Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with OSCommerce

What shopping cart software should I set up?

amtho — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:04:15 -0800

Best starting point for e-commerce / shopping cart software? I'm a competent Perl programmer with background in several other languages, who wants to create a decidedly minimalist-looking web site shopping cart for a client. I expect to hack Perl or PHP code, but would like to hack things that are designed to be hacked. Anyone tried CRE Loaded? Other recommendations? Other places to ask? The old system, heavily modified from an open-source Perl code base, probably should go; I'm pretty confident I can figure out PHP enough to customize something that isn't actively getting in my way (have modified WordPress successfully) -- but what code to start from?

I'm willing to pay a little. I want to install it on my own server space. I'm very picky about design and usability, so I'll want to change the front end of anything (that I've seen available) substantially. And oh, I'll probably want the back end to integrate with our existing payment handling system (Mal's, in case anyone knows/cares), but I can write that code myself if needed.

Specific changes I'd want:
- ability for people to purchase without having to "create an account";
- will keep track of shopping cart contents even if cookies not enabled (i.e., can keep cart ID in URLs if no cookies available)
- URL's that are sensible words instead of automatically-assigned numbers (maybe called "search engine friendly"?)
- ability to completely customize the layout of the home page and other pages, including product listings - this includes HTML, not just changes to CSS.

I've read some similar questions in AskMe, and this one is almost exactly me, though it's from 2006. I'm interested in CubeCart and SquirrelCart, which it recommends, but one option that I'd particularly looked at some years ago is a version of OSCommerce called CRE Loaded -- anyone know that one?

If there's a good resource out there in the world, book or web site, that will give a good survey of available software with my particular concerns in mind, or if there's a better forum you know of for this kind of question, I'd love to hear about it.

PHP Ecommerce software for a coder?

malphigian — Tue, 23 May 2006 06:10:43 -0800

Modifiable out of the box ecommerce software recommendations for a coder, preferably PHP? Apologies in advance, I tend to be wordy in my questions to provide all the information I can.

What I'm looking for: I have a few small scale ecommerce sites in my near future, each having somewhat different requirements and very different designs. I am looking for a free or cheap (under $1,000) ecommerce package that will support all the usual ecommerce functionality (cart, catalog, checkout) out of the box, and which allows for open modification of the code.

As a bonus, I would love something that has significant third party style "plug in" support -- support for payment gateways, POS systems, etc. POS in particular would be valuable (integration with the Quickbooks POS a lot of small businesses use).

Who is going to use it: I'm an experienced PHP coder (as well as java/jsp, but I prefer PHP). I'm also an experienced actionscript coder, but I'm not terribly optimistic about Flash ecommerce. I will be solely responsible for the tech side of these stores.

Like a lot of coders, I have a tendency to say "screw it, I'll just write it from scratch", but I'm trying to remain disciplined here and not reinvent the wheel.

What I've tried in the past: The last time I had this problem I selected os commerce. Oscommerce was awesome because there were so many features supported out of the box and users had made add ons to do pretty much everything I could ever want. However, oscommerce's code was horrifying. I'm generally not a zealot about MVC/rigid display/logic separation, but osc was just a mess, PHP code splattered all through the HTML. The HTML itself was old school nested table hell. That said, I did manage to learn my way around in the mess and overhaul the design. On two different stores.

My dilemma right now is do I deal with the "devil I know" (osc), or face a new one?

I've been reading about Zen Cart (an oscommerce fork that's supposedly cleaner), X-Cart (a cheap smarty template based system), Virtuemart (a mambo based system). But I'm having a problem evaluating them because 99% of the reviews are from non-coders. I don't care how easy it is to change the design without knowing HTML.

So, long background out of the way, any first hand experiences or recommendations for how I should proceed?

PS. I know there seems to be a trend lately to recommend Ruby on Rails for everything in the world. I guess I'm open to that, but I watched the must lauded "15 minute to make foo" demos and wasn't too impressed. I could have knocked out the same apps in PHP in the same time easy, and the code would have been plenty clean. I guess I'm open if there's some huge benefit other than rails being Teh New Shiny.

How can I get a shopping cart with ajax-based product previews?

fourstar — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:09:03 -0800

If I wanted an ecommerce site powered by something like osCommerce and I wanted some additional functionality built that gave product previews via ajax, similar to what NetFlix does, where should I look for a programmer to set it all up and about how much should I expect to pay?

Paging Herbert Kornfeld - ecommerce with purchase orders

Wild_Eep — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:27:28 -0800

Is there an open-source ecommerce store system that has built-in support for purchase orders? You see, I was all set to just use ZenCart, when the client informed me that the first 3 interested customers he has all want to pay with a PO.

Personally, I'd rather just tell the potential customers to go find a credit card, as writing/testing/debugging/shipping/maintaining a bolted-on PO system seems like a lot of effort. Then there's the additional 'back-office' administration of dealing with the purchase orders, collections, etc. Seems like a hassle that could grow unwieldy.

So, is there a LAMP-compatible e-commerce system that supports customers paying with a purchase order instead of a credit card?

Open source ecommerce software vs. something else, cheap

ValveAnnex — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:28:58 -0800

OSCommerceFilter: I need to find a new ecommerce site package for a small business client. OSCommerce has been fun, and that whole open source terrain is a real kick, but security problems have become serious, and it's time to consider something else. Hackers have done their damage. I'm getting my ass kicked figuring it out, finding the source of the problem, and swimming through the crap that is open source support. My client is not wealthy, and feeds their family with some (roughly 1/4th) of the income from the site. Those shitheads hit at the worst time of the year (the holidays), I'm super busy at work, and come home to a family. I don't really charge my client for ongoing support, but this is a whopper. I'm facing a site rebuild/redo.

Do I slap her with a $10,000 package? Point her elsewhere? Give OSCommerce a loving, forgiving turn again at the nails going through my hands and feet?

NEEDED: a cheap, easy to run, customizable ecommerce package (with extesibility, and shipping/payment processing features) that is reputable, hosted privately, friendly to design customization, with robust reporting, tight security and adequate support.

Turnkey OSCommerce hosting?

mwhybark — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:51:29 -0800

Anyone have any experience with any turnkey OSCommerce providers? Good recommendations? Bad experiences? (I was amazed to find no dedicated threads in AskMe concerning turnkey hosting in general.) By 'turnkey,' I wsh to clarify, I mean a no-IT-skills required hosting plan that provides a vanilla, unpopulated install of OSCommerce + https + (presumably) purchasability. I do want back-end ssh and MySQL access for certain things but the primary store maintainer envisions populating and managing the store entirely via flatfile uploads.

Whether or not OSC (or forks) can import-to-populate from flatfiles is unknown, but the closer objective is a one-day-to-launch store.