How to Use OS Commerce

 OS Commerce is an open source shopping cart product management suite. The term "open source" means the code used is available to anyone and can be modified as you see fit. This product has been under development for some time and has a robust feature set. OS Commerce is solid and can be modified extensively with plugins and themes that will allow the site to match any look and feel while maintaining a high level of functionality. This tool can also be used to communicate to customers through an email marketing system. Using OS Commerce at a higher level should also include a professional template that creates a solid impression and doesn't distract visitors.





Installing OS Commerce can be done manually, through an automated system, or by having a professional company assist. In any case, the installation requires a MySQL database that contains the details regarding customers, products, and site information. Several hosting solutions offer this OS Commerce as a package built into a CPanel or "control panel" where installation can be automated. After the default OS Commerce is installed, there is some customization that is highly recommended, including adjustment to a template.


Finding templates can be a challenge, especially the free ones. Templates are not necessarily standardized and a new free template may be as simple as a replacement set of images for the buttons and other miscellaneous graphics. This doesn't do much to change the look and feel; it usually just changes the color scheme. The other drawback of free templates is that they may not work depending on the version of OS Commerce. If the template was created some time ago and the updated versions of OS Commerce aren't compatible, the installation process could do more harm than good.


A professional theme can add a lot of value to the site and even though there may be some cost involved, the amount of time alone spent on sorting through free templates and then attempting to install and try them out will have a higher cost than making a decision on a professional template and having another company set it up for you.


Features of OS Commerce include the base system with plugins that represent contributions made by the open source community. The use of these plugins will help individual merchants and service providers cater their offerings to their customer base quite effectively. There are some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features built into the software that make the site easier to index by search engines. There are also plugins that allow the products to be exported into a format that can be imported into a product search engine or several sites that will take the import and add those products to their own listings. With appropriate configuration, this can even be automated.


Using an all-in-one tool like OS Commerce allows a merchant to not only present his products and services in a professional way, but also use other tools like an email marketing system to interact with a customer base.


Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Blake_A_Fields/1139950




Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6441951

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