osCommerce is an open source online shopping cart . If you have an VERSION-NEXT hosting account the installation is very simple, log into your cPanel and click on Fantastico which will show you a list of software that can be installed. Select osCommerce and follow the instructions, Fantastico will then install osCommerce for you … it’s that easy.

osCommerce offers the perfect solution for total control over your eCommerce needs, when combined with VERSION_NEXT’s eCommerce Hosting and VPS Hosting environments.

• The MySQL database-based catalog allows of unlimited number of items
• Unlimited number of categories
• Multiple Languages
• Custom Currencies
• Custom taxes and shipping options
• Built-in product and manufacturer search
• Product review option
• Optional secure shop (requires SSL certificate)
• Administrator-specified product details and characteristics
• Stock Management
• Tools for easily editing any part of customer orders
• Credit Card Validation
• Multiple payment gateways to choose from, additional modules available for download
• HTML code allowed in product description
• CSS Style Sheets allow you to change page appearance
• Order Tracking tools
• Custom Packing Slips and Invoices
• Customer Registration & Login System
• Registered users can receive shop-specific newsletter
• ‘Best selling items’ category
• ‘Send to a Friend’ option
• Latest News Module
• and much more…

Easy administration makes managing your store less time consuming and more efficient, leaving you more time to concentrate on other aspects of your business.

As osCommerce is open source software there are thousands of people around the world contributing to the osCommerce project and sharing knowledge at the forums. If you have a problem there is a good chance you will be able to find an answer for it there.

osCommerce shopping cart – Items on Special

Setting up special prices (discounts, etc.) is easy with osCommerce. To create up a special item, go to the Catalog section and select the Specials link in the left hand column.

Then, click the New Product button under the special products list.

You will then be prompted to select an item and create a special price for that item.

If you wish to only place the item on special for a specific period of time, ensure that you add the expiration date before inserting the new special item into the list.

The new special item will immediately be included in the list.

osCommerce shopping cart – Currency, Language & Tax Setup

To change the languages and currencies, you will need to visit the Localization section. The currencies that are included in the standard installation will be listed, with the US Dollar being the default one.

You can define other currencies as well, according to your preference. Please note that if more than one currency is used, you will need to specify values for the additional ones, relative to the default one (the default currency value should be 1, and all other currency values are relative to it, so that prices are calculated correctly).

osCommerce supports English, German & Spanish as standard, if you wish to add additional languages they can be downloaded from the osCommerce site http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions where you will also find project add-ons, feature updates, language packs, and extended modules. The language packs include instructions on how to set the new language up.

VERSION_NEXT’s new server security policies require PHP safe-mode ON and register global OFF
Below you can find some guidelines regarding fixing your shopping cart software

osCommerce

osCommerce will run with safe_mode on but you may get errors displaying on the screen, if you do, you need to make the following change

In includes/application_top.php change:

error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE);
to
error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_WARNING);

Having register globals enabled is a very serious security issue; it allows an attacker to inject variables into the running PHP code. Just in case you don’t realise, this is a VERY BAD THING.

The patch for oscommerce to run with register_globals off can be downloaded from http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,2097

Please make sure you carefully read the README file as it contains important information about the 2 ways the patch can be applied.

The ‘patch’ consists of the following:

1/ A set of instructions (rather than a ‘patch’ file) that you may use to manually apply the changes to an existing code tree. This is useful if you already have modififications made to the OSC source code and you want to apply this patch on top.

2/ A set or pre-patched files. These files are EXACTLY the same as you would get if you applied the patch instructions to a clean copy of OSC. This is useful if you are performing a clean installation of OSC and therefore have no worries about just copying over existing files with new versions.

>>> You only need to use either the manual instructions or the pre-patched files; NOT both <<<

Cubecart

Cubecart will run with safe_mode on and register_globals off, but you will need to upgrade to the current version 3.0.12 [Security-Patched-1]

Zencart

Zencart will run with safe_mode on but you may get errors displaying on the screen, if you do, you need to make the following change

In includes/application_top.php change:

error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE);
to
error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_WARNING);

Customizing the osCommerce shopping cart catalog

The next step is to add categories that will contain the products you will be selling through your store. To do this, select the Catalog icon from the administration index page. This will take you to a page where the default categories are displayed. You can edit or delete an existing category, or add a new category after clicking the “new category” button.

After clicking the “new category” button the page will refresh and a box for the new category name will appear in the rightmost column.

As osCommerce is a multi-language shop, you will be able to add category names in German and Spanish as well as the default English name ( these are optional and you may leave them blank if your store is in english only). You can also select an image to represent the specific category (image is optional and you can ignore warnings for missing image), the image can be uploaded from your local computer. The last thing to do before clicking the Save button is to select the order number for the category. The lower the number – the higher in the list will your new category appear (zero will represent the top of the list).

You can now start adding items to your store. To create a new item, click the “new product” button.

First, select whether you have the product in stock or not. Next, select the availability date and the manufacturer. Type in the name of the product in the languages you have installed and decide whether the item is taxable or not, select the net and the gross price.

Enter the product description in the languages you require(remember this is optional), the quantity the product is purchased in and the model. Images can also be uploaded from your local computer – osCommerce automatically creates a thumbnail. If you wish to link to an external product page, enter the address without the http:// part of the address. You can now add the product weight, this will help with determining the shipping costs later.

Once you have added all the details, hit the “preview” button to view the result. Once you have viewed the preview scroll down to the bottom of the page and select one of the three buttons (Back to continue editing, Insert to confirm product creation and Cancel to drop the new entry).

Once you have created the product you will be taken to the category/product list.To include the product in a parent category, click the Move button in the rightmost column. Select the desired category from the drop down list and click the “move” button..

osCommerce shopping cart – Setup Payment Module

Next step is to set up payment handling. For this to happen, you will need a merchant account with a payment handler, e.g. 2checkout.com, ClickBank.com or PayPal. The Payment link is located under the Modules icon in the administration index page of your osCommerce installation.

A list of payment options will appear. These options are all included in the default osCommerce installation, but you need to install a module in order to be able to process payments.

Installation is easy. Just select the vendor you have an account with your mouse pointer and click the Install button.

When installation is complete, you will notice that the symbol 0 appears on the row you have selected. In the rightmost column two buttons will appear: Remove and Edit.

Clicking the second button will allow you to insert your merchant account details, set your preference for e-mail notifications, etc.

There are two important choices that have to be made: one is the Transaction Mode and the other one is Sort order of display.

The Test transaction mode can be used for testing payment methods or when your store is offline. It is important to switch to Production mode once your store goes live.

Sort order of display refers to the payment handler preference: the lower the number – the higher the preference for the particular module, with 0 representing top choice. Once you click the Update button to save your changes.

An update to the osCommerce 2.2 Milestone 2 version has been released that addresses security related issues and bug reports that exist in the released version.

It is recommended for osCommerce 2.2 Milestone 2 store owners to apply the changes to their installations due to the security issues and bug reports that have been fixed. The changes involved are minimal, do not break compatibility with contributions, and further strengthens the security of the shop installation.

This update release focuses solely on security related issues and bug reports, and does not introduce any new features that have been made for the next development milestone release.

This release is a full release package containing updated source files (including the updates from the 051113 Update release), documentation, and information on what changes have been made to easily apply to existing installations.

This update release includes the following changes:

* Magic Quotes Compatibility Layer Fix
* Parse GET Variables In Cache Functions
* PHP 3 Session ID XSS Issue
* Product Attributes SQL Injection
* Resize Images To Round Numbers
* Use The Correct Country Name Value When Formatting Addresses
* Prevent The Session ID Being Passed In Tell-A-Friend E-Mails
* Properly Remove Deleted Products That Exist In Shopping Carts

The 2.2 Milestone 2 060817 Update release involves the following file changes for the security and bug fixes made:

catalog/admin/includes/functions/compatibility.php (2 diffs)
catalog/admin/includes/functions/general.php (1 diff)

catalog/includes/classes/sessions.php (1 diff)
catalog/includes/classes/shopping_cart.php (2 diffs)
catalog/includes/functions/cache.php (4 diffs)
catalog/includes/functions/compatibility.php (2 diffs)
catalog/includes/functions/general.php (2 diffs)
catalog/includes/functions/html_output.php (1 diff)
catalog/shopping_cart.php (1 diff)
catalog/tell_a_friend.php (2 diffs)

Configuring osCommerce shopping cart

Let’s start customizing your osCommerce installation. The first thing to do is change the settings of your shop. Login to your store administration area, using the login details you specified during the installation process. To start editing your store settings, click the Configuration icon.

On the new page you will see a list of options (My Store, Minimum Values, etc.). In the middle of the screen the details are listed. In order to change a detail please select a row and it will be highlighted. An Edit button will appear in the right column.

Once you have clicked on the button you will be able to edit the details. Once you have completed changing the details, use the Update button to apply your changes.

You will then be able to see the updated settings..

When you are done with all the applicable details in a section, you can proceed with the next section by selecting it from the leftmost column and updating the details the same way.