Need some help with intial questions on limitations and caperbilities in osCommerce

[Akorth]

I hope it's possible for people here to answer these questions.

 

I've been sent on the hunt to evaluate 5 different e-commerce products.

 

osCommerce

Zen Cart

CREloaded, the free ed.

Smilehouse's workplace small business ( the free edition ofc ).

Mal's e-commerce Shopping Cart

 

I'm not really expecting any answers on anything but osCommerce with regards to the things i'll be asking to but comments on that would be nice too ofc.

 

 

Some of the requirements are pretty basic, some aren't entirely. I'm hoping people could post what contributions would be needed ( and how much work the specific contribution would be to implement, assuming you know nothing of osCommerce but some medium level php ).

 

 

The requirements:

 

- merchant recieves e-mail upon customer order

- customer recieves invoice upon completion of purchase, and confirmation of shipping ( with a tracking number ) as soon as item is shipped. ( one click status to shipped and tracking number entered in system, or the like, based functionality )

- minimum amount must be purchased defined on customer group and/or customer ( wholesale oriented).

- control of visibility of products depending on customer group and or customer (wholesale oriented).

- differentiated prices on products based on amount defined per customer group, ie. wholesale customers gets certain discounts based on the ampounts they buy and the amounts they've bought previously, on specific products. (wholesale oriented).

- loyalty system - ties somewhat with above feature, but in general just discount % based on total amounts of purchases over x time..eg the last year.

- newsletter, possibly html based. The ability to create it in system adding products directly in ( eg new products promotion ) would be nice, but isn't "required".

 

a few basics:

- module/contribution for spam e-mail prevention

- module/contribution for better protected admin login ( actually making the admin login protected ).

 

 

Also how much work, relatively seen is there in taking a stock installation, with, at least a good chunk contributions, possible some that covers above mentioned features, and adding, from say templatemonster, or other sites that desing templates for osCommerce.

( basically I'm trying to figure out how much time it'd take to go from nothing installed to a installation w contributions and a template/design of "my choosing"/purchase roughly.

 

 

I know this is quite a bite to chew off but i hope you'll be able to help me out on this one.

[SeanB]

Here's what i can tell you. Green is Good without any mod. Yellow requires a mod.

EDIT: Green and yellow suck, sorry. lets go with Blue=Good, Red=Mod

 

- module/contribution for spam e-mail prevention - Not sure what you mean here.

 

- merchant recieves e-mail upon customer order

- customer recieves invoice upon completion of purchase, and confirmation of shipping ( with a tracking number ) as soon as item is shipped. ( one click status to shipped and tracking number entered in system, or the like, based functionality )

- newsletter, possibly html based. The ability to create it in system adding products directly in ( eg new products promotion ) would be nice, but isn't "required".

 

- minimum amount must be purchased defined on customer group and/or customer ( wholesale oriented).

- control of visibility of products depending on customer group and or customer (wholesale oriented).

- differentiated prices on products based on amount defined per customer group, ie. wholesale customers gets certain discounts based on the ampounts they buy and the amounts they've bought previously, on specific products. (wholesale oriented).

 

- loyalty system - ties somewhat with above feature, but in general just discount % based on total amounts of purchases over x time..eg the last year.

----Unsure, but there's probably a contribution for it.

 

- module/contribution for better protected admin login ( actually making the admin login protected ).

----I think we all use Unix servers, so our protection is .htaccess based.

 

 

NOTE: Just because i've indicated there's a mod/contribution for it, doesn't mean i know what it's called, or where to get it. I also work with other software, so if i've indicated there's a mod/contribution, and you cant find it, i appologize.

[Akorth]

Thanks for the reply so far.

 

as for the access and the spam e mail, it's been dealt with.

It had to do with the store owner's original hosting taking place on a windows server, go figure ;)

[shooter-boy]

Ah, Windows servers eh... Can't live with 'em... end of sentence!

 

Rob

[Akorth]

Ah, Windows servers eh... Can't live with 'em... end of sentence!

 

Rob

 

 

hehe yeah you a point Rob.

 

 

Anyone who can hook me up w an answer on the template question though? So i got all my bases covered.

And perhaps an idea of how much work would be in this?