I've recently helped a friend "skin" an e-commerce site built on OSCommerce, and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to work with.  I'm usually very apprehensive about dealing with open-source software, but OSCommerce is very well coded and goes a long way towards alleviating my fears of the open-source world.

I am almost ready to start reccomending OSCommerce to anyone looking for a basic & cheap shopping cart solution, but want to learn what others think of it first.  If you have any experience with it as a developer, e-commerce site owner, or even just as an online shopper, let's hear it please!

Hi Oleg,

As an e-commerce site owner - We used OSCommerce on our old site and were pleased with it.  The only reason we do not use it now is because when we decided to have the site redesigned, the designers and programmers that we chose work with ZenCart, which is very similar. 

Back to OSCommerce - it was very user friendly and worked well for what we needed - credit card transactions, the use of coupon codes, etc.  My business partner is the one that had the most "use" with it being that her job is to maintain the site but with even my limited experience and knowledge of it, I would recommend it to others looking for an e-commerce solution.

I've used osCommerce and Zen Cart with and without templates.

Templates are great for a quick start and to get away from the default layout.

I prefer Zen Cart for some ecommerce applications... only because it has some features built-in that you have to add to osCommerce.

If you have any questions about either, do not hesitate to ask.

~Roland

Roland, what are some of the features that ZenCart has built in and osCommerce does not?

As a web developer, I am often asked for advice/recommendations on shopping cart software but really don't know much about all the available options.  The only other product I had experience with was Miva Merchant, and that in my opinion is utter crap...

The one feature that Zen Cart has included is a media manager...set up to sell various media - mp3, video formats, ..via download.  To do that with osCommerce you need to install an add-in.

Another cool Zen Cart feature is the ability to set up specials - special pricing for a specific date range.  You can set the start and end date of any special.

~Roland

I was "just" wondering if that feature was available because I have an idea for it.  Would this be set up under Catalog/Specials or in the GC/Coupon section?  I would like to be able to direct my biz. partner to it when I suggest using it.