osCommerce (“open source Commerce”) is an e-commerce and online store-management software program. It can be used on any web server that has PHP and MySQL installed. It is available as free software under the GNU General Public License.

Key Features

osCommerce MS2.2 provides a basic set of functionality that meets the common needs of online businesses. Beyond the basic functionality, osCommerce is able to be augmented, via either community-supplied add-ons or custom code, meaning that it can be customized to meet the specific needs of any business.

The following is a list of key features of osCommerce MS2.2 as stated on the osCommerce site:

  • Compatible with PHP 4 and MySQL – easily portable to version 5.
  • Compatible with all major browsers.
  • Multi-lingual English, German and Spanish by default.
  • Automatic web-based installation.
  • Unlimited number of products and categories.

Automatic setup of e-commerce payment systems: Authorize.net, Netbilling.com, 2Checkout.com, iPayment.de, PayPal.com, PsiGate.com, SECPay.com, and TrustCommerce.com; Many other add-on ecommerce payment systems, off-line (manual) credit card payments, and on-line payment processing.

In implementing an osCommerce-based site one key decision is how to integrate the design. Unlike its forks, osCommerce MS2.2 does not come with a template system, though third party osCommerce templates are available. This has been seen as a negative for some. However it does mean that designs can be hand-coded or a template system installed. There are several well-known template systems, including STS, BTS and SMARTY.