osCommerce Review: Introduction

osCommerce is a powerful open source solution to your ecommerce or shopping cart needs. osCommerce is free, easy, fully functional "out of the box", and setting up and maintaining a store is simple and efficient.

Introduction by Geoff Ford, Attitude Group Ltd - Christchurch, New Zealand.

Prior to discovering osCommerce, when a client asked me about building an ecommerce site I would weigh up various options.

• Developing a solution from the ground up meant a lot of work and would often push the cost up to something that was prohibitive for many businesses.
• Installing a shopping cart product with a set list of features would mean there was no flexibility to change the system if the client's requirements changed.
• Adapting one of the freely available shopping cart options could provide a good base to build on. However, most often these systems were not being developed in an organized, ongoing way and they lacked a community of users and developers that could offer support.

Discovering osCommerce, I found a system that had the features ready for most online stores that could be customized for each customer's requirements, and was being developed and improved by the core developers and community of osCommerce users.

Because osCommerce is free to download and use, many businesses can afford to develop and operate a shopping site.

Attitude is a company that installs, supports and customizes osCommerce for businesses around the world. I found osCommerce fitted my needs as a developer and it has met the needs of my clients in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

This review outlines how both customers and merchants experience osCommerce. It doesn't evaluate osCommerce against every other possible option, but provides information about key aspects of the software. Reading it will give you an overview of what you can expect from osCommerce.

Read on to learn if osCommerce is right for your business ...

Overview

For more information regarding specific areas see: