ecommerce using oscommerce

Name Registered and Site Hosted

Admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:54:34 +0000

I searched for all sorts of good domain names, and settled on octopusdvd.co.uk, it’s memorable and it should be easy for me to make a nice logo!

I bought the name through Easily.co.uk who were happy enough to accept my Thai credit card, which strangely some sites don’t accept.

I have hosted my site with AQHost who offer some good deals and there are no compatibility issues with their servers and oscommerce.

Now I’m going to plan how I want my site to look before I install it, it’s possible to install the standard oscommerce package and then start adding templates, but I’m going to think this through a bit as I have been looking at some nice templates that include a seo contribution and some nice features that would save me some time (or, more important allow me to spend that time on other aspects of the site).

Choosing a Name

Admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:33:41 +0000

I need to choose a name for the ecommerce website, then I need to register the name and buy some hosting.

I’m not going to buy the name and hosting from the same company, that way I will have more control. I will buy the name from a big-name registrar like GoDaddy, 123-Reg or Easily and then choose a web host and change the DNS of the name to match the host.. it’s much simpler than it sounds.

I live in Thailand, but I want to register a .com and a .co.uk name, I anticipate the UK to be a good marketplace and I know from experience that the British like to buy from a .co.uk site. It’s no problem for me to use my Thailand address to register the .co.uk and the .com, I have done it before.

Why OsCommerce ?

Admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:25:40 +0000

Good question!

I have been using osscommerce since about 2004, I know it and I understand it’s limitations. I have tried ZenCart, Cubecart, OSMax, and XCart and countless others and I always end up coming back to oscommerce.

In it’s out-of-the-box form oscommerce is next to useless, but it’s easy enough to add the bits I need to get it working correctly.

There are thousands of add-ons (called contributions) for oscommerce, some are very good indeed, some simply dont work at all, and some whist good are very complicated to install.

My experience will tell me which add-ons I need, and also that I should plan it in advance and add the most complicated contributions first.

I’m going to be working with oscommerce ms2.2, it’s a solid release and I’m familiar with it. It’s important to ensure that all my add ons are made for MS2.2 or it will get messy.

What’s It All About

Admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:18:48 +0000

I decided today to build another ecommerce website, and this time I’m going to document the whole process from the very beginning her on this blog.

OK, I’m sure it’s been done before, but this should be useful to someone.

The website is going to sell DVDs, I feel that DVDs are a good product because there is lots of demand, they are easy to post and I live in a country that releases a lot of DVD movies at sensible prices that are much cheaper than the many other countries.

I should say at this point that I live in Thailand, Im not a Thai national but I have been living here for the last 7 years and very much consider it my home.

I mostly build websites for other people, but this one is to be for me and possibly my girlfriend to operate.