recommendations for eCommerce software

jimlongo

I am looking for a software package that i can modify for my purposes. I want to be able to allow members of a tennis club to apply and pay for memberships online, and accept credit card payments.

I have a Unix server with a mysql database.

Does anyone have any recommendations of sortware packages. I have seen many php and perl based packages ranging from free to a few hundred dollars, and they all seem pretty similiar to me.

TIA,
jim

piersk

osCommerce is supposed to be very good. It's Open Source and free.

I think one of Elizabeth's sites, Gifts for engineers uses it...

[edit]yes it does[/edit]

AstroTeg

Check out osCommerce or Zen Cart. I haven't played with Zen Cart, but the word is developers from osCommerce branched and created this project.

Elizabeth

I was going to recommend osCommerce, but I wonder if its a bit robust for what you need... it's geared more toward a traditional retail-type setting with products and categories and the like.

I don't have personal experience with Agora Cart or Interchange but I know these are widely used also.

hth
-Elizabeth

thanks for the plug, piers!

Elizabeth

AstroTeg you are my new hero. 😃

After many headaches with osCommerce, I had given up hope. On a whim I looked into your recommended Zen Cart and my worries are now gone. I've migrated everything to the Zen and although we just completed it today so we have much customizing yet to do, I must say I am SO much happier with their system. It's like osCommerce done right.

Thanks again!
Elizabeth

AstroTeg

Cool. I swear Zencart comes from the makers of osCommerce. But I don't think osCommerce is being updated as frequently as Zencart (osCommerce's latest version being released in July 2003).

On a side note, I just found out today from a client that Ohio is requiring (starting 1/2005 and all must comply by 7/2005) purchases in Ohio must be charged the sales tax of the county the buyer is in (versus the county the seller is in). Checking the 'net, I found some mods for osCommerce (I have a client using it before I discovered Zencart). I haven't had a chance to check if Zencart will be flexible enough to do this (of course, something custom could be written as well - but if I can get something "out of the box", then that'll be easier for me).

Elizabeth

Yeah, you're right about the osCommerce connection to Zen, which is why it was so easy to migrate over. There were a few differences (improvements, actually) but mostly everything translates the same.

I've been dreading that tax nightmare since I learned about it - I've not looked at the mods for osC yet, but I was looking at the mods for Zen last night - all I found was for California, and the tax laws aren't the same. I thought that in Ohio, tax will applied to the shipping address regardless of the buyer's address... is that what you think?

I think I'm just gonna write my own code for this one; shouldn't be too bad since you can download the tax rates from Ohio Taxation Web site.

I just really wish it didn't become effective Jan 1; December is our busiest month 🙁

(although I guess I technically have until July...)

-E

AstroTeg

Yeah, it was the seller's base county which the tax was based off of. I was surprised by the news this morning as well.

I was just about to roll out a Zencart site this weekend, but I'm going to have to figure out this county tax and how to persuade Zen to handle it.