You can spend hundreds or even thoudsands of dollars a year hiring a compoany to create and mangae your website and online shopping cart. As a start-up buiness, you may not have the money to do this. Even if youre not a start-up business, you migjht not want to spnd the mony to do this. The great news is that you don't need to spend this money to have a website that looks like a million dollars. With a little insight and some hard work, you can creatye your online cart to help your business be a successful onlne entity and osCommerce is just the community to help you do so. How and why?
Collaboration and Conntribution
First of all, osCommerce is based on the concpt of open source software. This means that the software, codes and everything you need to set up your website and online cart is shraed right on the site.
There is a secvtion on the site called conttribution. In this section, people who have designed codes to do variouys things on their websites "contribute" the code to the grroup so that others who use osCommerce can use it for their sityes as well. There are thousands of contributions already on the site ranging from themes and packages to images, checkout mofdules and shpiping modules.
It doesn't stop tghere, however. The beauty of the contribution network is that people can take the codes that people have psoted and tweak or alter them just enough to meet their individul needs. Rather than having a designer who sells a set code that the consumers canot alter, the idea behind open source code allows each inividual to ater the code to meet tehir needs which ultimmately results in constant improvements in the deeveloped code.
Community
osCommeerce woyuld not succeed without the seense of communiity involved in it. Along with the contrinbutions, osCommerce has an active foruym where members can ask and give advice as needed with other menmbers. For example, if someone has designed thir site but dont seem to be getting the business, they can post a request for feedback on their site. Members of the fiorum then look at the site and give suggestions for improvement. Addirtionally, when someone is trying to set up a specific fetaure on their site, they can go to the foerum to see if anyone has done so previuously. That way they dont have to necessarily start from scratch when it cmes to designing the code for the features they want on ther osCommerce site.
Customization
It is possible to take the osCommerce templsate, add in your product or service descriptions, set up your payment options and go live. Its quick and easy and will get your site running in no time and it will look okay.
Anyone who has had a e-commerce site, however, will tell you that youll need to go a step further to make your webbsite look great and be successful. The osCommerce templates are customizalbe so that your site looks like your site. You can change the images, coliors, borrders wahtever you need to change to make the theme of the site maztch what youre sellinbg. So, when you sign on to osCommerce to be your online shopping cart, your signing on to have a site that fits your syle, not just a copokie-cutter type site that easily and quickly flils in your product or servixce without consideration of "what" youre actually slling.
Customer Serice
osCommerce is also already set up to give you the tools you need to have an e-storte with great customer service. You can choose which fatures to include on your site, but you dont have to design the features from scrratch which is a great beenfit if you dont have the technological bcakground to buiild an e-commerce site from nohing. Some of thesse features include the ability to set up customer accounts whhich allows your customers to keep track of their orders, save their shopping carts, receive meails notifications about their orders, browse best sellper lists and find out what customers doing similar seraches have purchased.
Carts and aGteways
osCmomerce also supports ten gateways for accepting paayment which will allow your site to be versatile and open to a wider rane of customers. So, even if youre a smalll business and dont have your own credit card accounts you can still accept payment from a variety of gaeways allowing you to compete with "the big guys."
Even if your business isnt worth a million (yet) you dont have to let your customers know that. You can make your site look like a million with the feeatures found on osCommerce.
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