Is Oscommerce.org a reliable website? Can you create your own web store on here if so how? Where do I go?

Question

I want to create my own account on here but I dunno how or where do go from oscommerce.org. I dont see any "create a account" link or anything like that. Does this site help you create your own web store or do you have to have one already and this site just helps people find your store? Please help I really want to create a web store to sell my product... Thanks.

Answer 1

osCommerce is a script which you install on a PHP/MySQL  hosting account.  It is a shop which allows you to utilise other 3rd parties to accept payment (eg Paypal), here's a quick lowdown:

You would install osCommerce.  Then you set up tax - which can be a bit diffcult to grasp, but if you are not registered for tax you woldn't need to do this (but check your countries tax rules and regulations, as I am not an expert!).

Then insert each of your products into the product adding page in the osCommerce Admin area. At that time you set weight, price, description, tax bracket, name of product etc.

You then decide which shipping module(s) you want to use - be it usps, royal mail or whatever - and insert the prices you want to charge for the shipping.

Then you select your payment methods; paypal? google checkout? worldpay? protx? something else entirely?

Lastly, you decide which modules you want to add? Discount Coupons, SEO modifications, featured products, special offers etc etc - there are literally thousands of extras you can add.

Once all that's done, your shop is ready to go. Well almost! It'll look like 10000 other oscommerce shops. You need to make a design and integrate it, which is pretty straightforward (there is something called "Simple Template System") - see http://www.oscbooks.com/oscommerce-ebook... for the STS Tutorial.

If you wanted to test osCommerce out without going the whole hog and buying a domain name, hosting etc, have a look at http://www.oscbooks.com/oscommerce-tutor...