oscommerce

can anyone recommend a shopping cart?

[moogula]

Does anyone have experience with oscommerce? I need a shopping cart to handle products and services (subscriptions). It needs to handle trial periods, discounts and promo codes as well. Someone recommended oscommerce and from what I see it looks great (like the look and feel). Others I've looked into = interchange (too complex?), agora (too cheezy). Is oscommerce the best you can get for free? Any warnings from anyone?

[oilman]

There's been a few discussions here about oscommerce - here's a Google/WebmasterWorld search: Oscommerce on WebmasterWorld [google.com]

[mivox]

Warning: If you want to customize it much, you need to be comfortable mucking around in the script code... I'm still tinkering with our installation, adding new feature add-ons and refining the layout, and I did the initial installation in April. ;)

As long as you keep backups of everything, that's not too much of a problem though... and you don't need to spend months noodling with it. I just like obssessing over stuff like that.

It's an excellent package, and the number of customizing "contributions" available to add on to it are just mind-boggling.

[Edouard_H]

If you can make use of the features as is, it's a great piece of work. Trying to mold it to other needs can get a little complicated and often involves installing user contributions, some of which are stable and some not.

In the plus column:

sql database
good admin features
better functionality than many commercial apps

Minus column:

many nested includes if you delve into the code
not modular
requires alot of work if you need more/different functions than the base version offers

The support forum is very active although you might spend a bit of time searching.

[Marcia]

I've seen one commercial site using osCommerce that's so outstandingly beautiful, functional and fast-loading that it sticks in my mind. It has what appear to be flat HTML pages; you wouldn't know it's dynamic. It was customized by the web developer, but considering that it's open source to begin with it's probably a good way to go if customization is possible.

[lorax]

osC is an excellent package but as has been noted - you do need to feel comfortable with PHP - especially functions and classes.

There is a new release of osC due out sometime soon (I think) and it promises to be a major upgrade from the 2.2 MS1.

Marcia, I'd be interested in seeing that site you mention if you'd be willing to sticky me the URI.

[pixels]

Marcia, I'd be interested in seeing that site you mention if you'd be willing to sticky me the URI.

.== Ditto ==.

Thanks
pixels

[Essex_boy]

I use OSC and find it can carry operations like other software that cost £000000's. I cant install and and add features myself so I pay someone list in teh add words column of google.

Works for me

[lorax]

Upon another visit to the osC site I noted that oscommerce 2.2 MS2 has been released.

[scoob]

Marcia, I'd be interested in seeing that site you mention if you'd be willing to sticky me the URI.

.== Ditto ==.
- Scoob

[scoob]

Word of warning about subscriptions / recurring billing

First off, let us realize that on-line subscription have really two elements to them:

• content protection scheme (either password protection, pin, temporary URL valid for short time (24 hours etc...)

• the recurring nature of the transaction [billing cycle length, start date, number of recurring cycles.
  

The first part is easily addressed by many shopping carts. Usually handled with a callback to a cgi on your site but sometimes with a bank of pre-assigned PIN numbers or the auto-generation of a temporary URL.

The second part is where I want to bring your attention.
In order to do a recurring billing (say monthly billing), you need to resubmit the credit card info once a month. That implies that the credit card info must be stored somewhere! Unless you host your own website and have a have a staff dedicated to to the absolute security of your servers, you should never store credit card info. It is a tremendous liability.

So, how do you get around this problem you ask?

Many authorization gateway and some gateway/merchant accounts provide such services "manually" from the merchant's control panel. While this would not work for high volume subscription stuff, it works quite well for high ticket items such as on-going consulting services.

Then you have 3rd party credit card processors who tend to offer those services.

And finally, there are some hosted shopping carts that will support recurring billing.

I just did a fairly lengthy research on the subject for a customer and list below the various services I found and what they provide [please bear with me the stretching of the rules here as it is not limited to one vendor, nor is it a recommendation of vendor but rather an informative list of everything I have found on the subject so far]

Gateways providing recurring billing:

• Authorize.net (from the control panel)
  
• Verisign (extra $$ for svc, looks like it can be automated)
  
• Skipjack transaction network (from control panel)
  (not sure if they are also merchant account providers?)
  www.skipjack.com/transactionnetwork/merchants/keyfeatures.html
  
• Echo-inc (have their own gateway, works with many carts including OsCommerce, is a merchant account provider (2.17-2.65% discount rate), promises recurring billing support in about 2 months).
  
• Worldpay has a service called futurePay.
  

3rd party credit card processor w recurring billing:

• The standard high discount rate vendors such as IBill, CCBill, CCNow etc... 10-15% discount rate
  
• paypal 2.98% discount rate
  
• 2checkout.com
  
• paysystems.com 3.95-5.5% discount rate [note: with paysystems, you have to choose between 3 types of interface:
  
  1. Non-tangible goods (electronic delivery, web site access, consulting services for which they give you a TPP-Sales account (which supports recurring billing).
     
  2. Physical, shippable goods for which they set you up with a TPP-Catalog account (regular catalog type, no recurring billing but offers PIN number generation).
     
  3. Both types of delivery for which they set you up with TPP-Pro which is simply the API to their own gateway which you then have to interface to your shopping cart (i.e. write an interface to their API spec).
     
  
  

Hosted Shopping carts that offer recurring billing:

• 1shoppingcart.com [3 modes, recurring is available at the pro mode $70/mo]
  
• merchantcgi.com [$25/mo, has it's own auth gateway that you interface with your merchant account... unusual!]
  

If anybody has more info on other HOSTED vendors that provide recurring billing (automated or manual), please reply to this thread as this is very rare and valuable info!

Cheers!
- Scoob

[ecommerce man]

OScommerce is good at what it does, but I've found that due to its lack of modular parts (it's PHP and most stuff is on page) it's harder to customize than some other solutions.

I only use one solution and that's Interchange. It can be a little complex, but there are plenty of people out there to lend a hand. It is however extremely powerfull and like OScommerce it's open source and free!

In your case you may be better with an online solution, something with subscrition payments built-in. I'm not aware of Interchange or OScommerce having addons for subscription payments. If they have someone let me know. I'm seeing more and more call for repeat fee sites.

[georgeek]

Like to add a small comment to scoob's excellent post.

Worldpay has a service called futurePay.

I have used FuturePay on one site for some time now, for subscriptions with recurring billing for 1, 3, 6, and 12 month periods, never had a problem.

[scoob]

Hi georgeek!

What kind of fees are we looking at with WorldPay?
(setup, discount, monthly minimum discount, fixed monthly fees, any other special fees they have like special fees
for futurepay?)

Thanks!
- Scoob

[georgeek]

Scoob. The site owner set the deal up with the his WorldPay salesperson and I can't remember the set up fee. I did take a look at the clients account just now and as far as I can see over the lifetime of the project he is paying about a 3.75% transaction fee and that seems to be the only charge. Sorry I can't be more detailed :(

[scoob]

One correction to my post on recurring billing.

Authorize.net DOES NOT (as of Aug 2003) support
recurring billing. I was misinformed by a tech
support person on a preliminary inquiry phone call.

What they have is "manual re-billing".
What this means is that you can resubmit new charges to
a credit card (same or different $amount) within 90 days
of a successfully settled transaction.

The say the automated re-billing is in the works and they
hope to have it later this year.

- Scoob

[mikeymikey]

Marcia, I'd also be interested in seeing that site you mentioned if you'd be willing to sticky me the URI.

Thanks!
- Mike