OsCommerce Platform for E-commerce

OsCommerce (“open source Commerce”) is an associate e-commerce and on-line store-management package program. It may be used on any internet server that has PHP and MySQL installed. It is accessible as free software system beneath the GNU General Public License.

OsCommerce has many unique functionalities such as many shipping options inclusive of weight, price or destination. Moreover, actual time shipping is integrated with UPS, USPS. In addition, it has zone-based shipping and free shipping option as part of total orders. Even more it also calculates the tax with various zones for various different products.

Several more features of the OsCommerce is listed below:

Features:

• Well matched with all major browsers.
• OsCommerce supports three languages by default English, German and Spanish.
• Mechanised web-based installation.
• Unbounded number of products and categories.
• Preprogramed setup of e-commerce payment gateways: PayPal.com, iPayment.de, 2Checkout.com, etc. Moreover, several different supplement ecommerce payment gateways, offline and online payment integration.
• OsCommerce support multi-currency via manual updating from exchange server.
• Assist dynamic pictures i.e. one picture per product.
• Assist physical merchandize and product downloads.
• Web-based administration module.
• Database backup and restore.
• Temporary and permanent shopping carts.
• Secure transactions with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) support.

There are few advantages and disadvantages of the OsCommerce which will help developer to develop the effective system. The benefits and demerits of the development platform is described as follows:

Pros:

• The significant benefit of OsCommerce is that it can be obtained at very low cost and on some sites it available free of cost.
• Breadcrumb Navigation.
• Dynamic Product attributes relationship
• For designers, to implement the design and layout structure it can be easily done and quickly by development team.
• It is very flexible to integrate the existing website.
• It has simple administration with manageable and easy to use backend system.

Cons:

• No in-built way to protect the administration area of OsCommerce.
• It is not template driven platform.
• It has limited attributes system, for instance, there is no stock control and no stock keeping unit are available. If you are excessively relying on attributes it not the choice for your work.
• OsCommerce has limitation to huge number of product catalogues up to hundred. Moreover, products will need modifications after ten thousand products hence it can be searched and browsed effectively.