OS Commerce basic info

[Jim]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if someone could give me some basic information about the OsCommerce software I just installed from the Control Panel.

1.) Do I still need a merchant account?
2.) Is the Server-wide SSL url set in on of the particular PHP modules or in an option from the Admin panel?
3.) I plan on selling very small quantities - almost a side purpose of the site really. I'll be lucky to see 2 items a month sell. So if a merchant account IS needed would it be worth it? (small $$ items).

Thanks!

[pcam]

If you have small $ items you may want to look at 2checkout.com or Paysystems.com.

[SumBodyElze]

Originally posted by Jim
Hello everyone,

I was wondering if someone could give me some basic information about the OsCommerce software I just installed from the Control Panel.

1.) Do I still need a merchant account?

Yes, unless you plan to ask customers to send check or money order.

2.) Is the Server-wide SSL url set in on of the particular PHP modules or in an option from the Admin panel?

My experience with osCommerce is that the SSL URL is set at installation time either through the "installation wizard" or manually in the catalog and admin configuration.php files. Don't know how Fantastico handles it. But if my experience is any indication, you may have to go in and do some configuration tweaking before it handles SSL paths properly.

A basic understanding of PHP is strongly recommended if you are going to customize osC in any serious way.

3.) I plan on selling very small quantities - almost a side purpose of the site really. I'll be lucky to see 2 items a month sell. So if a merchant account IS needed would it be worth it? (small $$ items).

As pcam stated, 2Checkout and PaySystems may be your best options. Or possibly PayPal which charges a much cheaper transaction rate, but requires non-members to sign up at purchase time.

You may want to look into installing the "Held Orders" contribution into osC. This module stores all attempted order information in a separate table just in case the customer forgets to click the final confirmation button at 2CO, PaySystems, etc.

If that button isn't clicked, confirmation info isn't sent back to osC and the sale information is NOT stored. So you get a payment notification from your payment service, but no transaction details are stored in osC. "Held Orders" catches these orders and lets you restore them to the database.

You can find this and other handy modifications at the osCommerce official website (http://www.oscommerce.org)

[friedkitten]

I've been "fighting" with osCommerce 2.2MS2 (the version that is also installed by Fantastico) all day long. It looks very simple and easy at first, but the second you actually go searching for documentation, you only start to realize what a mess it is.

The Wiki for this project is less than helpful, and the more I dig around in the directory structure, the more I'm starting to believe Fantastico installs the package differently as the people on the osC forum suggest/do.

I'm off for the night, but if anyone was able to have even the slightest succes in getting this thing running on a subdomain, possibly with caching, logging and SSL (or even one of them) I'd love to hear about it :)

[SumBodyElze]

osCommerce is definitely not for the faint of heart. You may have to spend some time asking questions in their forums to get things straightened out.

And you'd better be fairly comfortable with PHP if you plan on customizing it to any significant degree.

Still, I find osCommerce much better than re-inventing the wheel. Especially with the available SEC (Store Enhancement Controller) modules preinstalled. Lots of cool and useful features that make managing an ocCommerce store easier and faster.