LiteCommerce is a compact e-commerce and shopping cart commercial software developed by Qualiteam Software. Their other product lines are X-cart shopping cart software for more comprehensive e-commerce needs, Sales’n Stats and Hacker Proof/Hacker Guardian.

LiteCommerce license for one store costs $109 and there are several optional add-on modules available like Wish List, Affiliate Management, E-Commerce reports, Gift Certificates, Wholesale Trading, Multi Currency, etc for $13-$17 each for your particular store needs.

The difference between LiteCommerce and X-cart is that LiteCommerce have modular design. When purchasing X-cart you will have all the functions included to one license as in LiteCommerce, you will purchase the basic core license, and then will specify your shop needs by purchasing those extra modules for $13 each or download some of those free of charge.

If you want to become an e-commerce application service provider Qualiteam has another package for you: LiteCommerce ASPE

With LiteCommerce ASPE you can take full advantage of Application Service Provider business model. LiteCommerce ASPE is specially designed for:
* Hosting service providers (HSP)
* Companies running multiple shops powered by LiteCommerce
* Companies that provide ecommerce application services
* Companies who need the ability of rapid shops deployment (e.g. shops dedicated to special events to catch up market opportunities)

A complete list of features can be found here (a feature tour is included).

Installation

By registering to the 30 day evaluation version, I got email containing several download links for different operating systems.
As my hosting runs with Debian GNU/Linux, I decided to download the Linux version.

Other Options where Windows 98/NT/2000&2003, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSDi, Solaris and Mac OS X.

LiteCommerce is built using the open source PHP/MySQL technology which can run on operating systems above.

As my hosting service does not provide me the Unix Command Shell access, I usually Unzip program files to my computer and upload those with ftp.
This was a way I tried to install it this time but none of those php modules worked when in server, including install.php. They just showed up as empty pages showing only HTML header for each page.
The manual was showing some kind of windows installation screens but only thing I had was compressed file which contained another tar file.
So when I finally installed this file to the server and decompressed it directly in the server something started to happen.
To get it finally work I deleted all my previous files and decompressed all again in the server again as some of the modules where still showing as corrupted or not working.
Lucky me that I’m using net2ftp browser interface which offers me such kind of activity instead of my hosting provider default control panel.

The second problem was some directory rights. So you need to assign several CHMOD’s after the uncompress procedure is complete like even providing 777 (full access) to the main directory and later change them back when the installation is complete.

You can order the professional installation service together with your license for extra $57.

Setup

Site setup allows defining some look and feel of the site, like does catalogs listings show up as Icons or Listings, will there be thumbnails shown on product listings, how many products are listed per page, the measurement unit, currency and time settings, also row limits per page using administration module.

The company setup asks Company Name, website and year business started, physical address, and email addresses to website administrator, customer relations, sales and support.

Email section allows to setup will the order to be emailed to customer, sales department and will administrator email contain also credit card information or not. I assume that administrator will get emails from each order. To prevent spam, the valid domain names must be listed.

The security section allows defining where the system will use secure (HTTPS) connection. Like in customer zone (login, shopping cart, etc) and in administration zone and will the shopping cart to be cleared after customer had logged off or not.

The modules section allows to define integration with payment, shipping and other third party e-commerce service providers and the list is impressive having 33 payment processors listed.

The payment methods section allows defining seven payment methods like credit card, phone order, fax order, cod, etc.

In credit card types you can list the entire card list accepted in your store.

Shipping methods will allow to define shipping and shipping zones can be countries or states. For each method and zone you can define different shipping cost for weight/items/order total range which can be either flat, per item, % of subtotal or per lbs.

The tax schemes seem to be built in but you can upload your country specific tax schemes as .tax files. Hopefully there has been lot of third party developers to produce those or you need to figure out the format yourself.
Administrators can define new countries and their states, set them active and specify will the VAT calculated to particular country.
The product comes with two skins: modern and classic, both available as two or three column version but the look and feel are fully customizable.
With HTML and CSS knowledge, administrator is able to write new templates or modify existing .tpl files.
Products belong to categories which are customizable. When adding a new product, administrator will define the price, weight, tax class, is product taxable, available for sale, thumbnail and full size images, page title, brief and full description, Meta keywords and description for search engines and sort order.

You can add new fields for product category, import and export product catalogs as CSV files.
User management allows creating new users, modifying existing ones and importing them from CSV files.
Order management allows searching orders by time frame, status, e-mail or ordering id and exporting those to MS Excel (XML file).
From the maintenance part, administrators are able to restore/backup database, manage images between files and database, view sales statistics, clean cache and purchase new modules.

Usability

Site design is very clean from the first page you have tabs for catalog, my cart, my account and contact us. Having additional modules like Wish List installed, some of those will appear as tabs. The catalog page shows product categories and featured products together with news box. Featured products had even Buy Now bottom in first page. From the product page, I can email it to friend, buy now or put to my wish list if such kind of module is installed.

When pressing Buy Now, I was redirected to shopping cart page where I was able to clear cart, go to checkout, delete items or continue my shopping session.
When you go to checkout, the system will ask you to create an account with your billing and shipping (can be copied from billing) details or to login as returning customer. You can also login by clicking My Account tab and see your purchases. Pretty standard ecommerce stuff.

The Contact Us tab opens a contact form with mandatory physical address to fill which will be emailed to particular department mailbox defined from administration module.

Conclusion

The product was very easy to use with nice user interface and besides hassles with installation (which is not that of a big deal), I didn’t encountered any other problems or bugs. User interface was so clear so I would do shopping from any sites running Litecommerce. The modular design allows you to grow your business or purchase additional modules for your particular needs. I was playing little bit with affiliate module which worked well and had similar user friendly interface however little bit different from main module. It contained all the functionality to run your affiliate network, including support to multi tier affiliate programs.

The company has prepared an online demo of this software so if you are eager and don’t want to install it yourself just go to this page.
Do you want to see how others have implemented this e-commerce solution? Just check out this page and you willl see live e-shops around the world built in LiteCommerce.

LiteCommerce is perfect to run a small business e-commerce store but let’s not forget the competition which is quite strong, especially that there are some free e-commerce software solutions like Zencart, Cubecart, osCommerce, Magento and others.

©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.

Zen Cart (or ZenCart) www.zencart.com has been developed by group of professionals from Newcastle, England, Cleveland, Ohio and Ontario, Canada. It’s not a simple shopping cart module, but truly professional ecommerce store management platform (named also a shopping cart system) with newsletters, coupons, gift certificates, etc more capable to run Amazon type of stores than small websites with thousands of products allowing unlimited category depth and site search.

Even if Zen Cart comes with one standard outlook, there is several free sites and commercial stores (algozone.com, zen-cart-templates.ichoze.net, zencarttemplates.info, www.templatemonster.com/zencart-templates.php, themestock.com) available to give your store a custom outlook.

Installation and store setup
ZenCart shopping cart installation went smoothly, however the system complaint again several PHP setting parameters like register_globals=on (had to create separate php.ini for those), and even I didn’t had secure server protocol purchased to my hosting account, I was able to complete the installation with some simple steps.

There were eight editable pages from the administration module to customize the site layout using pure HTML language or JavaScript based Rich text editor, the side box content can be set on and off and their sort order can be modified. The software which I installed was with “Contemporary Classic Green” and English language but additional templates and languages can be purchased and downloaded.

The administration module is extremely broad and from first look, I was little bit confused where to start.Defining the products should be most reasonable step to start and as those are belonging to categories, those should be defined first. For SEO purposes, you are able to define your own Meta tags (title, keywords and description) for the category and build category tree structure.

Each product can be in stock/out of stock or defined by the availability date, the price model can be free, call for price or priced by attributes, it can be “virtual” without a need for the shipping address or can have free shipping.

It can have units which can be defined as minimum and maximum for order. Images can be uploaded, defined as existing files or there can be separate web page for the product (for example manufactures page). Manufactures with their images and URL’s can be also defined.

Product Options allows defining options like colour, size and assigning them to products or product groups. It had very powerful feature to assign, copy and delete those characteristics over the product database.

Products can be featured or have special price for the limited period of time.
From the localization module administrator can define Countries which can be divided to Zones, Tax Classes, Tax Rates , Currencies and their rates and Order Statuses (ordered, processed, delivered, etc).

The Sale Maker is a module to start limited period discount campaigns which can be new price, discount amount or percentage for the products in price range for the product category.

The Payment module allows to configure payment gateways and preinstalled options where Authorize.net, PayPal, Linkpoint, NoCheck, cash on delivery, offline credit card processing and check-money order.
The Shipping module allows configuration of basic shipping costs and Order Total module discounts and taxes used by the system.

The customers’ module shows customer orders, account balance, number of logons with last login reviews written, and discount group. Customers can be disabled but not deleted. There is possibility to create discount groups assigned to customer.

Setting the Zen Cart system options, site look and feel, banner campaigns, etc can be done either using Configuration or Tools module. There where lot of options to switch on and off, however for your custom store lookout I would recommend to purchase or develop separate template package.

Coupons can be defined giving fixed fee discount for the minimum order value and offering free shipping. Those can be valid limited time, zone and limited per amount and per uses by customer.

Gift certificates will be emailed to customers or customer groups by some discount value, and those can be redeemed in customer next purchase.
Coupons and Gift Certificates codes are automatically generated containing 10 characters and numbers.

Media manager allows defining of Artists, Labels, Genre and Media types. Those can be assigned to products.

Administration module produces reports by products viewed, products purchased, and customer order total, products low on stock and customer referrals.

Installation from Fantastico Deluxe software package

Many web hosting companies offers this software package which bundles lots of web software. Among them is Zencart. The installation is quite simple (several clicks).

See this video which shows how to install several e-commerce software on Bluehost hosting company (Zencart included)

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Or on Dreamhost hosting company

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Usability
Customers can locate products by category, new products, bestsellers or search by keyword. Products can be listed by Product Name, Manufacturer, Price, Model or Date Added. Music can be listed by Labels or genre. All those options can be set on and off from the Tools / Layout Boxes section in administration module.

Language and currency can be changed Ad-Hoc, which option also can be set on / off.
Who is online option will show only how many registered customers and guests are using the site at the moment.

Tell a friend option allows send the page link by email.
Registered customers are able to write reviews which must be approved by administrator before they appear online, email a product page to friend and purchase the product.

Returning customers can sign in by email address and password, otherwise the registration will ask postal address, telephone number and age verification. Those options can be setup using Configuration/Customer details in administration module and several other options (fax number, US state list, and referral) can be added.

After the products have been selected to shopping cart, users are able to estimate shipping or proceed to checkout.
During the shopping process addition shortcuts to visit shopping cart and direct link to checkout will be shown on upper menu bar.

After selecting the shipping method and altering the shipping address if necessary, customer is able to use coupons and redemptions, alter the billing address, select payment method, enter special instructions and by doing the final confirmation on next page the deal has been done.

Conclusion
ZenCart isn’t software to setup your few products shopping cart for your website quickly. It takes some amount of time and specialist skills to have your site look and feel defined, product database created, rules defined, etc.
But for any commercial superstore it’s a good option.
I was missing more convenient way to enter fluctuating currency rates and new deliveries to my stock from suppliers.

Resources

Here you have some video tutorials regarding ZenCart shopping cart and ecommerce system.

ZenCart installation

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ZenCart template installation

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- WebsiteSource (lots of Zen Cart video tutorials)
- Webcare (another site which has lots of Zen Cart video tutorials)

©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.

Magento is a feature-rich, professional open source e-commerce solution that offers merchants complete flexibility and control over the look, content, and functionality of their online store.

Magento’s powerful marketing search engine optimization and catalog management tools give merchants the power to create ecommerce sites that are tailored to their unique business needs. Magento is distributed free under the GNU General Public License OSL license.

Magento is a registered trademark of Irubin Consulting Inc. DBA Varien. It is currently listed as in a preview release mode and not recommended for use in production environments. There are articles written by community members who have tried this new program and available for your benefit at http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/

Update

Magento is actually ready for the prime time! The version 1.1.1 was just launched and it won The Best New Project at 2008 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards.

Is this software compatible with your server?
Megento can be used on any server that is Linux or UNIX based. It can be run on a Windows based platform but at the moment there are some known issues that are being worked on and it may cause some conflicts, although, there are some documents on the main site to help. You can find some guidelines here

One of the known issues is the image uploads do not work in Windows.

This system is a Linux based software program and was designed with ease of install on a Linux based platform that has PHP 5 installed. This software is a PHP 5 only application and may cause issues if your system only supports PHP 4, although there is a work around solution found here

If you do not have any programming knowledge or skills, this system may not be suitable for you unless you have a technical support team who can assist you.

The server requirements for this software are:
- Linux or another UNIX-compatible operating system
- Apache web server (1x or 2x)
- PHP 5.2
- MySQL 4.1
- A sendmail- compatible Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)- if not Megento connects to SMTP server.

Also recommended is the use of APC as a bytecode cache for performance improvements. You can find it in the PECL archives here: http://pecl.php.net/package/APC

Other bytecode cache systems are not supported at this time.

Getting Your Store Installed and Online
You will need to manually install this software on your server by the use of an FTP client such as Filezilla or SmartFTP. You can download the Magento ecommerce software from here http://www.magentocommerce.com/download

You will need to unzip the folder. If you are using Windows XP you can just right click on the folder and choose the unzip option. Often times if you just double click the folder it will unzip as well. If you are not using Windows XP you can find a zip utility for free such as Winzip.

You will want to transfer/upload your extracted Magento folder from your desktop to your hosting account. An FTP client enables you to transfer large amounts of files quickly and directly into where you would like it to be on your hosting server without any long time manual hassles of uploading each file alone. I find Filezilla www.filezilla-project.org is quite an easy to use FTP client.

Once you have entered you host address, username, and password (all things that should have been in your welcome email when you signed up with your hosting account), the FTP client connects your computer directly to your server.

Depending on what hosting company you are with, your files might be listed under www. or public-html. Drag the Magento folder with your mouse to the left hand side and drop it in the proper folder on your right where you would need it to be .

Since this is a rather large program, I highly recommend, if you find that you are having any difficulties transferring the complete files and folders, you may want to see if you can transfer the zipped program and extract the files once they are on your server.

Once you have the extracted files on your server, you will need to create a MySQL database. You can find the icon in your cPanel control panel such as the following picture shows.

In order to create a new database all you need to do is enter the desired name for the database in the New Database field, then click the [Create Database] button.

You will also have to create a username; this is so you will have access to the database. You should see the option underneath for name and password:

Then go to the next option and make sure you add the username to your database, and checking to make sure all privileges are given.

You will need to set permission (CHMOD settings), for the following files to 777:
- magento/var/.htaccess
- magento/app/
- magento/var
- and all directories under magento/media

Once you have set your permissions you will want to open a new browser window and type in the address for the Magento Installation Wizard.

Example: If you installed into http://www.yoursite.com/magento then the wizard would be located at http://www.yoursite.com/magento/install/

Most configurations in the setup wizard will be automatically guessed for you, you may need to change things as needed (country, currency, etc.)You do need to change the database parameters in the first box “Database Connection” to match those of the database you set up earlier.

Installation Troubleshooting
There are a lot of errors associated with this setup. I was receiving error such as SQLSTATE[28000] [1045] Access denied for user ‘o0o0o0o0o’@'localhost’ (using password: YES) Database connection error

After checking to see what could be wrong with the username, I created another one to see if that would help. That was a solution on the Magento forum. It did not help. So, I created another database and username for magento to try again.

This install wizard may not have the correct settings for your local host. Always make sure to contact your hosting administrator if you do not know exactly what the host name may be.

If you encounter any other errors you can review the answers on the forum here http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewforum/9/

Or you can review the topics listed in the knowledge base http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base

This software is still in it’s early stages, so if you encounter an error you do not find an answer for, the Magento team would really appreciate your posting the question to aid in their research and testing to come out with a newer and more improved version with less installation bugs.

Using Your Magento Control Panel to setup your Store Properties
When you have successfully installed your software you will be able to access the admin section and setup your product list and set all attributes as needed.

When setting up your products, you will see a screen shot such as the one below.

You will be able to enter the name, description, assign an SKU, price, weight, manufacturer, page title, and meta keywords so you can optimize for search engine crawls.

When your products have all been added you can see them in the admin catalog section such as the picture below.

This will be able to inform you of what products are selling as well as any other stats you would like to track.

Another feature that is very nice due to the extra income that can be generated is the cross sell feature. This is a feature that posts other related products you have on a page to entice a buyer to buy the extra product to go with the one they have already chosen. A lot of people are willing to buy additional items if they are right there in front of them instead of having to think and go searching for something related.

Here is a screenshot of what the cross-sell feature set up looks like:

The Magento software has few templates available right now since they are only in the beginning stages of development. If you are PHP knowledgeable, you may be able to change the configurations or add new images to the existing templates as they are given.

The following is a picture of the main home page of a demo store developed.

Notice how clear the graphics are. I have found with some ecommerce software I have used one of the disadvantages were the inability to maintain a fresh clear graphic overlay to compete with the bigger companies such as Walmart, Zellers, or any other big company you may have in your own country.

The products page when displayed to the customer is a condensed yet fully detailed layout of the product with a simple description box and even a rating system to inform the customer on other buyer’s opinion of the product.

The following is a screenshot of an average product for sale.

Comparisons with other Ecommerce software
This software has many features to boast over other software such as single page checkout, ability to ship to multiple addresses from one order, advanced marketing tools with search engine optimization features. With the ability to control multiple sites and stores from one control panel, one click upgrades, ability to take orders over the phone, the ability for a customer to place an order without creating a customer account if they do not want to, and many more marketing and promotional tools such as search engine friendly urls, upsells, cross-sells, RSS feeds for new products, and auto-generated sitemaps.

This software does not have the ability for digital downloads, as other ecommerce sites do such as osCommerce, Cube Cart, and Zencart. The Magento software is for physical products.

This software program is hard to install and many may have problems with the configurations. Other programs such as Cube Cart and Zencart are installed with a few easy configurations.

I have not been able to locate any plugins or extensions for the Magento software as it is meant for an enterprise level ecommerce solution and therefore incorporates everything with the ease of an update feature.

For a list of templates or add-ons you can incorporate you can visit the following site. This directory contains links to websites that are currently working with the Magento team to add an even more advanced opportunity for the user www.mgosites.com

Conclusion
I find that for the small business owner who would like to do most of the work himself with a limited background in programming, this software is not suitable for them. This software is meant for a larger based organization who may have multiple stores and need an easy to use system to incorporate all of the combined stores attributes.

This software is still in its growing stages, and there needs to be more upgrades before all the bugs will be worked out.

I would recommend that any individual or small business owner who would like to be able to install and configure settings for a store for digital or physical products, would best be more comfortable using a software program such as osCommerce, Cube Cart or Zencart.
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Melanie Bremner has been running an online business teaching software programs to new beginners for the last 6 years. She creates lesson plans with easy to follow instructions in which she teaches to her students in an online classroom for which anyone globally can participate. She is presently living in Toronto, Canada.
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©2010 MyTestBox.com :: web software reviews, news, tips and tricks. All Rights Reserved.

osCommerce www.oscommerce.com is an open source online e-commerce software solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. osCommerce was started in March 2000 in Germany by project founder and leader Herald Ponce de Leon. Every year the members of the community join forces in designing more add-on features to increase the feasibility and functionality in all areas of development. The new version 3.0 is planned to hit the market and it will have a template feature that will allow users to create a more unique layout for their site.

OsCommerce was designed with a rich set of out of the box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort, and no costs, fees, or limitations involved. This software was designed for ease of install and usability for any online store owner from newbie to techno king.

Is this software compatible with your server?

OsCommerce can be used on any web server that has PHP and MySQL installed. Most of the web host providers have included this software for a general automatic install from your account control panel or within the Fantastico control panel, depending on which host provider you have gone with. If you do not have the automatic install capability, the osCommerce software is available from main site for downloading and installing manually.

You will need to know where to access your files, usually under the file manager option in your control panel, to FTP your extracted files into the correct folder. You can use this software as a standalone site, meaning you can choose to install in the root directory of your domain, and have the store as you main index; or you can choose to install in a sub directory as an add on, an example being http://www.yoursite.com/store.

Although the oscommerce is not the “ultimate” e-commerce solution, it is by no means “basic”; with the capabilities of customizing to meet the specific needs of ones own business.

Getting your store installed and online

For manual install

If you are downloading and installing the software manually you can obtain the download at http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/downloads Save the folder to your desktop as you will not need to upload the entire thing for installation purposes. When it is finished, it is a zip folder, so you will need to unzip the folder. If you are using Windows XP you can just right click on the folder and choose the unzip option. Often times if you just double click the folder it will unzip as well.

Once you have extracted the files into a new folder on your desktop, open it up and take a look at it. You will be needing the folder named catalog to FTP to your server.

You will want to transfer/upload your extracted oscommerce folder from your desktop to your hosting account. You will need an FTP client in order to do this. An FTP client enables you to transfer large amounts of files quickly and directly into where you would like it to be on your hosting server without any long time manual hassles of uploading each file alone. I find Filezilla is quite an easy to use FTP client.

Once you have entered you host address, username, and password (all things that should have been in your welcome email when you signed up with your hosting account), the FTP client connects your computer directly to your server.

Depending on what hosting company you are with, your files might be listed under www. or public-html. Drag the oscommerce folder with your mouse to the left hand side and drop it in the folder on your right (shop)

Next you will need to create a MySQL database. You can find the icon in your control panel like the following picture below:

In order to create a new database all you need to do is enter the desired name for the database in the New Database field, then click the [Create Database] button. You will also have to create a username; this is so you will have access to the database. You should see the option underneath for name and password.

Then go to the next option and make sure you add the username to your database, and checking to make sure all privileges are given.

Next you will need to open a new browser and type in http://yourserver/catalog/install/ to get to the configurations. You will need to fill in the information for your database server (local host), username, and password, and the database name you created.

You may need to set permissions on /catalog/includes/configure.php to 777 from within your control panel if you find you are getting security warnings.

Finally you will need to set the following permissions to complete the install:

Installation Troubleshooting
Although there are often not many complications with install as long as permissions are set and the information for databases are correct, one error you may encounter is with the Stylesheet configuration.

Follow the instructions below to correct.

Stylesheet: All images are broken

If a page shows everything right except the graphics and formatting are missing then go to that page and change the link of your stylesheet in whatever file is not displaying correctly:

<LINK href=”../oscommerce/catalog/catalog/stylesheet.css” type=text/css rel=stylesheet>

All you have to do is find that line in and correct the path to point to your actual stylesheet.css.

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”stylesheet.css”>

If you find you are not clear on some of the configurations or settings, there is a complete easy to follow manual included in the osCommerce folder that you have just extracted to your desktop.

Installing Automatically from within your host server

If you are using a hosting server such as Go Daddy, Host Gator, or IX, you will most likely be working from a Linux based platform. This makes no difference in the general install of this software. You will be using the cPanel as your control panel.

You will be able to find the Fantastico icon at the bottom right (little blue smilie face).Once you click on the icon you will be taken to another control panel such as the following illustration.

You will need to click the menu on the left hand side about two-thirds of the way down to find the osCommerce link to add the install option. When you have arrived at this screen you will just click on the link for new installation which will pop up an installation screen. This will require 6.72 MB of disk space available on your server, which most people should not have a problem with.

This will bring you to the install page where you will need to enter your installation location, which if you only have one domain on your account will automatically be there for you to choose. You will need to choose which directory to install into. If you would just like your store to be your website then choosing to install in your root directory is the best choice, so you can leave this spot blank.
Next you need to choose an admin username and password. This will be needed for when you log into your oscommerce control panel for modifications and adding products.

Then you would need to choose your shop name, owner’s name(or company), company email you will be using when you send emails out to customers, It will ask for a SSL and hostname, you may need to find that out. Leave it as “No”; you can always change it later within the osCommerce control panel.
You then have to choose what options you would like for when the customer registers. The default is set to “No”, and I did not find the need to change it as it is mostly personal questions that do not apply for sales.

Once you have clicked on install the system will inform you of where it has installed the files, on what database, and provide you with a url address for access to your osCommerce control panel. Be sure to bookmark the url. You will need to go in there every day for your configurations.

There great thing about an automated install from these programs, is that if there is a problem installing, they will tell you where, and it is usually just a matter of chmod settings and permissions which can be set in your cPanel. I did not run into any install problems when I was installing. If for any reason you do run into a problem and have to delete your database, most hosting servers back up their databases every day, and you can contact them for support. Otherwise a reinstall, ensuring the directory is correct, and permissions are set, should resolve the issue.

Using your osCommerce control Panel to setup your store properties

When you log into your osCommerce control panel you should see a screen similar to this one:

There are many properties you can set up. This software allows you to add as many products and categories as you would like, with add/edit and remove options as needed. You can sell either physical products or downloadable items. You can contact your customers through email, and can create monthly newsletters to go out with product updates. It is easy to back up and restore your database. You can also print out the invoices and packaging slips when needing to send out the items. You can accept multiple currencies which will convert through the many gateway/payment processing services such as Paypal, 2Checkout, Authorize.net and more.

All customers receive access to their own personal account panel in which they can track their orders, view their history, add additional shipping or billing addresses, or check reviews of products.
When you are adding you products you can choose whether to display the quantity available, when stock is expected to be available again if out of stock, a list of best sellers and specials, and the latest added inventory.

The hardest part is probably setting the shipping options. You will need to set different variables if you plan to ship to more than one country, or else you will lose money. There are many options to use for zoning, countries, UPS, express mail, air mail, total on complete shipment, amount per item, and calculating shipment by weight.
This software is very easy to navigate and most of your customers will have no problems going from the products page to the checkout page for completion of their order.

The following is a screen shot of a typical order page:

Comparisons with other e-commerce software

Right from the ease of install to the many features this software provides, it is one of the best open source free software to use for small business. Similar products such as Zencart and CubeCart provide fewer options for shipping, inventory management, product attributes, newsletter and email options, or adding any add-ons such as adding an affiliate program.

Some problems may be found when trying to set up product attributes in osCommerce, although there are plug-ins that can be found and used to help with the process. For more add-ons such as themes and templates or extended shipping modules, visit http://addons.oscommerce.com/

I also found that configuring the setting for downloadable products was a much more difficult process than Cube Cart. There is a multiple step process within osCommerce to setup this feature, being first you have to add the product with description, picture and price in your inventory, specifying that it is a download, then you need to go into your product attributes section and fill out the information for the download. I found not all times, the configurations would be accepted and the product uploaded to the server. In Cube Cart it is done all on one page, with the ease and ability of only having to enter configurations in one section. The download section in Cube cart is a simple check box, and typing in the address to where you have uploaded your product on your server so the system will be able to automatically send it upon receipt of payment through Paypal.

Although the company is no longer supporting the v2.2 and PHP 4 due to the recent addition of the 3.0 and PHP 5, there is a great forum providing constant tips, tricks, solutions to changing PHP files when modifying different aspects, and more at the osComnerce main site located here http://forums.oscommerce.com/

Conclusion

If you would like to set up a store as a first time user, or if you are a small business who would like to keep your expenses to a minimum to provide more money for your marketing, this is the perfect solution to maintaining a professional, competitive online presence in the e-commerce society. Some configurations such as adding plug-ins, changing attributes, and modifying a logo, may be more complex for a new beginner who has no programming knowledge at all. In that case I suggest for a new business owner who would like to setup and run an ecommerce shop, the PHP based CubeCart software is the easiest to install, configure, and manipulate with no prior programming knowledge required, although add-ons, expansive template options, and extended features are not available.
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Melanie Bremner has been running an online business teaching software programs to new beginners for the last 6 years. She creates lesson plans with easy to follow instructions in which she teaches to her students in an online classroom for which anyone globally can participate. She is presently living in Toronto, Canada.
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