Using osCommerce to resell web hosting packages

[madhouse92]

Guys,

 

I'm looking for some advice as to whether (and if so how) I can use osCommerce in conjunction with reselling web hosting packages. Some background information......I have a reseller account with a web hosting company and my goal is to resell hosting packages along with my web development services i.e. a customer gets a web site and a web hosting package. For now I just want to start reselling web hosting packages. I have my website up and running and I've detailed all of the types of web hosting packages which I can resell. The problem is that I don't really need a complete shopping cart solution i.e. a catalog detailing product categories/items. What I want is to simply have an "Order Now" link where the customer would complete their personal details and then make the initial payment for the hosting package. For some of the web hosting packages i.e. dedicated servers, the client would be presented with a form to configure the server e.g. RAM, disk space etc etc.

 

Anyway, apologies for the vagueness of my question, but I just want to know whether osCommerce would deal with my requirements and if so, would do I need to do to getting it working as I need it i.e. would I need a customised template which simply contains the form details for the customer to complete. Or even better, does anyone know of an add-on template which would do the job?

 

Regards

 

Mark Austin

[Guest]

Mark,

 

You can configure osCommerce to do just about anything you want it to do. However, if you are reseller, your provider should give you the reseller website to offer to your customers. If they don't, get a new provider.

 

 

Chris

[madhouse92]

Chris, thanks for the reply.

 

My provider provides all the tools via Plesk Control Panel to create customised hosting packages, add domains etc and they also provide a reseller API which I can use to automate the creation of the hosting package once a customer has selected and paid for one. The one thing they don't provide as standard is a payment gateway and the process of selling the hosting packages i.e. the ordering pages where the customer would select/customise their hosting package and submit their personal details. I was thinking about coding my own pages to do all this and then store the saved information in a database but then started looking around at shopping carts which might do what I want with a bit of customisation.

 

So with regards to osCOmmerce, are you able to point me in the direction of what I would need to customise to create the ordering pages and to save the customised data to the database? For an example of what I'm looking for take a look at the following -

www.storminternet.co.uk/order_hosting_add_0_selectpaymentfreq.asp?iPlanID=21&sPaymentFrequency=A

. This is the sort of ordering process I want to create, the idea being that the customer would select their hosting package, customise it if applicable, complete their personal details and then make the initial payment.

 

Regards

 

Mark

[PupStar]

why not just buy a WHMCS license and save all the hassle?

[madhouse92]

I would love to use something like WHMCS, but to be honest as I'm just starting out I can't afford it. Maybe once I've got a few customers with a regular payment coming I could look at using something like WHMCS. Right now I just need something I can use to get up and running in order to start selling.