New to osCommerce

[bluezion]

Hello everyone,

 

I've just recently discovered osCommerce, after a less-than-pleasant experience with AgoraCart. After surfing a few stores, I have some questions:

 

First, is it mandatory for new customers to login before making a purchase, or can this feature be disabled, allowing people to make a purchase without logging in?

 

My other question is for you web designers: how would you rate osCommerce on ease of customization? I know this is totally subjective, but any feedback would be nice. I'm a full-time freelancer so I have the skills to build websites, I just need to know what other web designers think of using the software.

 

Thanks! :)

 

-Daniel

[wizardsandwars]

Daniel,

 

First, there are a couple of contribution that allow the customer to purchase without creating an account, however, you still have to collect all of the customer info before they see the shipping or payment page. Really, the only difference is that they don't have to provide a 'password' during the signup process, and they don't see an 'account created' page.

 

Second, if you are a full time freelance developer, then you should be pretty comfortable with php, or at least you should be. Using the stock OSCommerce, you will need to make extensive changes to the php in order to fully customize your cart. By default, the php and the html are not segregated. That being said, there are a few non official contributions that once installed might help a newbie web developer that doesn't know php to customize their cart. These contribution are good, IMO, however, are not officially supported, and may present problems in the future if you ever need to upgrade your version of OSC.