Weiss Report Blog

Creating an online store is not as easy as most people think. It’s a damn long process. But once your store will be established, it would pay for your hard work. Before creating a store, you must have idea what kind of system you want. In the following example, I suppose you want Amazon type shopping mall. So let’s start the store creation process

Store Software

Choosing right software for your store is an important task. Currently there is plenty of online shopping mall software available; however, I prefer to use OSCOMMERCE. It’s a free, open source and very easy to customize.

Download Address : http://www.oscommerce.org
Estimated Price: 0$

Store Customization

Nothing is perfect in this world so does this store. You need to customize it according to your own needs and business model. You may need following extra features in your store

Affiliate Program

Affiliate program is must have marketing tool for every store. There is already an affiliate program add-on available for Oscommerce but this add-on has not perfect yet so avoid using it.

Merchant Account Support

Just like Amazon, this feature will allow other people to open an account on your store and sell their products. It’s the best way to expand your product range.

DHL Shipping Quotes

Its optional thing depends on you whether you want DHL shipping quotes calculation in real time or not.

Store Appearance and navigation

Default template of Oscommerce isn’t very attractive so you must have to change it. Believe it or not, store design plays an important part in generating sales. My suggestion is to use Amazon type style. Don’t just copy it but prefer to use that kind of structure it’s the perfect for online store however, you can look for other shopping sites such as Wall Mart or net market.

Who will do the customization?

This customization process is very complicated and involves plenty of php programming. If you can do it yourself it may save good money otherwise look for a freelancer or a company which does Oscommerce customization. Please note companies charge more for Oscommerce customization rather than individuals.

You must select the following criteria to hire a freelancer.

Minimum Oscommerce Customization Experience: 1 year
Minimum Php Programming Experience: 1 year +
Check previous clients history (If possible send them an email to ask about freelancer’s performance)

Estimated Cost: 250$-450$

Contd….

OsCommerce Customization
http://www.infosamurai.com/v1/oscommercecus.htm

Affiliate Programs
http://www.infosamurai.com/v1/affiliateprog.htm

OsCommerce Resources
http://www.infosamurai.com/v1/oscommerceres.htm