xecutive Summary eCommerce platform for nothing.
Offered for free at
eCommerce platforms are www.oscommerce.com, this
being commoditized. Enterprise eCommerce solution provides tons
level solutions are coming down of bells and whistles and
in price and new open source provides a user friendly
solutions are being made interface to manage the
available to anyone with an administrative portions of the
internet connection for free. store. The code is based in the
PHP scripting language and runs
The most robust of these open on the Apache web server - a user
source solutions is OS Commerce also needs access to a SQL
(OSC) - a community driven database to initially upload the
eCommerce solution that is files that manage the categories
flexible, scalable, and user and products within the admin
friendly. As eCommerce becomes section.
even more a part of mainstream
retail, OSC will provide Now that sounds complicated, but
businesses of all shapes and really anyone can do it with some
sizes with the functionality and concentrated effort. Much of the
capabilities of the big boys. documentation online regarding OS
This brief examines some of the is very thorough and provides
advantages of OS Commerce and step by step plans on how to get
provides insights into how it can your store up and running. Any
help your business. newbie to this type of work will
likely come across some
There is no such thing as a free roadblocks, but the OS Commerce
lunch. community forums are only a click
away to start trouble shooting.
Maybe so, but you CAN get an
The solution is community driven, contributions.
meaning that like minded OSCers
are ready to help out their peers Ultimate SEO URL's by Chemo
with answers to posted questions.
Yes, at times this can be This cool contribution allows the
extremely frustrating waiting for site owner to create static URL's
an answer, but it is very out of a database driven site.
rewarding to overcome a This will dramatically help in
technology bug on your own. search saturation as more pages
are able to be indexed. Its no
Contribute to the Cause secret that search spiders like
traditional urls better than ones
The best part of OSC is the that are dynamic and this
number of contributions that can contribution helps achieve that.
be added to your site at any
time. Again, there is no cost for Easy Populate
these enhancements and upgrades -
just the need to be patient in No need to input product data
your installations. In most manually, this contribution
cases, contributions are located allows you to import data from a
on the OS commerce community basic excel file into your store.
section and are downloadable via A true timesaver!
zip files. After opening the
file, read the "read me" file Featured Products
which will walk you through the
file additions, subtractions, and If you have an ecommerce store -
code changes needed to make your certain products are more
enhancement work properly. If you attractive to sell than others.
explore the OS platform be sure This contribution allows you to
to upgrade with the following tailor the featured products that
you want to showcase within both use and perfect for a small to
your home and category pages. medium size business in getting
online. Yes, there will be
Final Thoughts on OSC headaches along the way but stay
with it and you will overcome
Myself, I am a marketer. But them and soon have an ecommerce
after learning OS I really feel store to bring you in a new
like I have some programmer blood revenue stream.
in me! This platform is easy to
About the Author:
Craig Smith is the founder and managing director of Trinity Insight LLC. Trinity is a consultancy that helps online retailers sell more products within teh eCommerce marketplace.
http://www.trinityinsight.com
Read more articles by:
Craig Smith
Article Source: www.iSnare.com
