Then again, if you're setting a store for the first time and don't yet have product catalog or if you've only got a small a catalog, it's likely not a significant hurdle.

Ecommerce Templates does, however, add something that we've rarely seen in an application like this: Stock Management. It's basic in its implementation in that the stock management isn't tied to any external inventory control system you may have. When you set up a new product in your catalog you specify how many items you have in stock. As the item is sold, stock is depleted.

A basic coupon engine is also part of the mix and lets you to offer flat-rate discounts, percentage discounts and/or free shipping. An affiliate marketing function, notable, though basic, easily allows for affiliates to sign up and manage their accounts.

Customer registration is one area where Ecommerce Templates falls short. After purchasing an item, a buyer can use her e-mail address and order number to view her order status. By default there is no customer registration function, which also means there is no facility for a user to save her shopping carts while shopping.

If you're willing to get into the code a little, the robust user manual does describe a way to enable a customer login feature. The feature permits wholesale pricing/tax/shipping exemption for logged in customers.

Ecommerce Templates offers easy integration with Macromedia's Dreamweaver. (Click for larger view)

A Good Option for Some Users
Though it clearly has a number of shortcomings, Ecommerce Plus Templates does a more-than-adequate job of setting up a reasonable e-commerce storefront. Integration with the Web editor of your choice is a huge bonus and means that from the design point of view you'll be working in an environment that you're familiar with. The fact that the templates already have the requisite php/asp code embedded into them is also a huge plus, giving users the ability to get up and running quickly.

Ecommerce Plus Templates is not for everyone, though. Certainly, people that need heavy customization of e-commerce elements — including some form of product database integration and easy customer registration — will likely not be satisfied by Ecommerce Plus Templates in its current form.

The application is in a state of active development, as we've been advised that a FedEx shipping integration feature will be added in an upcoming version.

The purpose of a template is to make life easier by cutting out repetition and creating a base from which to expand and customize. Ecommerce Templates is by definition and by practice a set of templates.

Ecommerce Templates may well be the right solution for a lot of people that just want to build a reasonable e-commerce site using a Web development tool they already know.

Sean Michael Kerner is a regular contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com.