zencart and oscommerce

I have never used a checkout cart feature on my site before, but am helping a friend who will want the feature on her 'in-development' site.

I've noticed some web hosts (such as inmotionhosting) offering zencart and oscommerce as part of their hosting features.

Are there any "extra costs" associated with running them, or will the up front hosting costs be likely to cover all?

Any advice appreciated.

Darren.

 

No extra cost, unless you plug it into a merchant service like WorldPay which charge setup, monthly and per transaction.

For PayPal, cheque, bank transfer the use of osC/Zen is totally free.

 

Thanks for the response TOPS30.

What about doing credit card transactions with these packages... do you need to get an extra service like 2CO attached to them then?

Darren.

 

Yes, you do and they do charge. Check their fees pages fo rmore info.

 

Thanks. You've been very helpful .

Darren.

 

There will be extra costs when you start customizing them because to customize you will need PHP skills or hire PHP specialists.

 

Hi , to add to your list there is also CUBE-CART which is also Free.
I am running OScommerce on my own store , but I have a test server setup for cubecart.

Feel free to have a look around. http://www.easternbusway.info/dev/

It took me a couple of hours to set it up, what you see there is pretty much the default shopping cart without any modifications.

I decided not to go with Cube-cart because it did not have a huge support base as OS Commerce.

With OS Commerce you will need to know your php and SQL to make it look and work right.

Cube-cart was easy to setup.

 

I've been working with zen-cart off and on for a little while, and it is pretty easy to customize. You will need some php and a lot of CSS. Zen-cart also has a pretty good forum on their site if you get stuck.