oscommerce - is anyone using this product?

[944psi]

I'm pulling together a proposal for a potential client who wants to sell white goods online. I don't want to write the catalogue / shopping basket stuff myself (time) or buy one in (money) so I have installed oscommerce from oscommerce.com to see whether this would be suitable.

My initial impressions are good but it looks very American at the moment. All the (live) example sites I looked at were very samey - except the products were different.

Has anyone implemented this package or is there a better product out there?

Additional questions would be -

How easy it would be to integrate with Worldpay or another such provider of merchant services? If anyone has done this with this particular package then I'd be all ears!

Has anyone got an example where they have managed to successfully change the user interface so that it doesn't look like a template site?

Thanks, Phil

[JamieBeeston]

ITs a decent enough system.

We include it as a 'One Click Install' on the Register1.net VDS Pro packages.

We have many clients using it, and I've not heard a bad word about it really.

ITs free, but the support community is rather active so that's a plus.

There are many better products on the market, but at a cost.

J

[martin hunt]

I use it on one of my sites www.footieshop.co.uk it can be made to look English very easily.

The person who did mine was www.vengavenga.com

[Muncher]

Some of my clients use it, for example www.shopatbettyboop.co.uk

I've not heard of any problems with it.

[Work-Shy-Wanabe]

I'm using oScommerce to build my site at the moment. I'm very impressed with it, mostly because of the community around it. There are contributions/mods to do about anything to your site. I changed the address setup to be more suitable for the UK, apart from that it’s fine for UK usage. If you have a good knowledge of IT you can mod it yourself. I’ve got some experience of C++, but very little really. I’ve never looked at PHP or mySQL before but I can tell where to change and add other people contributions.

Have a look at the easypopulate mod for oscommerce, brilliant mod that allows you to upload your inventory in an excel spread sheet. If you’ve got a lot of products in your catalogue it’s really useful.


Personally I think world pay is very expensive. I’m using Streamline (merchant account by Natwest) and Protx as my payment gateway provider. This was the best solution for me based on my projected sales figures. Who’s best for you would depend on what you expect to turnover. i.e. I’ve made financial commitments to streamline and protx which if I don’t sell anything will sting me. (12 month contracts, minimum payments) But I don’t need to achieve anywhere near my projections for the commitments I’ve made not to be damaging.

Think about it carefully, I can’t see a way of changing a card provider further down the line without causing your shop to be down a few weeks.


>> Edited by Work-Shy-Wanabe on Wednesday 4th January 16:53

[JonRB]

martin hunt said:

The person who did mine was www.vengavenga.com

Muncher said:

Some of my clients use it, for example www.shopatbettyboop.co.uk

That's quite funny, as www.shopatbettyboop.co.uk was done by www.vengavenga.com and is a good example of how osCommerce can be customised to the extent that it doesn't scream THIS IS AN OSCOMMERCE SITE at you

Edit: Thanks for the mention, BTW, muncher.

>> Edited by JonRB on Wednesday 4th January 16:53

[cheekymonkey]

It's a good solution & it's free. Echo other comments on very good community support.

Worldpay are expensive but very good & veyr simple to integrate with. Also consider Secpay / Netbanx for payment gateway.

[944psi]

Thanks for the responses - I've got a fair bit of experience with php/mysql/perl so I can manage most things - if I have time that is!

The bettyboop site is very slick and doesn't look like any of the standard template type sites which is something I'd like to get away from.

Phil

[AquilaEagle]

I've heard only very good reports about it. I am looking at it for a friend soon

[toolsnstuff-couk]

Have used it for over 3 years and cannot fault it...

However to make it really sing you will need to heavily modify it, which then very rapidly takes you away from using standard modules and fixes etc

[Rameshuk]

OSComerce is a great package.

I first used it two years ago and cannot praise it enough.
A few years ago something similar would have cost you $£$£.

The trick is to install the modules/add-ons you require and then customise it.

Everything uses stylesheets so it is quite easy to make it look less like the standard template.

Change /reword the default text. How many times have you seen

<quote> Welcome Guest! Would you like to log yourself in? Or would you prefer to create an account?"</quote>
Maybe 'Welcome - Log in or Create a new account' ?
Not everyone wants to create another account on another website. So offer the option
of purchasing without creating an account (there is an add-on module for this I believe.
Do highlight the advantages of creating an account ( Order tracking , newsletters, save time for future purchases).

Try and keep it simple. Too many categories + products on the front page can overwhelm
the visitor. The human brain generally can remember 7 +/-2 items this is a good number for main categories.

The personal touch: Take photos of your shop/staff/location to personalise the site.
Existing customers can recognise you and new visitors will see a friendly face.

Remove unwanted features: Do you really need product reviews ?

Color scheme: Think of along the lines of a room in your house. A main colour + one or two accent colours. Contrast has to be good so text can be read easily.
Blue + red is a big no no (but very common !)

Step back from the screen - You should be able to tell what the site is about without reading any of the text. just by looking at the logo and pictures.

Another thing - when it comes to VAT I seem to remember I created two zones
one for EU countries (where VAT applies) and a rest of the world zone.
All countries have to be in one or the other. At the time only a few UK shops had this correctly setup. I think I was using version 2.2

Finally seek professional advice with regards to the legal side of things. Shipping / terms of sale e.t.c, With a site that is so easy to update - its easy to make a mistake.
So be careful.

Anyway these are just my thoughts/opinions

R

>> Edited by Rameshuk on Sunday 8th January 06:41