Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Ecommerce Hosting & Discussion : very bassic questions re: carts & hosting

[kevinL]

Pardon my raw ignorance , and please make any responses couched in non-jarong,,thsnks,,,,I have two sites...up, but idle..soon to become commerically active. Searching for a cart, and new host now, but dismayed at the "noise" on this. Can anyone confirm my "sense" that osCommerce is a new & different kind of animal, and perhaps the way to go if just launching?

Does that limits the # of hosts available? Once the basic oscommerce is customized, am I then "on my own" vis-a-vis support? Any discussion in the most elemental strategic terms would be enormously useful and appreciated. Thanks again.

PS...already read responses from cartika.com have been most useful, but a tad skewed to current knowledgable users. I am still in the concept stage.

[Corey Bryant]

Welcome to the forums Kevin!

Well the majority of hosts support PHP on an UNIX platform. You first have to ask yourself - do you prefer UNIX or Windows? Some hostigng companies do support PHP on Windows but not MySQL.

I like ASP & most of our carts are built that way. But you can run ASP mainly on a Windows platform.

osCommerce have their own support forum & you will find a lot of PHP forums out there (as well as ASP).

There are also a lot of hosted carts as well. They are maintained either by the host, by the company that hosts them, or by the electronic payment gateway.

What do you want your cart to do - besides sell things? Do you want to offer sizes / colors? Do you want your customers to be able to log back on? Do you want to be connected to the UPS / Fed-Ex / USPS API to determine proper shipping costs?

[cartika-andrew]

Originally posted by kevinL

PS...already read responses from cartika.com have been most useful, but a tad skewed to current knowledgable users. I am still in the concept stage.

Hi Kevin,

I apologize, but my intention was not to skew my comments toward "knowledgable" users only.

To answer your questions:

- selecting hosts which work with osCommerce does not necessarily limit the # of hosts available, as most will offer it and support it to the extent that it will "run on the server". However, selecting a host that specializes in osCommerce will limit the # of hosts available.

- Hosts that specialize in osCommerce will generally offer more base support then those that simply ensure it runs on the server.ie) how to add products, how to change tax zones, etc..) - however, they will charge for any modification not included in their "version/snapshot" of osCommerce - usually they will offer many modules for free with their "snapshot" of osCOmmerce (example of module additions - ready to integrate with many payment gateways, multiple images per product, quick price updates on one screen, UPS/FedEX/Canadian shipping modules, ability to accept PO's, etc..)

What I would recommend is determine what criteria are most important to your business and meet the criteria of the product/service you will be selling. Do you require multiple images for every product you sell. Do you have a lot of repeat customers which demand you have credit terms established for them and want the ability to purchase with Purchase Orders - rather the credit cards, do you want real time shipping quotes from UPS? If you will be accepting credit card transactions, you need to figure out which payment processor or merchant account you want to use.

Do a search on google for "osCommerce Hosting" or "osCommerce Support"

Contact each company and ask them:
- what module additions are included with their snapshot
- How much do they charge for a custom module addition
- How much do they charge for "branding"
- How much support is included with osCommerce on their base hosting packages
- How much are their upgraded support packages and what do they include
- Do you support XYZ payment processor or merchant account?

If No... How much will it cost to create or install that module?

I hope this helps, and please do not hesitate in asking more questions if you require any further clarrification.

[kevinL]

thank you, and thank you cobeybryant as well. Since I am still in the swamp, meaning have yet to get to a point where I think I have developed a "sense" of this, I will refrain with any more questions til I kperfomr that criteria that you mentioned.

I joked with a friend this am, that when one calls for emergency support from the (fictitious, so please don't zing me) International Comprehesive World Hosting Metric s, one might easily get a phone reply of " Oh...you want my son Billy...he will be home from high school at 3PM, but I gotta warn ya....he is grounded til he cleans his room" After reading a lot of these forums, it is no longer that funny..I feel the hair on the nape rising. Thanks again. I'll get back when I am smarter.

[Corey Bryant]

No worries. And good luck with this. I know it can be very confusing to say the least. And ask any questions that you want. We all will be more than happy to give you some advice.

[Snowman30]

You may want to look at ZenCart, which is a new fork of osCommerce.

I believe they are recoding the script to work with various databases, so it may be possible to run the cart on various platforms and database softwares.