The modern day entrepreneur, or indeed a business of any kind, small or large, can scarcely do without some form of presence on the Web. The pervasiveness of the Internet has brought about a new reality for business people. No longer is it sufficient to set up shop somewhere and sit quietly waiting for customers. Instead, the initiative must be taken with goods and services being marketed and sold online, reaching hitherto unheard of sizes of consumer markets, nationally and internationally.
With the added burden of the acquisition of IT skills, many small to medium-size enterprises have found themselves being outstripped by their larger cousins, who have the resources and manpower to harness and utilize the Internet properly. Prohibitively expensive development costs or ill-fitting off-the-shelf applications have hampered SME’s ability to compete on an even footing. Up until now that is!
With the advent of osCommerce and other open-source technologies like it, the door has been opened for anyone with a bit of determination to set up a sophisticated online store that will hold its own against any other site out there. It’s not surprising that osCommerce is growing in popularity as more and more people switch to the advantages of building and running their very own e-commerce website.
Unfortunately, while running and administering your own site is now within your grasp, you will find that you still have to work at it. There is a lot of information you need to learn about installing, configuring, customizing, securing and running osCommerce, and indeed the technologies you will be basing your business on. You can also benefit from some general wisdom and knowledge that programmers apply to their everyday work. Providing you with this knowledge is why I have written this book!
Chapter 1 introduces us to e-commerce and osCommerce and then provides an overview of the osCommerce community. Knowing how to use this excellent resource ensures you take full advantage of the entire osCommerce package, and not just the free software.
Chapter 2 covers setup and installation topics, which includes a discussion on what you should look for in an Internet servcice provider and how to make use of FTP to upload files, amongst other things. A troubleshooting section is also included and once this chapter is finished you should have a working osCommerce site up and running.
Chapter 3 deals with the most common configuration settings that you will need to familiarize yourself with and provides a basic grounding in the use of the administration tool.
Chapter 4 gets right to the heart of the matter with an in-depth look at data in osCommerce. Here you will learn not only how to add and remove products and manufacturers as well as administer orders and customers, but also how to properly design your category/product hierarchy.
Chapter 5 is where the standard look and feel of osCommerce gets a face-lift. After reading this, you will have a sound knowledge of the presentation related features of osCommerce. Additionally, we will discuss the all important topics of stylesheet modification, images, and language and show how to deal with them effectively. Get ready to get your hands dirty as there is plenty of work in here.
Chapter 6 takes you one step closer to running an online business by comprehensively dealing with taxes, payments, and shipping. Strategies for implementing various policies pertaining to money matters are also scrutinized and by the end of this chapter, you will be well versed in your site’s money matters.
Chapter 7 is arguably the most important of all. The integrity of your e-commerce site (and for many of you, your livelihood) rests on how well you can implement security and disaster recovery policies. Follow along here to learn how to gain a peaceful night’s sleep, safe in the knowledge that your precious business is safe. It also introduces you to some important tools, which will no doubt make your life a lot easier in the time to come. As well as this, it takes a more lighthearted look at some neat tricks and how to make a few nice touch additions.
Appendix A provides you with a look at various methods, which can be used to effectively deal with problems and errors. Having a programmer’s perspective and embracing a sound methodology will save you countless hours and frustration and is applicable to a wide range of software, not just osCommerce.