osCommerce is an online shop e-commerce solution that offering a wide range of useful features that allows online stores to be functioning at a fast pace with ease, and is available for free as an Open Source based solution released under the GNU General Public License.

OsCommerce has been developing on a frequent basis to provide value adding solutions to its customers, continously making it easier for the store administrators to provide their stores to their customers catering to their unique requirements.

osCommerce is still in its development stage with a an objective to provide and improve many new features. Below mentioned are some of the features of osCommerce:

Basic Functionality :

• All features are enabled by default
• Object oriented backend
• It is Multilingual with English, German and Spanish provided by default
• It is compatible with all PHP 4 versions.

Installation :

• It is easy to install
• Web-browser based automatic installation and upgrade procedures

Layout :

• Allows layout changes to be adaptive and easy to make
• Allows easy integration into an existing site
• Provides support for dynamic images

Administration /  Functionality :

• osCommerce supports unlimited products and categories
• Categories, products, manufacturers, customers and reviews can be Added/Edited/Removed
• Support is provided for Physical (Shippable) and Virtual (Downloadable) products
• Administration is secured with a Username and Password
• Customers can be contacted directly via newletters or email
• Backup and restore the database for easily
• Genarate statistics for products and customers
• Multilingual and Multicurrency support
• Currency exchange rates are automatically updated
• Support for static and dynamic banners with full statistics

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Hosting an E-commerce website is fairly simple. There are multiple benefits of choosing an eCommerce web hosting solution offered by web hosting providers. They offer robust, reliable, relatively inexpensive hosting packages. Along with the web hosting package you can avail a combination of different shopping cart technologies, integration of payment gateways, easy installation scripts and most importantly the anytime support.

It might be confusing for some people to choose an appropriate web hosting service provider due to the lack of basic knowledge of web hosting. You may go through the following link to understand the basics of hosting.

While choosing a eCommerce web hosting service provider, it is important to check for certain aspects. It’s a common trend that we avoid to choose a host that makes us do most of the stuff by ourselves. We usually want things that are pre-existing and easily available. Hence, while choosing an eCommerce host, you must check if they offer easy installations (one click installation is more preferred). They should offer a wizard that can take you through the installation process, else it can prove to be a frustrating task.

They must offer choice of eCommerce templates, preferably customizable templates are of preference. A reputed web hosting provider would never say, that they do not offer or allow customized templates.

They must allow you to build a catalog of your own. You should be enabled to export or import your pre-existing data as it would be a hard time for you if you have to manually keep typing the content each time you switch hosts.

Your task does not end here. Once, you are done with building your store, the crucial task of marketing follows. Some hosting providers offer these services as well. It is important that the hosting provider offers an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate as well for online security.

PayPal, GoogleCheckout, 2Checkout, Moneybookers etc are some of the most secure online payment gateways. You can integrate any of these with your website. A web hosting provider should provider multiple payment gateways.

It is necessary that the web hosting provider offers service, post sales support alongwith web hosting. Today, newer eCommerce technologies are being introduced, the web host must be competent enough to meet those requirements and offer.

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