This is the first in a series on osCommerce, the popular free, open-source shopping cart alternative, and the industry it has spawned. Next month, we'll take a look back at the history of the industry.

ECommerce-Guide.com Open Source Guru: We are thrilled to feature Kerry Watson, consultant and author of 10 books on the osCommerce industry, as a monthly contributor on open-source issues.

osCommerce was one of the first full-featured shopping cart programs. A shopping cart is a program that makes it easy for a user to sell goods online with pictures and descriptions of products for sale, and to accept credit card payments that are automatically deposited into your bank account.

Today there are four major players in the osCommerce industry: the original osCommerce, Zen Cart, CRE Loaded and osC-MAX. There are also a handful of smaller players. Some of these carts sprang from the original open source osCommerce project. Others were inspired by osCommerce, and have a similar look and feel, but the programmers started from scratch to build their own systems. Because some of these are not true osCommerce programs, even though these programs share many similarities, we say "OSC industry" when we are referring to this extended family.

All of the programs in the OSC family are excellent programs that will satisfy most first-time business-to-consumer store owners. The differences between the programs are due mainly to which audience the development team believes is the most important: developers, store owners, and/or store customers.

Evolution of the OSC industry
As time has gone on, more and more features have been packed into these programs, to the point where they are no longer simple shopping carts with a single purpose.

Content Management Systems
Some of them have so many non-shopping cart features they could be called “content management systems” (CMS). A CMS is a program that makes adding or editing non-selling “content” pages – such as related articles, white papers, news, or FAQ’s—as easy as typing an e-mail. It allows multiple people to log in and manage only the content for which they have permissions set. All of these features help support the main goal, which is to sell more products.

All of the stores in the OSC family are all moving towards incorporating content management systems capabilities. Combining both the shopping cart and CMS system can simplify site construction a great deal. Interestingly, there are also a number of programs that began as CMS systems which are now incorporating shopping carts into them, but they are beyond the scope of this column.

A content entry page in CRE Loaded's Article Manager. (Click for larger image.)

The trend towards content management is a necessity for the industry to address the needs of the new, sophisticated, non-developer user. This is especially critical if the industry is to compete against proprietary software — or software created by one company — which unlike open source software, has always been forced to consider user needs. No store owner should be forced to "touch code" (or pay a Web pro to do it for them) in order to perform daily management tasks such as revising an e-mail that is automatically sent to new customers.

Improved Technical Support Options
Finding technical support for open source programs used to be very difficult. Today there are numerous free and for-fee support options available.

First and foremost are the support forums and e-mail lists. These are comprised of groups of people who just like to help each other out. There is always someone who knows more than you, and someone who knows less whom you can help. The forums and e-mail lists are good for getting help when you have an unusual problem that is not likely to be covered elsewhere. Some of the forums are open to discussion on ANY of the Big Four; others will not tolerate a question on another product. Be sure to read the forum's guidelines before registering.

In addition to the forum available at each of the Big Four's Web sites, there are many smaller forums such as forums.oscanswers.com. There are even private forums by Web hosts exclusively for the use of their clients. These private forums provide specialized information on using these OSC programs with the web host's particular set-up.

Knowledgebases are also available for osCommerce, Zen Cart and CRE Loaded. A knowledgebase is a specialized database of information that may help a user find an existing solution to a current problem so the user does not have to "reinvent the wheel." The information is edited and more standardized than the free-wheeling style of the forums.

On-call support is available via e-mail, "live chat" programs, and even toll-free by phone. Some specialty Web hosts include unlimited application support — i.e. support of the OSC program you use — in their higher-end hosting plans. If you are going to need frequent support, a plan like this is quite economical. Many specialty web hosts limit this application support to e-mail-only, however. Live chat and phone support for CRE Loaded can be purchased in per-hour blocks of time on creloaded.com.

Many freelancer Web sites such as crelance.com match technical pros with store owners who need support. These Web sites also provide satisfaction ratings similar to eBay's feedback, so you know in advance what the person will be like to work with. These sites also facilitate payment and spell out the freelancer terms, so you do not worry about employment status or currency exchange, if the expert you hire is located in another country.

Online training videos and training websites are also beginning to appear. More and more Web hosts offer good-quality Flash tutorials. This is a relatively new twist on training and we will review this in detail in a future column.

User and programmer manuals are also available for osCommerce, Zen Cart, and CRE Loaded in both paperbacks and Windows e-books.