should I use oscommerce

[stephane]

Hello all.

 

Our company is about to launch a new downloadable software application. Our in-house expertise is with java and jsp's. No one is familiar with php, but I'm sure it's not too bad to learn. As well no member of our team has dealt with credit card transactions over the internet. A forum such as this one would also be a nice feature for our site.

 

Therefore here is my question. Is it worth using osCommerce as our website framework and learning php or should we build from our existing knowledge. And if you recommend osCommerce what are the pro's and con's ? Is it overkill for our needs ? What is the scalability of the system.

 

Thank you,

Stephane

[stephane]

As well how much time should we expect to spend if we do go with this solution to get up to speed and implement our site, assuming it consists of a main page, one item for sale, promotional database links.

 

Thanks again,

Stephane

[Guest]

I woudl recommend you using oscommerce, even though no-one in your company has any experience with php. This is because the software is very easy to customise and you barely have to mess with the php code if you dont widh to. Also with this forum asnd the available contribuutions, you cant go wrong as as there is so much help provided.

 

As for the time you need to spend on it, this can be as much or little as you wish as you can get away with just changing the logo and populating the store. But you may wish to add a few contributions into your store and change the general look. Therefore you can spend as much or as little time as you wish to create your online store with oscommerce.

 

Matt

[Daemonj]

You ask a very tough question.

 

There are a lot of Java-based shopping carts that are available and would allow you to utilize your expertise to assist in modifying it to your needs.

 

Then again, if the stock version of osC already provides the functionality you need you would not need immediate PHP experience to get it going.

 

PHP is very easy to learn and is similar in syntax to JavaScript (which I know is completely different from Java except in name) or C. As most Java developers do have some experience in either or both of those languages there should not be much of a learning curve as only the keywords would need to be learned.

 

In addition, adding PHP to your development team's skills opens more doors as PHP is much more popular than Java for web development in general.

 

Take a look at the demo and see if the general layout and features provide the functionality that you desire.

 

Basic changes can be accomplished by your team and with the help of the people of this forum ( ;) ).

 

If you can use the stock osC store until your development team becomes familiar with the application and PHP/MySQL, installation and configuration will take about 2 hours, and inventory upload should take a few hours (depending upon the number of products and their current format).

 

If you are willing to accept payments via PayPal and/or 2Checkout.com then you can get up and going the same day.

 

In order to accept credit card payment real-time, you will need an SSL certificate, a merchant account, and an account with a payment processor (e.g. authorize.net). Some companies (e.g. Wells Fargo) provide both a merchant account along with authorize.net access. Once all of that is in place you will be able to put your store on-line.

 

If any of the above is unclear or if you have questions please let me know.

 

Jim