Develop a custom e-commerce hosting solution based on an open source store platform

Create a custom solution based on an existing e-commerce platform (osCommerce, ZenCart, Magento, etc.) that allows users to sign up and then create one or more stores under their account. Each store should be configurable individually. Users will be charged monthly per store. However, these stores will not actually be used for real sales. Instead, they are intended for marketing research. As a result they have certain features that are non-standard and require modifying the open source e-commerce code. See Detailed Requirements for more information. I do not particularly care which open source e-commerce platform you use or which technology it uses (PHP, ASP.NET, etc.) or even if you develop one from scratch, but it is very important that the design looks clean an polished and that there are many pre-configured options for layout and design available for the user to select from and change at any time. When bidding for this project please indicate which e-commerce platform you are planning to use and why. Also indicate the approximate number of templates / layouts available by default and provide examples if possible. ## Deliverables ** vWorker screwed up the HTML formatting of the text below. To see the original content go here:** <[login to view URL]> The following is a list of features the system should support. Many are available out of the box with open source e-commerce solutions but may require minor modifications to meet the requirements of the system. * Allow users to create an account * allow users to create one or more e-commerce stores under their account * automatically set up monthly billing via PayPal for each store the user creates. If a user cancels the billing plan on PayPal the store should no longer be online at the end of the billing period * user can cancel one or more stores; store remains online until the end of the billing period * each store can have a custom domain name; user can either enter a domain name they already own or click an affiliate link to register one at [[login to view URL]][1]. There is a default subdomain or subfolder available for each store (e.g. [[login to view URL]][2] or <[login to view URL]>) which can be used to view the store until the custom domain DNS records propagate. * each store is fully configurable and support the following features: * * custom layout & design (user can choose from a large number of pre-configured themes; upload a logo; change fonts and colors; change store title; etc.) * custom content pages (CMS); when each store is created * custom categories and items * multiple versions of the same item (each with a different price, description, photos, shipping cost, etc.). (This could simply be handled as different items in the underlying e-commerce platform.). Products should display different versions of the same product to different visitors (different description, different price, shipping cost, etc.) in order to determine which version of the product sells best. (Also known as A/B testing: <[login to view URL]>) * CMS pages and item descriptions can accept HTML and support HTML source editing; however, users with no HTML knowledge can easily edit the content and embed rich media such as YouTube videos. * custom selection of payment methods accepted (credit card, check, money order, etc.) * secure checkout on generic domain: checkout pages are served over SSL even if the user does not have a certificate (this can happen to a generic domain common to all stores e.g. <[login to view URL]>) * the checkout area accepts credit card information but does not actually process the card ("dummy" payments) * user can choose not to accept payment at all and instead display a message to the visitor on the final checkout page (where the card information would normally be collected) * rich CMS (content management) capabilities for the site that allow the product to be described in detail. Most of these stores will sell a single product (with multiple versions) and so the focus will be primarily on information about that one product. See [[login to view URL]][3] for an example of such a site. * Store setup wizard: when a new store is created the user is presented with several steps that make it very easy to get started with the store: choose theme, domain name, upload a logo, create a home page with content, create categories (optional; some stores may only have one item and/or one category), create the first item, define shipping cost, provide Analytics account, etc. (This wizard may already be implemented in the underlying open source solution but may require minor modifications.) <!-- --> * integration with Google Analytics for each store; user can track what marketing campaigns visitors come from (especially AdWords campaigns) and which pages/products they visit on the site. In particular, it's important for the user to know where in the checkout process visitors abandon the order and which version of the product they were looking at. For example, user may see that for one version of the product there are 50% more checkouts than for another version * users can run reports to determine which version of the product sells best and/or makes it furthest through the checkout funnel * user can export list of customer email addresses by date range (e.g. all orders placed today, this week, etc.) * user can customize automatic emails sent from the site (e.g. order confirmation). * system owner can set up CMS pages with instructions for setting up the store, additional information, etc. The overall goal is to allow users to easily create and operate marketing test stores. While the feature list above is somewhat complete there may be additional features not listed here which are necessary and may become obvious only as the project is developed. Please budget and plan accordingly when you bid for this project.