Easy Way To Install Your Own Shopping Cart: OsCommerce

An online credit card processing shopping cart script is a piece of software capable of maintaining an e-Commerce web-resource, i.e. online shop, software download resource, dating or adult resource, etc., providing all the functions necessary for both the administration by the e-Commerce merchant and the efficient use by cardholders and customers.

Today we are going to talk about ‘osCommerce’ (osCommerce.com – official website), which is more a whole e-Commerce web-resource administration system than just a shopping cart script. OsCommerce is a great open-source package, which is provided free of charge, which has all the functions needed to manage almost any e-Commerce business online. GSPay.com’s online credit card processing services, online gateways and e-Commerce merchant accounts are fully able to work with osCommerce shopping cart system, which makes your e-Commerce business both powerful and reliable for you and your online credit card holding customers.

Many e-Commerce merchants find it difficult to install shopping cart scripts. We will quick-guide you through the whole installation process. For more detailed information we strongly recommend visiting the osCommerce e-Commerce shopping cart, live e-Commerce statistics system and webstore catalog system.

The installation process, as stated on their official website, consists of 3 major sections: Pre-installation procedure, installation procedure, and post-installation procedure.

The pre-installation procedure. First of all an e-Commerce merchant must make sure that his e-Commerce web-resource hosting server supports osCommerce online shopping system. The OsCommerce system operates on servers with PHP version 4.0 and over, and that’s the most important requirement, as osCommerce can be used on almost any server with any configuration. Free servers are not recommended as these seldom have MySQL access, complicating the osCommerce script execution online.

The installation procedure. OsCommerce has got a simple pre-configured web-based installation script allowing beginner e-Commerce merchants, without in-depth knowledge on PHP programming and MySQL databases, to easily install their own shopping cart system onto their e-Commerce websites. Since this article is dedicated to the ‘easy way’ we will stick to the pre-configured setting and guide you through the possible difficulties and the basic settings while installing osCommerce e-Commerce shopping cart system.

After all the files have been uploaded by FTP or Direct Server Access to an e-Commerce merchant’s server, which by that time will still be empty, the installation process is initiated by accessing the main osCommerce folder. From then on, a merchant-guided installation system will unpack an e-Commerce website online in a matter of minutes. The dialogs will request basic information to be input, pre-defining the systems settings and it’s relation with the server, credit card processing gateway, etc.

The post-installation procedure. After the installation and e-Commerce merchant has to secure his server from any hack attempt by locking some of the accessible files on the server.

As soon as osCommerce is installed one has to proceed to setting up and customize the whole online shopping area in the Administration Control Panel. After filling up the catalogue with the products and services, making sure that the correct prices, descriptions, etc. are provided, e-Commerce merchants may proceed to ‘hooking up’ their e-Commerce merchant account provided online payment gateway with osCommerce. This is done by adding a module into the Payment section of the Administration Panel. GSPay.com will provide the code for the module which can be inserted and setup in a matter of minutes.

How does osCommerce e-Commerce shopping system work online laced with one of GSPay’s credit card processing service? Basically, a client (i.e. cardholder) enters an e-Commerce resource online (powered by osCommerce) and can instantly see the new products or services for the current month. Other products can be accessed from the menus around the e-Commerce website. As soon as the customer picks a product/service, by clicking on the name or image of the product and reading through the detailed description, that is of interest and proceeds to his/her shopping cart (by clicking the ‘Add to Shopping Cart’ button). The item is instantly added to the cardholder’s shopping cart where he/she can see the total value of all the items in the cart and set the quantity. Clicking the ‘Checkout’ will show a secure registration form, where the cardholder registers once. After that, all the credit card details are submitted through another secure form and processed by the GSPay credit card processing gateway. All the information and data between the osCommerce system, the gateway, the issuing and the providing banks is encoded using advanced SSL 128-bit technology.

The e-Commerce merchant running a webstore powered by osCommerce can manually verify orders, or let the system automatically process all orders instantly. Statistics can also be clearly seen in the Administration section; these are helpful when trying new market strategies online.

The power of e-Commerce and online credit card processing is in your hands with GSPay’s reliable, secure and fast e-Commerce merchant account solutions and osCommerce e-Commerce and Online Shopping System.

Please note that his article provides basic guidance for e-Commerce merchants who are new to combining online credit card processing services and shopping cart systems. This article is not to be used as a direct manual or documentation when installing osCommerce. The sole purpose of this article is in providing an idea of how it works. For detailed instructions and further guidance please visit osCommerce.com