osCommerce Free Cart Review
The osCommerce free shopping cart software was first offered in March 2000 and has grown in popularity over the last decade so that it now powers over 11,000 live online stores. osCommerce was started by Harald Ponce de Leon in Germany, and he still leads the team of over 10 people today. Users of osCommerce need to know that this is written in PHP and uses MySQL as well, so it is recommend to have some knowledge of these programming languages. However there are many developers who are osCommerce experts and can be hired to help with pieces of your ecommerce site, or to create an entirely custom online store. Starting an online store is a big undertaking, so it is best to do the research and find out if osCommerce meets your budget and design needs. Keep in mind that this is just open source free shopping cart software, so you will still need to take care of your hosting. Luckily host companies like JustHost or DreamHost offer the ability to do a one button install of osCommerce, which makes it much easier as your hosting and ecommerce store can be set up with one partner.
osCommerce Pros:
Because OSCommerce has been around since 2000, it has had plenty of time to evolve and work out any kinks with the code. Open source platforms have many pros, because they often have extensive help communities centered around them. osCommerce is such a popular free shopping cart solution, that there are a variety of websites dedicated to it and thousands of able developers ready to help you build a powerful online storefront. Luckily osCommerce is compatible with PHP 4, because many low cost hosting solutions have yet to upgrade to PHP 5, so osCommerce would not work on servers that are setup for PHP 5. osCommerce also supports multiple payment gateways, provides shipping and tax rules, allows you to sell downloadable and shippable items, and lets customers create accounts for easier checkout upon return.
osCommerce Cons:
One large issue people have with osCommerce is that it is tough to properly optimize store URLs to make them more search engine friendly for SEO. Currently this task can take numerous hours unless someone is very familiar with this aspect of SEO and is more savvy with PHP code. By default osCommerce produces very large URL's which are not optimal for SEO, so these URL's need to be converted if you want to rank in search engines. Some people have to purchase add-ons so that they can have more automated and clean SEO friendly URL's, but you want to inspect all add-ons as they might not solve the problem 100%. If you are trying to save money by going with free cart software like osCommerce, you will want to also consider all the other time and money that could be needed to create and run an online store. Overall osCommerce is feature rich, but it is most likely too complex for the average small business owner who wants something more plug and play.
osCommerce Review: Free Shopping Cart Solution Final Thoughts
Ultimately, osCommerce is a great option for someone searching for a free shopping cart solution, but just because the price tag says free, doesn't mean that this solution won't end up costing in the end. If you are skilled in PHP, or prefer to work with a developer who is, then osCommerce might be the perfect solution for you. Most merchants put money into osCommerce up front and then a small sum once a year just to update and refresh their cart with a skilled PHP developer. Beyond that, the only cost to merchants is hosting, but FatCow and BlueHost are both highly affordable solutions that make installing osCommerce a breeze.
