Transferring old customer list to osCommerce

[lisapeden]

Hello,

 

I am new to osCommerce. I have some HTML experience but don't know PHP. I am in the process of moving my store from a host whom I presume didn't use osCommerce to one who does. I have installed osCommerce and done most of the configuring. I really wanted to transfer my customer database from my old host to my new one. I exported .cvs files from my old host and imported them to my new one, however, tech support at the new host said I can't use those files because they are in Excel format. When I asked him/her how to manually input my customers into the osCommerce database, he told me to go to phpmyadmin, click on databases, and then when the table comes up, click on "browse" next to address_book. Address_book, however, doesn't have a place to put the customer's email address. Then I looked at "customers." It has a place to put the customer's email address but no place for their physical address. Do I need to put all of my customers in both tables? Is there a simpler way to do this? Or should I just scrap the whole idea and ask all of my existing customers to create a new account?

 

Also, is there a way to input my existing products into the store without having them appear under the "new for October" area?

 

I've read lots of the posts in this community forum. You guys are great!

 

Thanks in advance,

Lisa

[Guest]

There will be no straightforward way of importing a non-osc customer list into your osc site - you will either need a custom solution or just get your customers to create new accounts.

 

If you don't want the products to appear under what's new then why not just disable the what's new section of the page?

[stonenote]

... I have installed osCommerce and done most of the configuring. I really wanted to transfer my customer database from my old host to my new one. I exported .cvs files from my old host and imported them to my new one, however, tech support at the new host said I can't use those files because they are in Excel format. ...

 

I have taken an old shopping cart and exported the customer list as well as other tables from that DB. It is NOT a straight across export - import process. I had about 2700 customers. What you end up doing is to download all the tables from the old DB that relate to the customer including address-books or customer-meta tables. It is time consuming but you then need to make new excel spreadsheets to "match" the fields in the tables in the new OSC DB. You end up cutting and pasting info into the spreadsheets based on Customer ID number. In effect you end up with several different spreadsheets with the information needed by the new OSC program. It does take a lot of cross checking.

 

Then you save each spreadsheet in CSV format. Then import these new CSV excel files into the DB tables. Make sure when you import you write over the old table or totally delete it before importing. Also check the separator as , (comma) not ; (semi-colon) and import from record 1 not 0 as your heading are in 0. It does take a lot of cross checking. It also implies that you are not faint of heart with excel file manipulation. I guess what I'm saying is it can be done.

[deansmar]

to change the Products so they dont appear in the new item for October you need to change the Date in the DB which should be found under

 

v_date_added

 

if you have a lot of data to change then Easy Populate might be the answer (addon Mod No. 500)