Considering oscommerce

[iamdave]

I have been with several carts over the years. Outgrew them, they didn't have features they said they had (were in planning or version 1.0 filled with bugs) or their price went beyond what I thought was affordable.

 

I run a music store and use it for back end entry as well as e-commerce where I have about 5k - 6k items. Many of my items are matrix items meaning they have color options, size options etc.

 

I have experience in carts over the past 15 years and light html coding though mostly done in dreamweaver. I'm wondering if oscommerce is an option for me? Would I be able to install it myself or is professional install needed?

 

Front end for customer:

 

- Easy customer searching - sort methods by price, etc. department, by brand

- related items - cross selling / upselling

- easy checkout - 1 page preferred

- wishlist

- product reviews

- google friendly search engine optimization - meta tags, html page descriptions/keywords etc. for items

- descriptive urls ie myurl.com/item

- Secure transactions with SSL

- easy cart contents

- matrix options for color/size etc.

- all credit cards and paypal acceptance

- coupon options

- shipping options / discounts - flexibility

- Send to a Friend

- Email Notifications of Orders

- Customer Service- Contact Us form, Order History, forgot password

 

Back end needs:

- Payroll

- Purchase orders including drop ships

- bill payments

- easy backup and restore

- statistics & reporting on sales orders etc.

- easy order processing - pending, shipped etc. sorting,

- history chasing from sales order, cash sale, purchase order, bill, bill payment

- e-mail campaigns to customer base

- automated e-mail campaigns based on order

- ups integration would also like fedex/usps would need to ship item and have e-mail automatically sent saying your item

 

shipped and here's your tracking #.

Need to be able to see AVS (address verification system) with credit cards and if it matches or not (address matches

- Batch Import and Export of items, images etc. via database

- reports for taxes, sales etc.

- easy refund method

 

In store needs:

Easy entering of basic cash sales either via software ie. quickbooks and uploading or online quick and easy

 

Dave

[email protected]

[♥geoffreywalton]

Would I be able to install it myself - Yes

or is professional install needed? - Depends how much time you are willing to invest but with time and help from the forum alot can be achieved.

 

Front end for customer:

 

- Easy customer searching - sort methods by price, etc. department, by brand

- related items - cross selling / upselling

- easy checkout - 1 page preferred

- wishlist

- product reviews

- google friendly search engine optimization - meta tags, html page descriptions/keywords etc. for items

- descriptive urls ie myurl.com/item

- Secure transactions with SSL

- easy cart contents

- matrix options for color/size etc.

- all credit cards and paypal acceptance

- coupon options

- shipping options / discounts - flexibility

- Send to a Friend

- Email Notifications of Orders

- Customer Service- Contact Us form, Order History, forgot password

 

Yes to all of the above.

 

Back end needs:

- Payroll - NO

- Purchase orders including drop ships -NO

- bill payments

- easy backup and restore

- statistics & reporting on sales orders etc.

- easy order processing - pending, shipped etc. sorting,

- history chasing from sales order, cash sale, purchase order, bill, bill payment

- e-mail campaigns to customer base

- automated e-mail campaigns based on order

- ups integration would also like fedex/usps would need to ship item and have e-mail automatically sent saying your item

 

shipped and here's your tracking #.

Need to be able to see AVS (address verification system) with credit cards and if it matches or not (address matches

- Batch Import and Export of items, images etc. via database

- reports for taxes, sales etc.

- easy refund method

 

In store needs:

Easy entering of basic cash sales either via software ie. quickbooks and uploading or online quick and easy

 

Yes apart from the NO's

[iamdave]

So the only no's I caught were payroll and purchase orders. Correct?

 

Are you just not able to do drop ships or purchase orders in general you cannot do?

 

Is this something made for a retail store and online store doing about 5 - 20 orders a day online?

 

On the back end do you enter sales via some back end thing via the net or via some quickbooks style and import in store sales?

 

Dave

[♥geoffreywalton]

Believe it is better to send web sales to QB rather than the other way round.

 

OSC is a sales site not a complete financial system, so raising orders on your suppliers, direct delivery from suppliers and general book-keeping is not included. You need something like osfinance or QB.

 

You can enter orders via the admin area, I do not know of anyone that runs a physical shop off it but I am sure there will be some.

 

Have a look at the demo store and admin area to see what comes out of the box and then look at the contributions for any additional functionality you want.

 

That way you can tick your own list.

 

G

[GweiLo]

I'm also considering OSC. It's packed with nice features and it's been improved upon even further by a large and enthusiastic community.

 

What worries me, after having read up on OCS in this forum, is how many times that people here have wondered if the official development of OCS is dead.

 

I know that this is an awful question to ask but:

Is OSC outdated but stable - or is it simply too old and patched up to work securely anymore?

 

After everything I've read in this forum it seems that even OCS's loudest cheerleaders are worried about hackers and outdated backend features.

[cannuck1964]

What worries me, after having read up on OCS in this forum, is how many times that people here have wondered if the official development of OCS is dead.

No it is not dead, people making those replies generally do not know what they are talking about and are guessing and making waves because that is the type of people they are.

 

 

I know that this is an awful question to ask but:

Is OSC outdated but stable - or is it simply too old and patched up to work securely anymore?

While it is old, it also has been given many security audits and checks. This only made it more secure.

 

After everything I've read in this forum it seems that even OCS's loudest cheerleaders are worried about hackers and outdated backend features.

If standard security is adhered to, this is not an issue. Leave your back door open and sooner or later some thief will sneak in. Lock it and this reduces the issue.

 

cheers,

[arjee1963]

I used an osCommerce store for years, it ran trouble-free. I agree with the other posts that security is more about your configuration. I relied on an expert/professional for that and handled the front-end page customization and store configuration myself.

 

If your stuff is living behind SSL appropriately, you won't have any worries. I tested mine on a regular basis by trying to directly access content pages and download files, and found it to perform solidly.

 

I had a little trouble getting advanced payment method set up with my payment gateway provider, but that was more me not having any idea where to start than anything else.

 

I did find adding products to be something of a pain. It seemed more laborious than it needed to be. The process may be more streamlined now...I'm just coming back after taking down my store for quite a while. Do check out the demos and see what you think.