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Oscommerce is shopping cart software that can be used in any web server that has installed PHP and MySQL. One of the big advantages that oscommerce has, aside from being free, is its reputation. It has become a trusted shopping cart supported by a lot of people and has been in the business for quite a long time. This combination of support and time are reasons why it is popular among a lot of people and is used by a lot of online stores.

This shopping cart software solution is freely downloaded together with its code/contributions. And since clients who make use of this software solution can modify the codes to make the software compatible with their site, Oscommerce is very suitable for any kinds of online stores. For businesses who are planning to become bigger in the future, oscommerce allows for customization and expansion with the help of professional website developers. Yes, it is suitable for any kinds of stores, from any countries and available to different kinds of nationalities, because of its multilanguage and multicurrency features.

Added to this is its being user-friendly, both to the administration and the viewers. Magento uses a shopping cart model that is very familiar, and the product catalog can be accessed using a lot of ways. Newsletters and emails are sent to customers to notify them about certain products and promos. The software also provides security in their accounts to protect any information data about themselves. This information data includes, but is not limited to, their history of purchase, status of their orders, among others. On merchant’s side, the software makes it possible for merchants to check what is going in their business through report generation, payment processing and back-up tools, including packing slips and even invoices. Merchants have control over catalog content, catalog structure, shipping cost calculations and the products being sold. Aboce all, security on the merchant’s administration are is simple, thus easy to use, and is protected.

Oscommerce also helps in the marketing strategy of your business. It has product catalogs, product specials, reviews, newletters, related product features, and what’s new feature. All of these helps your customers know what new products are being offered and what products are doing well in the market and how these products can help them.

One reason why I started using osCommerce is because it has already received wide patronage giving an impression of reliability. Since it’s an open source, downloadable-for-free software, it’s very suitable for people who are on a tight budget. Being an open-source software, it is also very flexible because there is always room for customization. And, if problems arise, since it is well supported by its developers, I always have people to ask. However, it took me some time to do the customization especially if I do not get any help from developers. Thus, even if it’s for free, since customization is not that easy, I still have to shed some money to hire somebody to customize it for me.

Getting started using OsCommerce is a breeze because of its automatic web browser installation and upgrade procedure. I especially like the fact that I can make quick and easy changes in the layout. On the downside, since there are no templates available and I can only edit the footer, the header and the right and left columns, I do not have much room in design creativity. Thus, if you are looking for software that offers a lot of templates, then I do not recommend osCommerce for you. However, the features of the software come in default in a complete out-of-the-box solution and it has an object oriented backend making changes easy to do. Aside from these, osCommerce widens the range of my possible customers since it’s multi-lingual (English, German and Spanish speaking users) and multi-currency.

As for security, even though it’s an open-source software, I did not have to worry because osCommerce provides a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for my customers. The downside comes in the administration side. It does not have any built-in password protect for the administration area. I still have to go to the osCommererce site or ask the people responsible for my website to add password protection.

One of the best things I like about osCommerce is that it does its own optimization for my site. It presents catalogs, newsletters, reviews, and features for products related to what I am advertising. Yet, the osCommerce shopping cart is not so effective with large catalogs. If I have more than a hundred products and if I frequently change some information about the products, I would need to modify some elements in the product administration and have modules to manage the data. For catalogs that have thousands of products, some problems in searching and browsing may arise.