Abstract
osCommerce is an Open Source based online shop e- commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. It features 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 with no costs, fees, or limitations involved.
Further Information:
Keywords
osCommerce, shop, commerce, online, business, web, internet, WEB9
Thatīs osCommerce
osCommerce has attracted the largest community for an e-commerce solution that consists of over 120,600 store owners and developers worldwide with add-ons being contributed on a daily basis.
To date there are over 3,700 add-ons available that have been created by the community to extend the features of an osCommerce online store.
osCommerce combines Open Source solutions to provide a free and open e- commerce platform, which includes the powerful PHP web scripting language and the fast MySQL database server. With no special requirements, osCommerce is able to run on any PHP 4.1+ enabled web server running on Linux, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows environments.
With over 6 years of operation, osCommerce has built a showcase of over 11,500 online shops that have been voluntarily added to the live shops section, and powers many thousands of more online shops worldwide.
Solutions
osCommerce delivers everything you need to get started in selling physical and digital goods over the internet.
The system manages from the Catalog frontend that is presented to your customers, to the Administration Tool backend that completely handles your products, customers, orders, and online store data. osCommerce is a complete online store solution that contains both a catalog frontend and an administration tool backend, which can be easily installed and configured over a web- based installation procedure.
Price and License
osCommerce is open source, available under the GPL license and free to download. With commercial systems, the cost of license fees can add up quickly as you add goods, software extensions, servers and databases.
None of these fees apply to osCommerce. With the open source licensing model, you can minimize the amount of your initial investment, which increases your ROI (Return on Investment) over the same time period. Besides the financial gains of using open source, you will also have the freedom of choice. With similar commercial systems, you cannot alter the software, build additional functionality or even control your data because you are locked in a contract that prevents you from doing so. As the web changes, you won't be able to change with it. Instead, you will be at the mercy of the company that developed the software. With thousands of shop systems available today, it is not uncommon for these software companies to go out of business unexpectedly. You may end up with an expensive e- commerce system that you can no longer even use and the cost of migrating your data to a new system could be astronomical.
Note
The osCommerce shop solution is property and under copyright of osCommerce.
