osCommerce
First of all, what exactly is osCommerce and what will it do for someone wanting to establish an online store without spending lots of money?
OsCommerce is Open Source software for the professional or amateur to use in dealing with e-commerce web sites. In simpler language – this software may be the solution for you and it is available for free under the GNU, General Public License.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed the software, you’ll find a great variety of features with lots of ‘out-of-the-box’ functions for an online store with a ‘shopping cart’ that allows you to setup, run and maintain your online store with a minimum of effort and no license fees or similar limitations. It is based primarily on XML/XHTML and the people who use it add “contributions” - fixes for problems or limitations they find.
Zen Cart, like osCommerce, is a Open Source software which also allows the user to:
• input as many products, categories and sub-categories as required,
• choose from among a variety of payment modules,
• offer discounts for quantity purchases,
• offer the use of on-line coupons,
• choose from various shipping modules, and
• all with the “back office” administration functions included.
One small caveat is necessary here.
Please understand Open Source means this is computer code that is available for free, without the restrictions other software vendors put on their products. While you don’t have to be an expert, this is still computer code and you have to understand that if you change things, knowing how things interlink is vital as well as knowing that changing something in one place may very well necessitate other changes that might not be terribly obvious to a non-programmer. For help if you get stuck or don’t really want to do this yourself, call us now at 01239 623540 or email us at sales@redhotwebhosting.co.uk
Support is available, again for free, at http://www.oscommerce.com The services provided on the network of support sites for osCommerce are continually being updated and improved. Today, the osCommerce community consists of over 62,000 online store owners, software developers, website designers and programmers and over 2,700 ‘contributions’ have helped to make this software work better for everyone. Another useful resource is at http://forums.oscommerce.com
OsCommerce utilizes Open Source solutions to provide a free open e-commerce platform, which includes PHP web scripting language, Apache, a stable web server, and MySQL, a fast database server.
OK, even though it sounds easy, it may not be everyone’s ideal way to spend a few evenings and Saturdays!
Help is at hand.
Red Hot Web Hosting can:
1. set up the basics for you, along with a complete running system of your choice, and you take over from there. Or
2. We can make sure it all works the way it should, then turn it over to you – may be with a bit of tuition and away you go.
3. On the other hand, we could add the products, payment modules, make sure the postal rates for each country are properly inputted to your osCommerce site, and all the other things if you don't have time to do it yourself or just want someone else to do it.
4. And, you can always come back if something goes wrong or you want to add, delete or change something else – either you or we can do it.
Call us now at 01239 623540 or email us at sales@redhotwebhosting.co.uk
5. If you’re sure of what you’re doing, optimizations should happen as you go along but if you’re more comfortable with a bit of help, we can take care of all the optimisation necessary for great search engine results and page ranking.
Once you are up and running, we can provide whatever level of support you want.
Call us NOW at 01239 623540 or email us at sales@redhotwebhosting.co.uk
OSCOMMERCE - OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE - RED HOT WEB HOSTING